Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
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John Quiggin 
Surplus budgets are being hailed, by the Treasurer, as something laudable. In economics this is not always the case. It is what happens to the surplus that matters.
But first let’s look at how a budget surplus can occur. Sometimes a budget surplus is often just an accounting trick. The Department of Finance can get outlays down by delaying payments, which may lower budget outlays enough at the end of the financial year to give a surplus mirage. Then again simply by moving cash balances into higher interest paying accounts, Finance can raise interest earnt by the government. Finally accruals can be used to make balance days adjustments to improve the bottom line. That is why a surplus in and of itself is no big deal. That it has only been done three times before is no big deal. It is more a reflection on the lack of fiscal consolidation this century, than it is of any real fiscal discipline.
Again it must be stated that it is what is done with that surplus that matters. Economists would prefer it to be sent to the Futures Fund. This is mainly to support federal public service superannuation liabilities. There is another case for paying down the national debt. This is stronger in times of high interest rates on outstanding government bonds. But only recall that five years ago government bonds were issued at very low interest rates coupon levels. This debt is actually worth keeping. That is until those low interest rate coupon bonds can be renewed at even lower rates.
The Treasurer should not get too cocky about two surpluses in a row. Budget commitments can only be delayed for so long. Cash balances may dry up. Then no accounting magic will hide underlying structural imbalances.
Only someone who does not understand the complexities of budget structures, would be silly enough to brag about a surplus. The clever ones smile wryly and wait for the structural imbalances to emerge. Then the real work starts.
A critical understanding of capitalism, and a critical understanding of capitalists, are not only necessary for radicals seeking to bring about a post-capitalist society. They are at least as necessary for social democrats seeking to civilise and manage capitalism for the achievement of decent social, environmental, etc, outcomes. The current Federal Labor Government gives every indication that it lacks a critique of capitalism and is scandalised by any criticism of capitalists.
In the absence of a critique of capitalism, and a critical sensibility towards actual capitalists, a social democratic government -: whatever it thinks about itself – will end up governing in the interests of the most powerful fractions of capital, which in Australia means the miners, the Carbon Club, the big media networks, the property developers and the banks.
This is exactly what those who understood the dangers of Covid-19 said would happen. And we said it from the early days onwards.
“Number of people in UK out of work due to ill health growing by 300,000 a year.”
Data dashes hopes that effects of pandemic would subside and labour market would return to pre-Covid state.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/oct/03/number-of-people-in-uk-out-of-work-due-to-ill-health-growing-by-300000-a-year?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
We can assume that Australia is probably not doing much better, on a per capita basis.
Those “with long-term health conditions are eager to work and can contribute meaningfully to the economy, yet often lack the support and flexibility they need,” one spokesperson said.
That is all well and good but nary a mention of preventing people from getting long-term health conditions, like Long Covid, in the first place. The way to do this would be to combine *all* the main protections, as layers of protections, against all airborne infectious diseases. We need more extensive vaccinations, better vaccination schedules, vaccines updated sooner and delivered faster, N95 masks or better at work, in public transport and indoor public places, HEPA Filters in all public transport and public buildings with CO2 monitoring, stringent airborne infection controls in hospitals and better test, trace, isolate and quarantine procedures.
Until we do this, these C-19 caused problems will only get worse. There is no way to pretend ourselves out of this crisis. Soon enough, too soon, so many in the workforce will be sick long term, the economy will buckle under the inordinate burden of deaths and chronic disease. Proper prevention with multiple layers of protection is our only good chance. We must start now. Better late that never.
Covid-19 is not over. More Covid is coming.
ICYMI/FYI:
“We’re seeing bigger and bigger invoices being sent by the Earth System onto societies across the entire world, in droughts, floods, heat waves, disease patterns, human-reinforced storms, scientifically attributed to human-caused climate change.
Forty degrees Celsius of life-threatening heat across all continents, occurring in 2023.
Fifty-two degrees Celsius hitting the over 1,000 who lost their lives at the Hajj pilgrimage in June in Mecca.
Three times higher climate change risks now attributed to our cause of climate change.
2023, up to 12,000 deaths, 200 billion US dollars of cost, just in the US, up to 100 billion US dollars. This is seriously causing economic costs.
We have scientifically, in the past, shown that this could cost a few percent of global GDP of the climate impacts caused by us.
I can tell you that the latest scientific assessment is what you see on the screen here. An 18-percent loss of GDP by 2050 if we now follow the current path. This is equivalent to 38 trillion US dollars of loss per year in 2050.
It’s starting to hurt. Both in human social costs and an economic cost. And this is happening at 1.2 degrees Celsius of global mean surface temperature rise. And we’re following a pathway that takes us to 2.7 degrees Celsius in only 70 years.
And we’ve had a 10,000-year period where our civilisations have developed, where we’ve had an enormous privilege of a planet at 14 degrees Celsius, plus or minus 0.5 degrees Celsius. That’s the Holocene since we left the last ice age.
And if you look three million years back, we never exceeded two degrees Celsius. That’s the warmest temperature on Earth during the entire Quaternary. The coldest point, minus five degrees Celsius, Ice Age. I call this the “corridor of life.”“
Meanwhile, there are at least 64 dead and millions of Americans without power after Hurricane Helene’s deadly march across the Southeast of USA. Moody’s suggests the devastation could cost up to $34 billion.
The Earth System has left the climate of the Holocene (last 11,700 years of the Earth’s history, where agriculture, human civilisation & infrastructure developed), transiting towards a warming climate similar to the Mid-Pliocene (circa 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago) by mid-century, on the way towards the Mid-Miocene (15.97 ± 0.05 million years ago to 11.608 ± 0.005 Ma) by perhaps the end of this century.
Geoff,
“And we’re following a pathway that takes us to 2.7 degrees Celsius in only 70 years..”
Except the pathway for us ends decidedly somewhat before then – most likely with a bang. A yellow brick road to oblivion it is.
What I expect the PRC to do with regard to Taiwan
Below a long post which is partly a response to John’s post on the possible blockade of Taiwan by China. My conclusions are that China will move fairly soon ie in the next year, to bring Kinmen back into the fold. (Kinmen, alternatively known as Quemoy, is a group of islands governed as a county by the Republic of China (Taiwan), only 10 km (6.2 mi) east from the city of Xiamen in Fujian, located at the southeastern coast of the People’s Republic of China)
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) document which I reference suggests that the PRC may make its moves on Kinmen during Joe Biden’s lame duck presidential period. (The ISW document is surprisingly good – though it is not strong in the arguments about what the US can do about the prospective threat).
I think it is more likely that as soon as President Harris is sworn in (God save us, if that is not the case), then the PRC will offer to negotiate with the US about the status of Kinmen, and as part of the negotiation offers to ‘assist’ with Ukraine and Russia. I think – whatever exactly happens – that it is likely there will be a relatively peaceful transition to the PRC having defacto control of Kinmen.
Then China will consolidate its control of Kinmen and the maritime space around it, including possibly putting in artificial islands in the Taiwan Strait adjacent to Kinmen. And there are other steps it can take so over time China gains total control of the Taiwan Strait. If it does it carefully and gradually then it may be able to gain control of the Strait without triggering the Americans into a hot military response.
And control of the Strait will eventually – over the next 20 years – get it defacto control of Taiwan.
Now to my detailed arguments.
One way the PRC could move to control Kinmen would be
Anyway, apart from the international law argument, Kinmen (and Matsu) are a good place to start for the PRC, because Kinmen and Matsu are not mentioned in the Taiwan Relations Act between the US and Taiwan. (see below extract from the Institute for the Study of War document on ‘Exploring a PRC Short-of-War Coercion Campaign to Seize Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands and Possible Responses’ published 21 August 2024.
‘ The Taiwan Relations Act defines Taiwan to include “the islands of Taiwan and the Pescadores [Penghu],” excluding outlying islands like Kinmen and Matsu.[67] The US-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty that existed from 1955–1980 intentionally did not cover Kinmen and Matsu, either.[68] ‘
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/exploring-prc-short-war-coercion-campaign-seize-taiwan%E2%80%99s-kinmen-islands-and-possible
Gradually, the PRC would gain de facto control of the Strait, and over time – twenty years or so – this, along with other measures, would lead to PRC control of Taiwan.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/30/taiwan-kinmen-islands-plan-peace-bridge-china
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/01/asia/taiwan-china-tensions-kinmen-island-dmz-intl-hnk/index.html
Leaving aside the implausibility of the claim about Kinmen, there’s a series of huge leaps from there (an island 10km from the mainland) to the endpoint of reconquering Taiwan.
Occupying this island would make no difference to the (nfeasibility of a blockade, which I’ve already pointed out. On the other hand, even if it did nothing more than cement the case for punitive US and EU tariffs on Chinese goods, it would Be immensely costly for China.
Leaving aside the implausibility of the claim about Kinmen, there’s a series of huge leaps from there (an island 10km from the mainland) to the endpoint of reconquering Taiwan.
Occupying this island would make no difference to the (nfeasibility of a blockade, which I’ve already pointed out. On the other hand, even if it did nothing more than cement the case for punitive US and EU tariffs on Chinese goods, it would Be immensely costly for China.
I am sitting here in Australia, 14,600 km from Tampa Bay, Florida, and I am frightened… from this distance. I am frightened for the people who live in Florida (including a friend who lives near Orlando) and I am frightened about what Hurricane Milton means and signals for the world. Hurricane Milton is still a Category 5 hurricane at this point in time and is about to impact the U.S. state of Florida, heading for Tampa Bay. This is less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the state’s Big Bend region.
What we are beginning to see from climate change is hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones, in different parts of the world, becoming larger, more frequent, more intense and following on in more rapid sequence. What this mean is areas which are devastated cannot even begin to recover in some cases before the next hurricane, typhoon or cyclone comes through, hitting the same region or state yet again.
What I predict from these developments is that areas will become functionally uninhabitable. Maintaining infrastructure in such areas will become physically impossible going forward as well as completely untenable in financial and resource terms. This will be especially the case when increased storm surge and sea level rise are factored into the equation. There’s a state change in the system when it is impossible to repair the damage from one catastrophe before the next catastrophe hits.
The longer we delay action on climate change (and realistically we haven’t even started yet) the more we will see many millions of climate refugees on the move and ultimately unable to return to their previous place of living. This will occur, by the millions as I say, even in developed countries. We should not think ourselves immune.
Published early yesterday (Oct 9) in The Guardian was an article by Damian Carrington headlined Earth’s ‘vital signs’ show humanity’s future in balance, say climate experts. It begins with:
The assessment was published in the journal Bioscience on 8 Oct 2024, titled The 2024 state of the climate report: Perilous times on planet Earth, by William J Ripple, Christopher Wolf, Jillian W Gregg, Johan Rockström, Michael E Mann, Naomi Oreskes, Timothy M Lenton, Stefan Rahmstorf, Thomas M Newsome, Chi Xu, Jens-Christian Svenning, Cássio Cardoso Pereira, Beverly E Law, & Thomas W Crowther. It begins with:
Per the US National Hurricane Center & Central Pacific Hurricane Centre, re Hurricane Milton Advisory Number 20A 02 AM EDT Thursday October 10, 2024:
The Hurricane Milton Advisory has been downgraded since Advisory Number 15, as at 04 PM CDT Tuesday October 08, 2024, where it was then forecast:
As the Earth System continues to warm it’s likely we will see more ‘unprecedented’ extreme weather. Hurricane Milton is just a portent for much worse climate conditions to come.
More intense hurricanes and the damage they cause are just one example of where climate change is taking us. Hurricane intensities are rising. Costs from hurricanes in the US are rising rapidly. Coupled with all other effects of climate change, the total effects will be rising levels of damage and rising numbers of climate refugees and fatalities such that nations, even developed nations, will not be able to cope. Nations will go backwards heading for collapse. This is likely unless all available resources are put to the challenge of climate change prevention (as far as possible) and to amelioration and adaptation. Our current global economy of wasteful consumption, guided only by the most short-sighted of hedonistic considerations, will not meet the challenge.
https://earth.org/data_visualization/hurricane-beryl-and-a-new-era-of-cyclone-severity/
In addition to my above post, there is this – which is almost the definition of irony.
NOAA’s International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) has issues as follows:
“CEI in Asheville has been significantly impacted by Hurricane Helene. We are working to resolve these issues as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Home NCEI
NCEI Asheville Hurricane Helene Outage
NCEI in Asheville has been significantly impacted by Hurricane Helene. As a result, many key webpages, products and services are currently unavailable. We are working to resolve these issues as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
Even the “National Centers for Environmental Information are not hardened against the levels of natural disasters already occurring. This is almost the definition of irony as I said above and certainly part of the definition of ill-preparedness.
Our levels of preparedness and response in all countries (globally) are atrociously inadequate. I see no signs of us doing even 5% of what we need to do. Meanwhile peoples and nations are emitting more greenhouse gases than ever. Nothing at all is happening except for the most tokenistic window-dressing, spin-doctoring and greenwashing.
Will this situation change now that the Doomsday clock is at 90 seconds to midnight (for a number of reasons)? I see no signs of effective action yet on any existential risk facing humans. What will it take? When will real action happen?
Re Geoff says October 10, 2024 at 6:31 pm
“We have now brought the planet into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives within our genus, Homo (supplemental figure S1; CenCO2PIP Consortium et al. 2023).”
Thanks Geoff. That supplemental figure S1 is a doozy!
Given that our ancestral Hominini family lines split from that of Pan’s ancestors (of today’s extant chimpanzees and bonobos) around 5mya, the figure S1 shows that to be in about the middle of a period lasting around 5 million years where global mean surface temperature (GMST) was stable at near where it currently has risen to today and shows that atmospheric CO2 fluctuated little. Then a bit more than 3 million years ago through to the beginning of the Holocene atmospheric CO2 dropped steeply. This coincided with the Pleistocene from 2.6mya, the last or current ice age, and our earliest archaic closely related Homo genus ancestral lines. Anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens, appeared around 300kya. And finally, by some reckonings we additionally behaviorally modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens, appeared in and migrated out of Africa some 60kya.
The degree and asymmetry of the lengths of the five current ice age glacial and interglacial periods and the asymmetry of the lengths of transition between glacial and interglacial periods plus the asymmetry of the change in temperatures drove the extinction of numerous earlier species and the evolution of many new species including our ancestors and us, the notably omni-adaptable modern humans. Planetary climate systems and ecosystems changed repeatedly albeit relatively slowly by human standards yet caused tremendous evolutionary selection pressure.
That figure S1 shows that over the past 65 million years differing warm and hot periods persist on average for much longer than the fluctuating coolness suffered during the Pleistocene with its ice age so far and with the benign to humans cool and stable interglacial Holocene enjoyed up to just prior to now…
But now, by comparison quite suddenly, within just a few human lifetimes, we have moved into a period where GMST is back around the same as for around 4 million years preceding the 5 million year period in which Pan’s ancestors split away from ours.
Now, due to recent human activity, temperatures are also set to continue increasing relatively rapidly for the foreseeable future. At some point immense natural feedback systems causing various climate tipping points will force temperature changes and consequential environmental changes going beyond the foreseeable with huge consequential changes to life on the planet; massive, ie., disruptive changes and environmental transitions that rarely have happened so fast in the past.
Contrary to their probable future, Homo species evolved in a cooler period than today and with a cooling trend, so what’s next for our modern modern human decendents?
Thoroughly modern cornucopian cracked model economists, Nordhaus et al, reckon we have nothing to worry about as we have buildings including factories with air conditioning in which to live and work, and beneficial, at the least tolerable shifts in agricultural and fisheries growing and harvesting seasons and regions!
Shall the notably omnivorous omni-adaptable modern modern humans consumed by all in cornucopian dreams gobble the planet all up leaving not a scrap of themselves, all gone? Answers shall come soon bullet fast, quicker than a paleontological blink.
Here is an enlarged predecessor of Fig S1 publised in Science on December 8, 2023, without the horizontal dashed line marking current CO2:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi5177#Fa
Here at SPATIAL-Lab/CenoCO2 is an enlarged version of Fig S1 from the suplementary files of the Ripple et al paper published in Bioscience on October 8, 2024:
More on how the planet has been brought into climatic conditions never witnessed by us or our prehistoric relatives within our genus, Homo, largely due to modern cornucopian cracked model economists.
New: another big near future climate shock.
Published Mon 14 Oct 2024 in The Guardian was an article by Patrick Greenfield under the headline:
“Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing?”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/14/nature-carbon-sink-collapse-global-heating-models-emissions-targets-evidence-aoe
I’m not a regular Guardian reader. I read articles such as this if they come up in a search, or if somewhere else they are linked and look interesting enough to pursue which is why I searched.
I was searching, as will be apparent from the comment quoted below, for ‘Beckwith’ with terms such as ‘Beckwith carbon emissions sink capacity’. In the time available I have not found anything by ‘Beckwith’, so time limited today I will quote unaltered, and unattributed here a comment seen on another blog that seems close enough to my take upon reading the Guardian article and links: