ECONOMICS 101

   THIS IS THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF POSTS ABOUT THE FAILURE OF THE US ECONOMY, the failure to create an economy meeting the expectations of a rational society.  

Introductory economics courses emphasize how economies decide to allocate the society's resources:  do we produce guns or butter?  Supply and demand curves illustrate how the interaction,  and factors that modify them.  The supply of goods and services is decided by the society, which may reflect the demand curve,  but some are independent, as in military spending in peacetime.  The demand for goods and services differs throughout the society,  and a hierarchy of needs alters what different economic classes demand,  and the supply.  Theses and research papers are written to address special cases.  Economists avoid value discussions, claiming the principles are “value neutral” so true whatever the values of the society in they apply.  Yet economic studies may favor one value system over another, and are adopted as “correct” by the political group that is most likely to benefit from the plan.  The idea of optimizing decisions for the entire society is a political, not economic, issue, but the data to measure this requires an different approach to economics. The economic questions for a society (country): 
    1) Is there an “equitable” dispersal of goods and services?
    2) Are the available resources used efficiently?
    3) Is the production of goods and services “stable”, in the sense that disruptions of production or consumption do not result in major failures in 1) and 2)?    (To this might be added another goal based on the extensive development of globalization:)
    4) Is the production of goods and services efficiently integrated into broader global markets?

These metrics for evaluating the operation of an economy,  are not consistently achieved by the American economy, for most of its history.  The American economy, a “regulated” capitalist economy, is unable to fulfill those simple objectives.  Why?

    1) Capitalism is based on return on investment, ROI.  The rewards of the  society are dispersed based on how capital is invested.  It might seem that investing would favor those activities most likely to provide a significant return,  and that these would benefit the overall society.  But this is generally not the case. Predicting the likely return of investment requires knowledge of future demand an inherently risky problem.  So efforts are made to limit this risk by reducing competition, and choosing modes of investment like financial manipulations in which risk can be managed directly.  None of these adjustments are responsive to an "equitable distribution".
    2) Efficient use of resources does not occur because of the competition for consumer access.  A new neighborhood will have several supermarkets, gas stations, and other providers.  The excess building results occurs when companies seek entry into the region.  The ones that fail waste investment and create “dead” stores that must be repurposed.  This is often taken as proof that capitalism is efficient,  emphasizing the re-purposing and ignoring the losses of inefficiency of initial investment.  This has been accelerated by the recent transition to online marketing and sales.

This problem of waste in fair competition is managed by oligarchy. In development of American business from the “golden age” of the early 1900s to now,  achieving competitive advantage by monopoly has always motivated business.  Strong anti-trust laws emerging after the crash in the 1920s prevent some of this, but were weakened in the 1980-90s.  Once monopoly is achieved the society pays far more than what would be needed for the good or service and competitors are undermined and eliminated,  but this does not lead to reduced waste but instead to elevated prices when there is no optional alternative supply.   Capitalism attempts to lower the costs of business in every way possible and this means limiting labor costs where possible in the current competitive labor market.  At times  it creates labor “sweat shops” with poor return on labor for the worker and eventually demand for unionization and government regulation.  While efficient in using labor resources,  this interferes with achieving goal #1) equitable distribution of resources.    

    3) Every introductory economic textbook explains “business cycles” as an inevitable feature of capitalism.  The uncertainty in investment and inherent risk predicts failures in businesses, but it does not predict that these must be correlated and occur in cycles.   The “Chicago School” explains these cycles as variations in the “cost of money” or interest rate.  When the rate is low,  starting new ventures or expanding is less costly and more businesses attempt it.  The demand on money raises the “cost” (interest rate) and eventually the multiple businesses don’t all succeed resulting in defaults and losses,  and the rate falls.  This explanation does not take into account several external factors that have impacted over the last 100 years.  Technology innovation drives business expansion and exaggerated valuations, seen in the railroad boom of the 1870s,  the radio boom of the 1920s,  the computer hardware boom of the 1990s,  and the “internet” boom of the 2012s.  Each is a real advance in technology overvalued by a public seeking to “strike it rich” creating transient exaggerated values, "tulipmania"  (along with some fake businesses that exploit this).   The 2008 crash was the result of an intentional effort on the part of a government-financial industry partnership to create a false stimulus in the economy by driving the housing market beyond the capacity of buyers to afford houses,  with falsely valued mortgages,  and secondary insured collateral to cover this fake stimulus.  The collapse brought down Lehman Brothers,  and triggered a major contraction.  In 2020, another sort of contraction is occurring due to the collapse of consumption in certain industries related to the covid pandemic.  This is another test of whether an economic system can manage the external destabilizing challenge of an event.  And the crypto-currency collapse is another result.

    4) Understanding the economy from the perspective of one country is no longer adequate.  The free transfer of goods,  services, and information across national boundaries makes the idea of a closed economy incorrect.  What does an effective role in the global economy look like and how should it be measured?  The current US idea that it is the “dominant” economy and can manipulate others is incorrect, in the process of failing, and weakening the US role in the broader economy.  The competition between countries try to draw investment from outside bringing capital for development into the country.  They try to draw capital by exporting more in $$ than they import.  This gives a favorable balance of payments and increases the relative strength of the currency compared to other currencies,  but that makes export goods more expensive and tends to equalize the effect.  Many corporations in the modern world are “multinational” and how they report their income  affects their tax and other liabilities to the countries in which they are located.  This confuses the economic national boundaries.  Is Apple an American company?  Much of its sales are in China,  and much of its manufacturing is done outside of US.  It reports income for much of the world in EU countries with lower income taxes.  Where is the “real” Apple located?  Natural resources including foods grown, and material commodities like oil and mined substances are local to the country in which they reside.  But their trade may be managed by companies that grow or extract them,  which are not located in the country of extraction.  Whose oil is it?  Few everyday Americans recognize the extent of the globalization of the economy.
What values should guide the economic regulation of a country? 
A The economy should produce sufficient goods and services to sustain all the population.  Everyone should have enough food to avoid starvation,  adequate clothing, and housing to avoid injury of exposure to elements, and facilitate protecting a family (if desired).  It might include basic healthcare and some non working time for recreation.  How the material goods are distributed, and what productive work is required to access them must be specified.  The term “economic inequality” indicates that in the US this goal is asymmetric:  significant numbers of the population who do not have adequate food,  clothing, or housing.  Many others live in  marginal security which any change in life circumstances will disrupt.
B The Country must decide if other values beyond economic ones are important.  These might include preservation of environmental features, opportunities for recreation and other social activities,  distribution of education across the population, etc.  Most of these other values have an “opportunity cost” that reduces the available capital to the society as a whole.  The US system of valuations is suggested as:
*Recreation activities including sports, gambling, hospitality travel, and alcohol consumption are major economic industries with high valuation. 
*The consumption of disposable consumer goods like stylized clothing, shoes, and music etc. are an important driver of the economy.  They are marketed as essential to defining personal identity of the user,  although they are mass produced and therefore actually not personal at all.  Their rapid loss of value after purchase creates an enormous burden of trash waste for the society. 

***Non-material values in the society are minimal:  Religion is an important value for a minority of the population,  but is closely linked to financial success.  Tradition, old styles and standards, exists in limited parts of New England.  Cultural interests are increasingly too expensive for most to afford,  and the educational experience that would prepare readers, viewers, and listeners is not provided.  

*The emphasis is on the experience of audio-visual media as primary recreation,  along with electronic competitive gaming is supported for its economic value, while creative audio-visual production is not distributed to the creative artists as the digital distributors take most for themselves.

*Preserving the natural environment is a conflicted value with a small group committed to this,  pitted against the majority who wish to exploit the environment for economic gain.

The political process must manage the economic decisions of A) and B).  Regulation of economic activity occurs at the private and government level.  Private companies have significant freedom to specify the work parameters of employees,  compensation, and other factors in the delivery of services.  These are generally regulated by competition between local entities,  or national competition in the case of airlines, etc.  The role of the state and federal governments in requiring private entities to abide by specific restrictions (think, non-pollution) is variable and strong influence is exerted by large corporations to limit this role of governments.  The orderly function of a society demands some structure of rules/laws which specifies individual relationships.   Although great emphasis is placed on the police in preventing theft, robbery and burglary,  the total amounts of these crimes is trivial compared to the massive fraudulent “white collar” crimes of the last several decades.  This represents a fundamental failure to manage the distribution of goods and services.

Future posts will suggest alternatives to our current dilemma.

THE FRAGMENTATION OF AMERICAN SOCIETY

   In November there will be an important national election.  A two party democracy has the challenge of coordinating important issues differently than a parliamentary one.  Parliamentary democracies have specific issue parties which must align after the vote to create a parliamentary majority and support a prime minister.  The coalitions are decided by politicians after the voters have selected party weighting.  In the US two party format, the issues must be distributed across the parties before the voting and the voters choose candidates by the overlap of issues in each party.  There are advantages and disadvantages to both.  Examining the current differences in values across the society shows some important guides to the coming election:

Feminism vs Patriarchy:  The #metoo movement has not sustained a strong political influence,  and although female candidates are being identified as "important",  the idea that women are exploited by men is not accepted across the society.  Most recently deVos made the identification of sexual harassment more difficult in educational settings.  The Right is strongly patriarchal, with a significant female component that supports patriarchy.

Racism vs racial equality: The US has never resolved its origins in exploiting minorities or killing them off for access to their lands.  The recent riots over policing echo issues in the Obama administration,  and this issue for African-americans is now center stage, but for Hispanics it is less clear,  and also for various Asian-American groups.  The reality that whites will be a population minority by 2035 makes it urgent to suppress the voting capacity of these groups ASAP, or be outvoted soon.  This is a defining issue of the Right, and it has roots that go back to the authors of the constitution, to the secession of the slave states in the civil war,  and numerous anti-asian laws in the history of the Western states.  Cloaked in the language of "racism" it is more about the loss of white political control.

Values of Christian religion vs a-religious views: The Christian values of preserving life, anti-abortion, the primacy of heterosexual marriage,  and a reinterpreted 10 commandments are challenged by accusations of hypocrisy, personal reinterpretation,  and the corruption of values within the churches,  and by political compromises.  This is complicated by the reactivation of old Christian-Moslem and Christian-Jew antipathies.

Unregulated capitalism vs economic equality: There is every evidence that unregulated capitalism leads to economic exploitation, economic inequality, monopolies, and cartel oligarchies.  This was demonstrated in the 1900-1920s era of "mogul" capitalism in the US,  which led to the dramatic market collapse of 1929.  Similar problems were observed in other developed capitalist economies.  WW2 led to European expansion of social welfare elements and the increased role of labor,  while in the US this was eventually undermined,  and by the 1980s less regulation of capitalism led to the 1999 and 2008 recessions,  and controls put in at that time have been removed by political influence,  and economic inequality in the US has dramatically increased.

Environmental preservation vs economic exploitation of the environment: Although much of the environmental position seems to be about "extinction" or other hot button focus,  the core issue is how much the environment should be utilized for economic activities and how much it should be preserved in a relatively "wild" unexploited state.  Industrial interests advocate having no limits on their impact on the environment,  and the deterioration of the world's environments is a clear result.  It is not clear how much this can be reversed,  and what the impact would be on human economic function as a result.

Heterosexual identity vs gender diversity: There is evidence that gender diversity in multiple forms in multiple cultures has always existed.  The Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions strongly prohibit non heterosexual unions and persecuted those who practice these acts.  This has been challenged since the 1950s and world wide an increased tolerance of gender diversity has accompanied the weakening of control of the society by traditional religions.

Libertarian freedom vs Rule of Law:  The essential basis of any society is the "social contract",  the agreement to relinquish certain individual autonomy for the direction of the social group.  This boundary is fluid,  and the "bill of rights" of the constitution of US represented the explicit expansion of individual rights not specified in the constitution.  The recent evolution of these issues in US is ironic:  while Libertarians decry the power of the Federal government and seek to weaken the DC influence,  the current POTUS attempts to expand HIS authority in disregard of any constitutional checks.  And congress has not been able to challenge this.

Education and advancement vs "street smarts":  The educated elite were a tiny minority of the country before WW2,  but after the war the corporate economy encouraged education,  and education became highly correlated with economic advancement.   This value has been exploited economically by for-profit colleges,  student loan creditors, and other methods and has resulted in deterioration of education quality, impoverishment of ambitious students,  and a future burden on the economy which it cannot sustain.  There is a need for education reform that links it use to the ongoing intellectual needs of an advanced technical society.

There is a very clear linkage across these values for the Right:  Patriarchy, Christian religious values, control of minority voting, and unlimited capitalism have become linked in this political system.  This is true despite the reality that the POTUS does not embody almost any of these features!


For the Left the linkage is not so clear: Feminism,  racial equality, economic equality, environmentalism, gender diversity, and the use of national laws are not obviously linked,  though the Obama administration managed to coordinate they to some degree.  

The recent division of the country over Covid-19 reveals another split:  The  younger generation of Right and Left were less impacted by the health consequences than the economic consequences,  revealing a cultural split between youth and elder generation, which was typical of the 1960s social unrest.

The current demonstrations about police violence against African-americans demonstrates the developing coalition of especially younger groups against racial discrimination and the use of the police authority to maintain society conformity.  The large number of non African-american protestors and the recognition in some places that the police process must be reformed are indications of change.

In Jan 2020,  my  blog identified the following issues for the country:
Human resource issues:  Immigration, healthcare, housing, financial opportunity, education, minority rights(diversity).  
Social consensus: Cultural values and gender identity, regional diversity
Material economic: stable economy not based on disposable consumer goods, environmental concerns
International relations and globalism
Political integrity and the exposure of graft in politics in Washington esp

Most of these are identified in the current blog as issues splitting the country. 
The availability of social media should provide a broad channel for communication and discussion of these issues but instead has silo-ed the country into self-affirming information portals that distort information to support personal views.  This must be resisted if a meaningful change process can occur.  Otherwise the country will swing back and forth to unstable extremes and collapse.

JOAN DIDION AND CA DREAMING

I picked up a book of Joan Didion's writings. She is arguably  the  great contemporary CA writer though she no longer lives in CA. Her short piece "notes from a native daughter", "letter from Los Angeles", and her "goodbye to all that" about being young and hopeful in New York in the 60s, are very powerful personal statements. She is able to bring herself to writing so a reader feels her presence more believably than almost any one else. "Notes from a native daughter" about being from Sacramento lifts a veil from the OZ of the golden state. Ken Starr is right to express his history as the history of a "dream".  For outsiders looking in, California is a projected fantasy.  But growing up there was a different matter.

The other night I watched two "road" movies: the last bit of Ford's "Grapes of Wrath", which seems horribly dated and talky, but in which Fonda is totally believable, and the harsh black and white seems exactly right to capture the harsh times in which the people lived. "Bound for Glory" about Woody Guthrie is another view of the migration of the30s. The two captured that hopeful second migration of the Okies who struggled to get to the "California where every man has a job, and gets everything he wants", a second migration after the first covered wagons of Didion's ancestors.  The Okies came swarming to Southern California in the 1930's imagining it was the Eden of their dreams, only to find themselves blocked at the borders by the previous generations of immigrants, who were aware of  the limited opportunities, and did not welcome competition. Didion's description of Sacramento includes impatience with the economic invasion of post war immigrants, who were not "settlers" and did not understand what they had been through. The 3rd migration, after the WWII, in the 1950s, overran Sacramento, along with the rest of CA, usurping the homesteads of Didion's family and neighbors, and replacing it with a less personal mall/chain store/subdivision world that would eventually invade the rest of America.   

I am a new "migrant" to CA.  I came with dreams to be close to family which was realized, and be part of the film industry which was not.  It is not an easy place to retire. The housing costs are high, and the scattered development makes you very dependent on cars in a place where this can be very frustrating. (Driving in LA is a whole other story.) The weather is often pleasant, though not quite as lovely as the promotions. Some very wealthy people retire to LA and enjoy its charms buoyed up by their affluence, and it has been that way since its origins. But most come with less, and struggle to find their place in a city which embodies the exaggeration of rich and poor for longer than the rest of the US.  There is a mental transformation that each immigrant to California must go through after arriving. The "dreams of California" must be replaced by the realities of sustaining oneself in a difficult environment. At one time, the challenges were a lack of water, and limited opportunities. Agriculture, oil, movie, aviation, military and real estate booms brought prosperity, over development, and the challenges of modern California: an overpopulated, economically declining state the size of most countries trying to find its economic balance. As always, the poor suffer most, and the middle class have less coherence as they try desperately to ascend to the 1% to have more influence. And even the 1% have little influence in a place where the 0.1% are in great supply.  There is great natural beauty here, and significant cultural experiences. But surviving economically has always been difficult, and is no easier today, though the challenges are different. The "old timers" who managed to survive understand: if you have not struggled to survive here, you are not really a Californian, just a "California dreamer".

America's Kristallnacht

Recent events have motivated me to present my opinion on three things are going on in this country at the same time.  If the public is not careful,  the result can be terrible:

 
1) The covid-19 pandemic has crippled much of the economy especially of the lower middle class of all races,  and killed a disproportionate number of African Americans, while many young white Americans are not experiencing a major illness and are frustrated by the barriers put up in the society. 

2) a Minneapolis police officer,  with a long record of disciplinary problems,  killed a black man in the line of duty whom he worked with,  and probably had a beef with in another setting.  This triggered a particularly negative image of police/black relations and activated protests that were also aimed at the president’s racist taunts over months.

3) Exploiting this, unknown groups have systematically arranged looting of various locations in major cities,  and set up staged fires and “civil disobedience” carefully orchestrated for the media,  who are only too happy to run this footage with angry headlines.  

Who are the protestors and who are the looters?  Most of the protests in cities other than Minneapolis where police charged them,  have been peaceful and easily dispersed.  This was true of the first few days in LA as well.     If we look at the coordination and planning of the looting,  it is clear that, at least in LA,  it is targeted: carried out rapidly away from police focused on demonstrations,  and evaporating when police arrive.  These are thefts,  and they are targeted to locations with movable goods.  We see images of young black and white males carrying out boxes of t-shirts, etc.  What will they do with them?  Who would benefit from this?  Are poor young men doing this to get  money?   Do they care that they are disrupting the the protest?  Who is paying them?  Black groups do not benefit from the image of blacks as criminals. Are right wing groups creating the diversion to discredit the protests and make it seem that blacks are out of control and the police must do whatever they can?  If you want to know who is organizing the looting,  look at who benefits.  

 
    At the white house,  and again in Minneapolis police cars or other objects were set on fire, but never associated with the actual message of the protest.  The media are mesmerized by videos of the fires and keep attention on them instead of the message.  This is the failure of the media to present the full understanding of the situation,  preferring the dramatic images that capture more eyeballs.  This plays into the right wing agenda, even media that oppose it!  America, is this your “kristallnacht”,  the moment when the right creates disorder to prove that the country must be taken over and democracy suspended?  If we are not careful,  the US will drift from “banana republic” to fascist state.  The president is not favored to be re-elected, and this police killing has mobilized the black community against him.  Can the right manipulate the media to reverse the message? 
   Black Lives Matter organizers affirm that they have directed the protests to areas of high economic value white businesses,  like Macys in NYC,  and Santa Monica in LA.  It is a clear statement that rich whites will care more about economic attack in their favored world than about black businesses burning,  or about black deaths.  It is a sad truth that attacking Luis Vuitton is a major crisis while the deaths of black teens and children are not. 
   We are seeing more white youths demonstrating with blacks this time.  What has changed?  The economic future of young white men and women is starting to deteriorate in the way that African Americans have suffered for generations.  Suddenly economic suppression is a reality for much of the society.  And opiate addiction not far behind.  Which side will capture the narrative and direct the future of the society?  Only time will tell.

20 THINGS I LEARNED FROM COVID 19

1. The comfort of physical touch cannot be replaced by audio visual stimuli.

2. Food is more important than trinkets and consumable junk.  Food workers are least appreciated until they are not there. And not supported when they are needed the most.

3. Asking younger adults to sacrifice for the elderly is not respecting their needs.  It reverses the cycle of life.

4. End of life care (nursing homes) is not reliable or safe.  If you can’t care for yourself,  no one else will do it for you reliably.   But lots of companies will try to make money pretending to do it.

5. Our healthcare system is broken.  Health is an attitude toward life,  not a way to stimulate the GDP.

6. A country that fractures politically in a crisis is very vulnerable, and shows a breakdown in leadership.

7. We no longer have a functioning central government, just a beltway for lobbyists. 

8. The weakness of the federal government is allowing states to reassert themselves.  Given the very different values of some states from others,  this is probably necessary. 

9. The central bank’s ability to stabilize the economy depends on its ability to exert appropriate influence in various markets.  When this is interfered with by special interests it cannot be effective.  The assurances about supporting small business are lies because the funding earmarked for small business is not accessible in a reliable fashion.  The US federal government is motivated to protect large businesses as the easiest solution to producing a rebound economy.

10. It is possible to do a lot of business on the internet digitally,  but not all business.

11. Not driving saves the environment.  Not buying stuff saves the environment.  Not wanting so much stuff does not make us poorer.  Wanting stuff we cannot afford makes us poorer.

12. Not using so much energy reduces the importance of oil in the economy.  The country has not figured out an alternative commodity to stimulate business.

13.Spending more time with people we love builds the relationship (or ends a false one).

14. The need to travel somewhere means we are not happy where we are.  The vulnerability of the hospitality industry reflects its role in distracting us from our lives.

15. How are we surviving without filling up life with sporting events and mass gatherings?  Why are they so important?  Emotionally and economically?

16. What would a “simpler” society look like? Would it be economically stable?

17. International supply chains for products save money but complicate access.  What does a country need to produce for its own security?

18. Anyone we honor as a “hero” we treat as expendable.  Policemen, first responders, EMTs, nurses, doctors have all become part of the “saving lives at the expense of themselves and their families”, and called “heroes”, but get furloughed when the cities or hospitals run out of money.

19. Many people aged 18-45 were already struggling in the economy, and are faced with greater economic hardships with this downturn.  Where is the economic focus on their needs?  A one time payment of $1200 covers one months rent in many places.  What happens to them after that?

20. The flowers are blooming this Spring.  There are lots of birds around.  Slowing down to appreciate the natural world does not cost money or make money for someone else.  Is it still worthwhile?

SOME TASKS FOR AMERICA IN THE 2020s

There is an election in 2020,  but I am not running for anything,  and one year (or 4 years) is too short a time frame to address many complex problems.  A curse of electronic media is encouraging an immediate response to situations with difficult complicated solutions. The following list of challenges requires solutions if the US is to move forward as a functioning country:

PEOPLE:  Several problems face us as the community of persons.  (In a corporation they would be called "human resources",  but that does not cover the range of issues in a geographic boundary.)
IMMIGRATION Who should be allowed to enter the US and have access to citizenship?  What qualifications must they have?  For more than three administrations the country has been unable to formulate policies for persons wishing to emigrate into the US.   The current administration's efforts to make this a divisive issue continues a failure to resolve this over the last 20 years.  Reference to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty is not a policy,  and the split between parties interferes with a cooperative rational solution.


HEALTHCARE Is healthcare a “right” for all persons? Does the society have an obligation to provide healthcare to all?  Should the quality vary according to ability to pay?   There are three questions  for healthcare: Who should receive it?  Who should pay for it (how should it be paid for)?  And why is it so much more expensive in the US?  Obamacare partially addresses only one of the three,  and no candidate addressed all three (in either party).

HOUSING Who is entitled to housing in the US?  Where is it available and must people move to what is available?  What produces homeless populations and how to reverse this process?

OPPORTUNITY Does the US still promise economic and social opportunity to all who will work hard enough for it?  How hard is that? Does it depend on race or other factors?  Will the US perpetuate a tiered society of economic inequality or re-balance the financial population curve?

DIVERSITY Does the country accept that a diverse population is expanding the place of non-whites and will soon alter the political balance?  What if some or all of the white population doesn’t accept this? Since its inception the US has been a diverse country.  The original inhabitants, the introduction of slaves,  the migration of French, Spanish, and English settlers,  and the annexation of indo-hispanic territories have  been ignored by the political dominance of  white "Anglo-Europeans".  This is currently challenged by the many stakeholders of the country,  along with new immigrants.  Women, which includes both females of discriminated groups,  and some females of the Anglo-European group, also protest being discriminated in work and other settings, and seek equalization of opportunities.  The Constitution did not originally enable diversity,  and amendments which support it have been undermined by the dominant political group.  This is reaching a critical point.

EDUCATION Does the society have a responsibility to educate its children? How much should they receive and what jobs be prepared to perform? The most fundamental task of any society is preparing its youth for the continuation of the future society.  The US has been failing to provide extensive educational and social training for all youth for most of its history,  and the post WW II period showed some promise of improving but these gains have been lost since the 90s.

SOCIAL CONSENSUS: Does the country have a common set of values?
 Is the US committed to maintaining a patriarchal Judeo-Christian values system,  or are women entitled to equal social and political authority? What about other gender variations which violate Judeo-Christian norms?  Are they supported in the US society?  The dominance of patriarchal male culture was unchallenged until the amendment giving women the vote.  Since the 1980s, new challenges to patriarchy  include gender diversity,  female s in authority roles,  and rejection of organized religions.  The US was never "one nation under god" (and never specified which god) and is certainly not now.  And the cultural diversity is exaggerated by the way in which cultural groups have migrated to specific regions of the country and established "cultural outposts" in these regions. The US has a crisis of cultural identity which is being attacked on all sides by political extremists.  The culture of a country cannot remain static,  it must grow and change for future needs.
REGIONAL DIVERSITY Is the US one country or a collection of different regions with different values and orientation?  Can one central government manage these differences? How much autonomy do separate regions need?

MATERIAL CHALLENGES The US economy is facing major changes with little guidance from political leadership or labor groups to guide the population through the changes.
ECONOMY Can the US create a growing economy which does not depend on consuming trash or fake financial manipulations?  The US is transitioning from a broad manufacturing economy to an "information economy" of unknown design,  and using financial manipulation to facilitate the changes.  No one knows where the changes are headed.  The changes are creating an inequality of economic opportunity which will lead to political instability (as it historically has in other places).  The impact is likely to be much more profound than the railroads which totally transformed the country.  The current dependence of the economy on financial manipulation is untenable long term,  a result already observed in England.
CLIMATE The country must make some response to the climate changes in process.  Should the US attempt to reduce factors presumed to contribute like green house gases?  How important is renewable energy?  What (expensive) steps should be taken to deal with changes in coastal sea levels?  Who should pay?  No matter how stupid you are,  or how you attempt to ignore the weather,  the data are clear that there is a change underway.  How much humans contributed to this is not clear,  and what humans can do to moderate it is also unclear.  But something must be done.  Figuring out what to do requires overcoming the denial in some,  the false assumptions of others,  and a meaningful engineering strategy for each problem that is recognized.   The increasing world population creates more trash,  other pollution,  and needs some place to avoid the worst aspects of climate change.   This is not a "homeless" problem,  or a "pollution" problem.  It impacts everyone by degrading the available, finite land.  Economic compromises that address the needs of a controlled population is essential.  The consumption of fossil fuels, and other commodities is part of the problem,  not only because of the related pollution and climate effects,  but because they are being depleted!

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY The US is a separate region of the world,  and has never mentally adjusted to  its separation or to the post cold war era.  There are not two "super powers" but multiple players in a complex military-economic world stage requiring sophisticated consideration from both State Department, military, and the public.  A leader that feeds the public babble prevents effective policy development and weakens security.  The US role in international relations is neither the “sole nuclear power bully”, the “champion of world democracy”, or the “enforcer for global corporations”.  US policy must articulate and advocate for US interests on the global stage.  In historical terms,  the US is a childhood or, at most, adolescent country.  Its prominence during and at the end of WW II is entirely unrelated to the sophistication of the population or its leaders in managing the complex relationships with other countries.  In most of its short history,  the US has used minor (or major, sometimes unsuccessful) military incursions in lieu of diplomacy to establish a foreign policy.  This is no longer possible.

POLITICAL INTEGRITY Behind all this is a collapse of political integrity in the country.  The days when we could challenge developing countries about their leaderships' exploitation of the population is over.  US candidates and leaders  depend so totally on campaign financing that their autonomy is a joke. Until this is modified,  the values of the country will reflect a small wealthy interest group. 
 Is it possible to remove enough financial influence from the political process to allow it to represent the broad goals of the country? This is not about "socialism" or preventing people from making profits.  It is about revising the political system so that financial factors do not have a significant role.  At this time, every other "democracy" accomplishes this to a better extent than the US.

 INFORMATION BOUNDARIES The internet has created a new opportunity and challenge for all the nations in the world.  It makes countries vulnerable in unanticipated ways and provides social and economic opportunities.  Currently there is no national or international process for determining how to manage this resource for mankind.  Instead ignorant people and leaders either try to "sell" its income value,  or rail about its danger, and the need to cut it off.   The most desperate and greedy people are exploiting its potential before more responsible people pay attention to the issues. 

The TRUMP presidency raised several of these issues without ever resolving any.   

 Stay tuned for coming posts regarding proposals for how to develop solutions (the actual solutions will require many participants!).  If you have other topics to include in the list please comment and I will consider them.

TOWARD RESPONSIBLE HUMAN GENOME EDITS

 Are we ready to perform genome edits?  Hynes et al have written a commentary in JAMA 

 Genome editing (link) which discusses this procedure.
See also
Nature series
 Editing ethics

The procedure is in its very early stages but already raises major issues of bioethics.

Enhancement:  "A controversial aspect of genome editing concerns its potential use for modifying physical traits and capacities beyond those typical of adequate health. For example, using somatic genome editing to improve musculature in patients with muscular dystrophy would be considered a restorative treatment, whereas using the same intervention for individuals with no known pathology and average capabilities would be considered “enhancement.” Currently, the potential benefits of applications for enhancement are unlikely to outweigh the risks, and the report recommends that such uses should not be approved at this time. With additional research, risks will probably diminish, and it will become increasingly important to have public engagement and input on howto weigh the purported benefit of any enhancement against risks and to explore the social implications, both real and feared, as governance policies develop."
Science fiction stories about spies with super-powers already clog the media.  And athletics has been plagued by biological manipulations of hormones, etc to improve athletic performance.  The idea of doing this procedure to produce a cadre of warriors or athletes is concerning,  as well as the implication that only some of the edits would be useful and the other manipulated individuals "wasted" with no realistic consent.

 Editing for Treatment or Prevention of Disease or Disability
"A ... potential application of human genome editing involves alteration of germ line cells to prevent serious disease or disability. Germ line editing has been conducted successfully in animals, but major technical issues must be overcome to use this in humans."
Although this procedure seems morally more straightforward,  it is based on the assumption that one or a small number of edits to defective alleles would produce significant change.  Diseases with single locus dominant or recessive features exist but are much rarer than the broad categories of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, etc that represent the major sources of illness,  and are polygenetic.  This focuses the value on a small number of instances with high cost and challenges.  And it does not address the other potential role of these alleles and how altering them might be detrimental.

"Nonetheless, this line of research is of interest because there are thousands of inherited diseases caused by mutations in single genes. When no other reasonable alternatives are available, editing germ line cells could reduce the burden of disease for a child and allow prospective parents to have genetically related offspring without the risk of transmitting disease-causing mutations to their children. Because germ line editing would result in genetic changes that could be inherited by the next generation, it raises greater concerns about safety, informed consent, and unintended effects. It has also been argued that germ line gene editing crosses an ethical line, and there are concerns about equity of access and the potential effect on individuals with disabilities. Given these technical and societal concerns, the committee concludes that there is need for caution in any move toward germ line editing, but that caution does not mean prohibition."


"Although one day it may be technically safe to use genome editing for enhancement, societies, professional organizations, and governmental agencies still may choose not to approve such applications because they violate certain core principles such as respect for persons, equity, and fairness. Moreover, it is important to emphasize that many of the traits, such as intelligence, that are commonly discussed in the media as potential targets for enhancement, are complex and thus very unlikely to be readily modified by genome editing."

"The report recommends that clinical trials of germ line editing might become permissible but only after
much more research to meet appropriate risk/benefit standards for authorizing such trials.Even then, germline editing should be permitted only for compelling reasons and under strict oversight. In the United States, authorities are currently unable to consider proposals for this clinical research because of a prohibition on use of federal funds by the US Food and Drug Administration to review “research in which a human embryo is intentionally created or modified to include a heritable genetic modification.” Similar prohibitions exist in many other countries. There is a risk that if established bodies are not permitted to regulate this field, it might develop outside societal norms, leading to applications that are not scientifically valid or that violate core ethical principles. The committee defined a set of stringent criteria under which heritable germ line editing might be permissible if US restrictions are lifted
or if countries without legal prohibitions proceed with this line of research.."

While a noble sentiment, this report fails to acknowledge that the economic, military, and political advantage will drive the research despite ethical concerns,  as it drove cloning animals and eventually reportedly a human infant.  This procedure may be added to the list of proliferation of nuclear weapons, "hacking into vital infrastructure systems", "exploitation of outer space", and the other scientific boundaries of development which the earth as a unified political has so far been unable to join together to manage and regulate safely.

"Urging public education and engagement to assess and apply societal values to the risks and benefits of genome editing technologies disregards the powerful drive of money and power to overwhelm public boundaries. For somatic genome editing for treatment of disease, the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee currently provides a forum for public engagement. While the report recommends against using somatic cell editing for enhancement at present, continued transparent and inclusive public engagement and education through multiple forums are needed to assess whether there is evolution of societal views on this issue over time. With respect to heritable germ line editing, broad participation and input by the public, along with ongoing reassessment of both health and societal benefits and risks, should be a precondition for moving any clinical trials forward."

The example of genetically modified foods is an example of the failure of public opinion as a regulatory process.  The development of these foods to enhance potability and ease production has potential value.  The complex risks in the genetic engagement of these altered species with non-altered crops remains unresearched because it has no financial value to the producing companies.  Their only concern is to prevent cross-pollination of their patented crops.  Concerns about the impact of consumption of these products is also speculative.  Short term trials do not indicate immediate negative effects of consumption,  but food is consumed for a lifetime, and so the long term potential of these modifications will only be understood by complex, expensive population studies which will be opposed and hampered whenever possible by the producers until the patents run out.

"The thrust of the report’s recommendations is to maximize the benefits to human health of any applications of genome editing. While heritable germ line editing is currently not feasible and probably will not be for several years, it is possible to foresee paths whereby it may become a realistic possibility. It is incumbent on society to take advantage of the opportunity to promote public engagement on the societal issues to inform regulatory decisions if and when that possibility becomes a reality. The committee’s recommendations on heritable germ line editing constitute a progression from the category of “never” to the category of “maybe, but only if …” but with no applications for enhancement—the goal would be healthy infants, not “designer babies.”"

It is hard to imagine a more naive, unfortunate assessment of the risks and complexities of this profound process, and that it's exploitation will be accelerated unless major world intervention at the level of managing biological or nuclear weapons is arranged.  (We are not so great at managing them either.)