A Note on the Fires in Athens

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Yesterday, on Monday, 23 July, two major fires broke out in or near the Attica region. The first was at Kineta, near Megara. This fire broke out in a forested area along the national road.

The second fire or fires broke out along the shoreline to the north east of the capital, in the area between Rafina and Mati. This is a heavily-forested urban area, where houses, apartments and hotels are located between the shoreline and national road, and above the national road on the foothills of Mount Penteli.

A few items of interest:

a.     High winds and dry weather: The winds yesterday were exceptionally strong, with wind gusts of up to 85 km/hour reported. These were seen first hand even in the centre of Athens. These are absolutely fatal conditions for a fire.

b.     In the Rafina / Mati area, winds change direction rapidly due to a number of geomorphological, marine and climactic factors.

c.     While I do not know the Kineta area, I am very familiar with the entire stretch between Rafina and Schinias. This area is characterized by very narrow streets and is totally covered with pine trees. There are also a number of steep valleys or gulleys that often block road access and are conduits for flames.

Photos taken in the aftermath of the fires show burnt cars blocking roads. We can assume that as people fled, traffic barriers and heavy smoke would have impeded their flight. As the wind changed, the fire would have moved more rapidly than a running person, leaping from pine tree to pine tree. The trees would have ignited immediately, together with the entire ground which is usually covered with pine needles and other dessicated plants and shrubs.

According to Kathimerini and Skai News, one group of 26 people were fleeing towards the sea when they were stopped by flames approximately 30 meters from the waves. I can only imagine the terror induced by the heat, the high smoke and the panic. All 26 died.

During the fire, and in the aftermath, two theories broke out:

a.     The first was that this was an act of arson by propery developers, who want to burn the land in order to build on it. I can’t see this happening in Rafina – Mati. This area is within an urban area, so the practice of burning and then squatting would not normally be a motivating factor. I presume that enough of the land plots are registered in the national cadaster. I can also attest that every serious buyer today looks very carefully at whether a land plot falls in the forest area or not, and makes their decisions accordingly. Finally, I remind everyone that Greece remains in a deep economic depression despite recent headline macro numbers, and I find it improbable that new building is taking place given the vast number of unsold properties on the market.  

b.     The second was that this was an act of arson by a specific foreign country which wanted revenge over a recent diplomatic incident. I give very little credence to this scenario.

I do not know if arson or politics were involved. But I do know that every year, fires are started everywhere in Greece by drivers throwing lit cigarette butts out their car window. I have witnessed this happening, and I have also witnessed the aftermath.

I have also heard many voices blaming the state, and its lack of preparedness. Normally, I am one of the harshest critics, as this blog attests. However, I can also state that this terrain is simply very difficult, if not impossible, to protect against fire. Both streets and lots are literally covered with pine trees. The lots and streets are small, and narrow, so it is very easy for fire to leap from tree to tree, which it does with alarming speed.

Together with the high smoke, the wind speed and the wind direction change, I am not sure any fire brigade could have coped with this event. And unless residents were prepared to cut down pine trees (which are cherished for their shade), I don’t see how effective fire breaks could have been prepared, absent razing built up areas to create 30- or 50-meter wide fire breaks.

While we could take further measures to mitigate the risks of fires of this kind, we should be under no illusions as to the social cost and cohesion needed to do so. Even Japan, which has invested hundreds of billions in disaster preparedness, has not been able to perfectly plan for every disaster. And Greece is far from being Japan in terms of social and government planning. 

There is aerial footage of the burnt areas here:

http://www.iefimerida.gr/news/432976/skiniko-apokalypsis-sygklonistika-vinteo-apo-elikoptero-apotyponoyn-tin-tragodia-apo-ti

The death toll currently ranks at above 50, while many media are claiming above 60. It is a human tragedy which is incomprehensible in our current times. It is a tragedy which sadly occurs every summer, though not in these numbers. The last time the toll was so high was in 2007.

I would like to respectfully suggest that we resist the natural impulse to rage at unknown figures, or the state, or engage in conspiracy theories until further information comes to light.

In the meantime, the Hellenic Red Cross is collecting donations for the survivors. I hope you will join me in making a donation to them.

http://www.redcross.gr/default.asp?pid=40&la=1&artId=1231

© Philip Ammerman, 2018

Unelecting Trump, or the Dark Course of American Democracy

Sometime in late October, I mentioned in a conversation on Facebook that one main concern I had about Donald Trump is that it would be impossible to unelect him. His authoritarian tendencies, which have also been exhibited by the Republican Party in the past 16 years, mean that the rules would be changed to such an extent as to return either the same candidate or his surrogate to power for a long time to come.

How would this be possible? Anyone controlling the Presidency, the Congress and soon the Supreme Court has extraordinary power to influence elections, even though voting is a state responsibility.

Here is a simple catalogue of the alarming trends that are occurring:

1. Voter Suppression

Voter suppression is a strategy to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing people from voting. (Wikipedia)

Voter suppression has been actively used in key battleground states like Florida (famously in the 1999/2000 vote recount) and Ohio. A complete list of voter suppression techniques seen in the United States can be found on Wikipedia.

The Center for American Progress has a detailed list of actual cases of what it claims are voter suppression in a well-documented article here. Together with the fact that over 6 million convicted felons cannot vote, it is clear that a significant number of the American people are systematically being deprived of their right to vote.

Donald Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the electoral result, stating that he won by “millions of votes”, and suggesting that voter fraud is the reason he lost the popular vote despite all evidence to the contrary (to date). Given this approach, it is easy to understand how a Trump Administration will choose to ignore further activities in voter suppression in key states.

2. Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the process by which a state sets its voting district boundaries in order to achieve a disproportionate political result for certain groups. Several states in the US have extremely complex voting districts which have been defined as a result of partisan gerrymandering.

For more information on this, please see:

• The Guardian article on North Carolina’s 12^th Congressional District 
• Washington Post article on what US voting districts might look like without gerrymandering
• Harvard Political Review brief on gerrymandering

Partisan gerrymandering is illegal according to both the US Constitution and subsequent US law. As Wikipedia notes:

Various constitutional and statutory provisions may compel a court to strike down a gerrymandered redistricting plan. At the federal level, the Supreme Court has held that if a jurisdiction’s redistricting plan violates the Equal Protection Clause or Voting Rights Act of 1965, a federal court must order the jurisdiction to propose a new redistricting plan that remedies the gerrymandering. If the jurisdiction fails to propose a new redistricting plan, or its proposed redistricting plan continues to violate the law, then the court itself must draw a redistricting plan that cures the violation and use its equitable powers to impose the plan on the jurisdiction

How would a Trump Administration enhance gerrymandering? Three ways:

a.    By packing the Supreme Court

b.    By weakening the Voting Rights Act of 1965, for instance by creating for intrusive needs for voter registration and reducing the franchise

c.     By refusing to actively enforce these acts through the Attorney General’s office.

Jeff Sessions, who was recently confirmed as Attorney General, has already been rejected by a Senate confirmation panel in 1986 due to allegations of voter intimidation of blacks in Alabama. Mr. Session was, at that time, being nominated as a federal judge.

It is sadly notable that conduct that condemned Mr. Sessions in 1986, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, is considered acceptable in the Senate during Donald Trump’s first term.

3. Fake News / Terrorism

Donald Trump has, both during his campaign but also as President, repeatedly trumpeted fake news, and has conflated or wrongly attributed incidents of terrorism.

The list of fake news is now too long to catalogue, but several parties have made valiant attempts. Here are some:

• The New York Times inventories some of the fake news spread by Donald Trump since 2011.
• CNBC focuses on fake news during the 2016 election
• Buzzfeed reporting on hundreds of pro-Trump websites managed from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
• Kellyanne Conway recently referred to a non-existent “massacre”, the Bowling Green Massacre, to justify the travel ban on refugees and citizens of 7 foreign countries

Why does this matter? Donald Trump has now normalised the fact that he spreads fake news. Prior to his inauguration, this was considered acceptable by the people who voted for him. He is now President of the United States, and it is clear that fake news is not going to go away anytime soon.

How will fake news affect future elections?

a.    It will be spread not only by the usual ecosystem of political surrogates and trollers, but increasingly by elected officials. This is already occurring.

b.    The virulence of attacks on people for refusing to believe in fake news is now at an all-time high. Note the language of Donald Trump’s recent twitter attacks on John McCain over the Yemen raid.

c.     It will increasingly conflate anti-terrorism with patriotism and with supporting Republic candidates. This is an old script, first pioneered by George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks, and repeatedly enhanced since by the Republican party.

4. The Family Business

Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest are increasingly well-documented. He remains involved in the Donald Trump Organisation, and has assigned management of this to his two sons.

The Trump organisation has hundreds of business relationships with both foreign countries and with key lenders such as Deutsche Bank, that the US government is currently involved with in regulation.

His daughter Ivanka, who has her own business interests, remains an advisor, as does his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Trump organisation has announced plans to expand nationally.

Trump’s past record of work in dealing with complex property development codes and requirements in New York, as well as his record of strategic bankruptcies and non-payment of suppliers indicate that he knows how to use the public sector.

USA Today has counted 4,095 lawsuits against Donald Trump over the past 30 years. How will a US District or Federal Court rule in a case where the ultimate defendant is a sitting President?

It is apparent that the incentives for using the Presidency to expand the personal wealth of Donald Trump and his family members are fully aligned.

5. The 1930s Playbook

Nearly every aspect of Trump’s business policy as expressed today could have been taken from a 1930’s authoritarian playbook:

• Condemn US companies for “moving jobs abroad”
• Condemn free trade, when recognising that more American jobs will be lost by pulling out of key trade agreements such as NAFTA, particularly in key US sectors such as automotive assembly and agricultural exports
• Threaten successful foreign exporters, such as BMW, with a 35% tariff, while refusing to recognise that Germany can retaliate with the same tariff
• Ignore the tremendous inequality in the US tax system and household earnings by promising yet more tax cuts for the very wealthy
• Appoint ideological members of Cabinet who are intent on sabotaging and destroying the very entities they have been appointed to lead
• Condemn the press for “fake news” and “fake polls”
• Condemn specific companies for failing to carry Ivanka Trump’s clothing line
• Create an unspecified foreign enemy (all refugees, all Muslims, all Chinese, all Mexicans) and promise a grateful and impoverished nation protection and strength.

The list is long, and will no doubt continue to grow in the next few years.

6. Draining the Swamp and Lobbying

The United States government is the largest financial organisation in the world. It is also the world’s largest single debtor (at the Federal level) and the largest absolute debtor when combining the Federal Government, 50 State governments, municipalities, the Federal Reserve, and organisations such as Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.

The incentives of doing business with the US Government, as well as seeking regulatory abatement from it, are simply too high to counteract. Donald Trump is a billionaire who is appointing a Cabinet of billionaires. Does anyone really believe that the business interests that gain so much from the government will suddenly change their course?

If anything, they will be emboldened. This pattern has been repeated throughout history.

Why?

The question is really why this is being done. The Republicans control all three branches of government: Executive, Legislative, Judicial (at least embodied in the Supreme Court). This sets the stage for a period of time in which they will be able to implement their policy agenda, subject to the limit where internal Republican conflicts interfere with the process.

Given where things stand now, I increasingly believe that protecting and extending political power is as important as policy making for this Party. We see this in the patterns of gerrymandering and voter suppression in Republican-controlled states.

We also know what happened when the Democrats lost the House in the first mid-term elections in 2010 the Senate in 2014.

We see no hope of a rational policy debate or voting system in the United States, and we see growing corporate interests and other special interests influencing policy and voting results.

We see that these interests flourish regardless of the political party in power.

As a result, I am increasingly pessimistic as to whether the United States can ever unelect Donald Trump, or someone like him.

As I have written in another post, the United States resembles to me the Roman Republic in its final days. We have just elected our man on a horse. Such men never go quietly.

© Philip Ammerman, 2017

Hillary Clinton and the Optics of Decline

Hillary Clinton. Photo (c) Politico, AP Images

In terms of optics, the past few days have signaled a downturn for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This downturn reflects many of the symptoms of the political class. And unfortunately, it signals yet another reason why the United States faces incredible challenges in the near future.

Clinton’s Basket of Deplorables

At a campaign fundraiser on Friday, 9 September, she made the following comment (quote from CNN):

"To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables," Clinton said. "Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it."

She added: "And unfortunately, there are people like that and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric."

However true this may be (or appear to be), it is an unfortunate thing to say. Right up there with Mitt Romny’s 47% comment. Also made at a fundraising speech. 

It is important to remember that Trump and his surrogates have been encouraging supporters to “lock her up” and, in some cases, to execute her. I haven’t seen an equivalent apology from Donald Trump about this, even though the chants take place at his rallies, at his prompting.

The next event came yesterday, at a 9/11 memorial service. Attempting to enter her van, she appeared to stumble and fall. This will lend further credence to Republican attacks on her that she has an undiagnosed illness and is not fit for office.

The last thing a presidential candidate should do is appear weak. The second-to-last-thing a candidate should to is insult the voters of the other side.

Yet this is what is happening on a daily basis in this electoral campaign. It frames the terms of the debate. It establishes perception, which may be far removed from any facts.

Elections are Perception. They Distort Reality. Then they Define It.

Events like this begin to frame a larger narrative. It’s clear that the political class in most western countries today has several common features:

·       Elections are fought on perception, not fact;

·       Average voters appear to suspend any form of critical thinking or historical memory, and accept political lies;

·       The political class apparently feels empowered to say one thing in smaller, campaign fundraising events, and another thing in public;

·       I have yet to see any politician or political party offer a comprehensive policy analysis and means-tested solution to the very real problems of flagging productivity, declining competitiveness, demographic decline, fiscal distortion and other critical issues.

Unfortunately, this trend has now spread to the largest economy in the world (in real terms). It has long been there, but the Trump-Clinton election marks a watershed of political failure that will define the new normal for generations to come. 

United States Exceptionalism

The United States is, once again, an exception. But not in a positive way. In many respects, it appears to be a frontrunner of political and economic decline among developed nations. It is not unique in this.

The public debt situation in the United States is deliberately concealed, with Federal debt reported, with very real and tangible debts of key governmental organisations (Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac), state and local government and mandatory unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) on the books, but not reported in a consolidated format. This is a widely-known and accepted fiction, which cannot continue without high and unsustainable costs.

Federal spending is only being kept low through artificially low interest rates (ZIRP), which reduce interest expenditure, and through non-consolidation of total public debt.

In fiscal year 2015, the US Federal government spent $ 402 billion in interest. In FY 2016, October – August, it has already spent $ 413 billion.

This high interest expenditure takes place in an era of low interest rates, with FY 2016 year-to-date effective interest rates at 2.237% (in August 2016), lower than the 2.337% YTD figure from 2015.

If anyone is still wondering why the Fed is delaying raising interest rates, this is probably the answer.

Federal budgeting is a disaster, with billions of dollars in expenditure unaccounted for, and trillions recorded by accounting stopgaps.

Economic inequality is now at historic levels. 90% of US households earned $ 33,068 or less per year in 2014. Most working families on minimum wage (or even 50-75% above minimum wage) are essentially wage slaves, unable to meet basic demands.

The Affordable Healthcare Act has removed any semblance of price discipline on suppliers through collective bargaining—due mainly to Republican and Democratic resistance to a single payer system. US basic healthcare remains among the most expensive in the world, for some of the poorest health outcomes on record. The very fiscal prudence that Republicans espouse for the private sector is ignored in the public sector, mainly due to lobbying. The pernicious effects of this are all too obvious.

The US is possibly the only country where key law enforcement (sheriffs) and justice officials (judges) are elected this widely. Where they must collect campaign contributions to win an election. And where they must then sit in a regulatory or enforcement position on the very people who paid to elect them.

US GDP and employment figures are distorted (favourably) by 2-3 key sectors. These distortions extend into tax revenue and policy. A further distortion is seen in the role of the US dollar as a global currency, and in US Treasuries as a reserve of value.

US political campaign finance is a recipe for undue influence and corruption. This is possibly the one area that Republicans and Democrats agree on. Yet this is the one area where neither side can afford to yield in what amounts to a financial arms race.

There is a general political inability to craft sustainable and rational policy responses to key sectors such as public finance, the overall financial sector, electoral reform (at state and federal levels), justice, gun control and registration, healthcare spending, education, manufacturing and trade policy, and immigration. In the absence of meaningful reform, costs rise and competitiveness declines.

Informed observers must look beyond the latest scandalous comment made by Trump or Clinton, to the abject politicization of elected officials and electoral systems from the local level all the way up to the Presidency.

They must look beyond the latest unicorn listing or the next $ 500 billion enterprise valuation to the vast number of companies that fail in the United States every year. Not just in the tech sector—in every sector.

The United States has some of the most unique strengths and advantages in the world. It has made incredible contributions in every sector. It is the oldest functioning, continuous democracy and remains a country where innovation and entrepreneurship thrive despite increasingly expensive mandatory costs and distortions: primarily healthcare and legal.

Unfortunately, none of these positive attributes appear to be reflected in the political system. And politics is, arguably, destroying them.

I am hoping, perhaps against all hope, that the political system will miraculously find a way to stop the decline. But I see few indications of this, and certainly none that are ticking away as fast as the consolidated debt clock.

As mentioned at the start: the US is a frontrunner, but it is not unique. The same trends are clear in nearly every other industrialised democracy in the world today.

The question is not why the metaphorical train wreck will happen. The question is when.

© Philip Ammerman, 2016