• „the number of specialists has fallen by 90% since the 1950s, and at least 40% in the last decade alone“
• „supermarkets […] now sell 97% of our food, with four chains accounting for 76%“

Research is cited showing that „after the arrival of a big supermarket, participation in local charities, churches, campaign groups and even voting declines sharply“.

The more immediate effects are a diminishing choice of products, especially in the „real“ sense of things like local varieties of produce as opposed to different toilet paper colors.

Together with pressure on producers (called monopsony in the article) the dominance of big chains means a monopolization of business. As the „Red Tories“, a conservative UK thinktank finds, the grocery sector is largely closed to to new entrants.

This problem seems to me apparent in all sorts of industries and areas of business — the free market naturally leads to bigger and bigger agglomeration both in terms of huge companies and geographical specialization (e.g. 90%+ of footballs (for soccer) produced in Pakistan, similar number of laptops assembled in China, …), indeed reminiscent of the worst days of Soviet planned economy and similarly damaging to the environment and vulnerable to changes in demand or geopolitical events.

The question that frequently comes to my mind when I read this kind of thing is: we like to think of the free market in analogy to evolution. But while we can observe stunning diversity in nature, we have the opposite development in economy. I think on simple but probably central answer is: Nature has very powerful negative feedback in the form of parasites, whose role for evolution is I think widely underrated at least among non-professionals (non-biologists). With increasing population and dominance of a species in a certain area come dramatic increases in vulnerability to predation and especially parasites maintaining the balance, while business almost only knows size benefits.

Would it help to try and implement something similar for businesses? Some sort of progressive business taxation? Should antitrust regulation be stronger and act earlier? Or is centralizing business the way after all, but in public ownership?

In Nigeria, a relatively economically strong country, the GDP [gross domestic product] is $99 billion. The net worth of Exxon is $119 billion. “When multinationals have a net worth higher than the GDP of the country in which they operate, what kind of power relationship are we talking about?” asks Laura Morosini.

What is the most egregious fault in the comparison between Exxon and Nigeria?

The compelling solution:

The mistake lies in comparing incomparable quantities. Net worth is an amount: It has dimensions of money and is typically measured in units of dollars. GDP, however, is a flow or rate: It has dimensions of money per time and typical units of dollars per year. (A dimension is general and independent of the system of measurement, whereas the unit is how that dimension is measured in a particular system.) Comparing net worth to GDP compares a monetary amount to a monetary flow. Because their dimensions differ, the comparison is a category mistake and is therefore guaranteed to generate nonsense.

So where does this leave one of the central tenets of the anti-globalization movement?

I often see comparisons of corporate and national power similar to our Nigeria–Exxon example. I once wrote to one author explaining that I sympathized with his conclusion but that his argument contained a fatal dimensional mistake. He replied that I had made an interesting point but that the numerical comparison showing the country’s weakness was stronger as he had written it, so he was leaving it unchanged!

A dimensionally valid comparison would compare like with like: either Nigeria’s GDP with Exxon’s revenues, or Exxon’s net worth with Nigeria’s net worth. Because net worths of countries are not often tabulated, whereas corporate revenues are widely available, try comparing Exxon’s annual revenues with Nigeria’s GDP. By 2006, Exxon had become Exxon Mobil with annual revenues of roughly $350 billion—almost twice Nigeria’s 2006 GDP of $200 billion. This valid comparison is stronger than the flawed one, so retaining the flawed comparison was not even expedient!

It is only surprising at first glance that Exxons „money flow“ would be a good deal higher than the value of it’s (material and immaterial) assets, and I do think that the comparison is scary and should get us thinking about corporate power.

A lot of the rest of the book is made up of maths that is more likely to come up in the „everyday life“ of an engineer or economist than mine, but I very much appreciate the general approach. I think it is much better to deal with methods that make you conscious of their imperfections than ones that give the illusion of absolute mathematical certainty, especially when the maths itself can at best be based on imperfect numbers.

A NYTimes article points to an example comparing the appearance of „men“ and „women“ and supposedly showing a „feminism bump“ in the 1970s. The German newspaper ZEIT twittered a history of nuclear energy and the nuclear waste debate.

Of course, this entry of an abundance of numbers into classical research domains of the humanities is controversial, as the NYTimes reports. The founders are aiming high:

“The goal is to give an 8-year-old the ability to browse cultural trends throughout history, as recorded in books,” said Erez Lieberman Aiden, a junior fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard. Mr. Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, assembled the data set with Google and spearheaded a research project to demonstrate how vast digital databases can transform our understanding of language, culture and the flow of ideas.

Their study, to be published in the journal Science on Friday, offers a tantalizing taste of the rich buffet of research opportunities now open to literature, history and other liberal arts professors who may have previously avoided quantitative analysis. Science is taking the unusual step of making the paper available online to nonsubscribers.

But there are also skeptical and critical voices:

Reactions from humanities scholars who quickly reviewed the article were more muted. “In general it’s a great thing to have,” Louis Menand, an English professor at Harvard, said, particularly for linguists. But he warned that in the realm of cultural history, “obviously some of the claims are a little exaggerated.” He was also troubled that, among the paper’s 13 named authors, there was not a single humanist involved.

“There’s not even a historian of the book connected to the project,” Mr. Menand noted.

Ultimately, the debate leads to the old divide in research methods, between quantitative and qualitative positions. Which the authors try to reconcile a bit:

Aware of concerns raised by humanists that the essence of their art is a search for meaning, Mr. Michel and Mr. Lieberman Aiden emphasized that culturomics simply provided information. Interpretation remains essential.

“I don’t want humanists to accept any specific claims — we’re just throwing a lot of interesting pieces on the table,” Mr. Lieberman Aiden said. “The question is: Are you willing to examine this data?”

I’m curious what will come out of this!

“Everybody knows somebody where at the end of the day, the divorce was not equitable,” she said. “We want to help those people, the underdog, to make sure they get their fair share.” [Stacey Napp, founder of Balance Point]

Das Unternehmen hat sie nach ihrer eigenen Scheidung gegründet. Und dazu passt auch das Profil der „Kund_innen“:

Her customers fall into a pattern. They are women. They generally do not have jobs. They often are raising small children. And their husbands run their own businesses, making it tough to obtain financial information.

Das Kundenspektrum bietet auch einen Blick in den Grenznutzen von Geld, wenn man so möchte:

The company wants to focus on people with marital assets between $2 million and $15 million, a bracket Ms. Napp described as “the lower end of the high end.” She said that investing in smaller disputes was not worthwhile. Wealthier people, she said, seemed to resolve divorces more easily — perhaps because they still felt wealthy in the aftermath. “Anything south of $15 million, when you divide that in half and take out the legal fees, you’re not in the same house, you’re not taking the same trips — your life is different,” she said. “You can’t maintain that same quality of life that you’re used to.”

Zum Abschluss zwei Nebenschauplätze. Erstens: Wie steht es um die Rechtsstreit-Industrie insgesamt?

While this business is in its infancy, Balance Point is part of a bigger trend — the growing industry that invests in other people’s lawsuits, arming plaintiffs with money to help them win more money from defendants. Banks, hedge funds and boutique firms like Balance Point now have a total of $1 billion invested in lawsuits at any given time, industry participants estimate.

Lawsuit lenders initially focused on personal injury cases, but over time they have sought new frontiers, including securities fraud cases brought by disgruntled investors, whistleblower claims against corporations and property development disputes.

Zweitens: Warum ist ein solcher Unternehmenszweig für Scheidungen besonders wichtig?

Divorce cases may be a promising niche for lenders because costs can mount quickly — some top lawyers in Los Angeles charge more than $500 an hour — and because state laws uniformly require plaintiffs to pay lawyers upfront, rather than promising them a contingency fee, or a share of any winnings, as is common in other civil cases.

The state laws were written to make people think twice before pursuing a divorce.

The total figures:

Combining both traditional and outside money, Republicans have slightly outraised Democrats, $1.64 billion to $1.59 billion, but there is more to be tallied.

The historic record:

Nearly $4 billion is likely to be spent once the final figures are in, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, far more than in the 2006 midterms, which cost $2.85 billion. It could even eclipse the $4.14 billion spent in the 2004 presidential campaign.

Outside money, amounting to some 8% of the total:

In the 2006 midterms, outside groups not affiliated with political parties spent $51.6 million; so far this year, such groups have spent $280 million. About 60 percent of that spending is from undisclosed donors, most of which has benefited Republicans. Democratic candidates raised huge amounts, but the sources for most of it were disclosed.

Finally, an idea what that could do to politics (and to some degree even to public administration and the jurisdiction):

What is clear is that the new world of unlimited spending, both open and secret, confers huge benefits on wealthy individuals, corporations and unions. In a striking example, reported by ABC News last week, Terry Forcht, a prominent Kentucky banker and nursing home executive, helped pay for a series of attack ads against Attorney General Jack Conway, the Democratic Senate candidate. Mr. Conway is prosecuting one of Mr. Forcht’s nursing homes for allegedly covering up sexual abuse.

The whole thing does make me wonder what form the Return on Investment is taking here, especially for corporate donors, who can be assumed to be rational agents…

Ein NYTimes Op-Ed vom März beschäftigt sich mit Antibiotika-resistenten Bakterienstämmen. Zum einen ist das mal wieder eine Gesundheitsbedrohung, die all die gehypten Erreger in den Schatten stellt — z.B. sterben anscheinend jährlich 18.000 Amerikaner an MRSA, mehr als an AIDS.

Zur Entstehung des Problems tragen Ärzte bei, die zu leichtfertig Antibiotika verschreiben. Aber vor allem die Massentierhaltung:

A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that in the United States, 70 percent of antibiotics are used to feed healthy livestock, with 14 percent more used to treat sick livestock. Only about 16 percent are used to treat humans and their pets, the study found.

Die resistenten Erreger an Tieren stehen in regem Gentausch mit für Menschen gefährlichen Mikroben. Es wäre natürlich möglich, mindestens der präventiven Verwendung von Antibiotika in der Tierhaltung politisch einen Riegel vorzuschieben. Ein entsprechender Vorstoß in Amerika ist aber an den Lobbyisten gescheitert, und nicht mal die Obama-Regierung traut sich ran.

Zum Abschluss kann ich mir ein weiteres Zitat nicht verkneifen, weil es so schön weltuntergangsmäßig klingt:

“We are seeing infections caused by Acinetobacter and special bacteria called KPC Klebsiella that are literally resistant to every antibiotic that is F.D.A. approved,” Dr. Spellberg said. “These are untreatable infections. This is the first time since 1936, the year that sulfa hit the market in the U.S., that we have had this problem.”

The Infectious Diseases Society of America, an organization of doctors and scientists, has been bellowing alarms. It fears that we could slip back to a world in which we’re defenseless against bacterial diseases.

Da geht sie hin, die Illusion von einer sicheren Welt.

Das Erfreuliche ist dabei: Die radikale (vegane) Protestbewegung schafft es auf relativ positive Weise in die Presse. Und es gibt starke Gegenbewegungen auch aus der Mitte der lokalen Bürgerschaft. Ungünstige Vernetzungen in der Politik werden deutlich — der Mann der niedersächsischen Landwirtschaftsministerin besitzt Deutschlands zweitgrößte Putenbrüterei.

Alles in allem zeigt das für mich einen positiven Trend in Deutschland an. Und mindestens in Bezug auf Hühnerfleisch sieht es im internationalen Vergleich auch schon gut aus: 10,7 Kilo wurden 2009 im Durchschnitt verzehrt, der EU-Schnitt sind 17,1, in Brasilien und den USA (?!) sind es über 40 Kilo… Es gibt viel zu tun, aber es ist auch schon viel getan.

PS: Die subversive Seite der Berichterstattung kann man auf Blogsport verfolgen

Amartya Sen, the ebullient Nobel Prize-winning economist, developed a gauge of gender inequality that is a striking reminder of the stakes involved. “More than 100 million women are missing,” Sen wrote in a classic essay in 1990 in The New York Review of Books, spurring a new field of research. Sen noted that in normal circumstances, women live longer than men, and so there are more females than males in much of the world. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they vanish. China has 107 males for every 100 females in its overall population (and an even greater disproportion among newborns), and India has 108. The implication of the sex ratios, Sen later found, is that about 107 million females are missing from the globe today. Follow-up studies have calculated the number slightly differently, deriving alternative figures for “missing women” of between 60 million and 107 million.

Und ein Kommentar der Schwiegermutter über eine junge Frau, die mit Hilfe eines Mikrokredites zur Hauptverdienerin des Haushalts geworden ist:

Sharifa even allows that Saima is now largely exempt from beatings by her husband. “A woman should know her limits, and if not, then it’s her husband’s right to beat her,” Sharifa said. “But if a woman earns more than her husband, it’s difficult for him to discipline her.”

Und noch ein wenig Hintergrund, der den Fokus von Mikrokreditorganisationen auf Frauen erklärt:

WHY DO MICROFINANCE organizations usually focus their assistance on women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and bring home regular pay checks? One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.

Our interviews and perusal of the data available suggest that the poorest families in the world spend approximately 10 times as much (20 percent of their incomes on average) on a combination of alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children (2 percent). If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier.

Was ist falsch mit Männern? Schlechte Gene? Ich glaube, die Frauenbewegung braucht dringend eine ergänzende Männerbewegung, die uns einen konstruktiven Platz in der Welt aufzeigt. Wenn wir nicht in 50 Jahren die selben Probleme mit umgekehrten Vorzeichen haben wollen.

Diese Abbildung mit den OECD–Ländern zeigt, dass reichere Länder (weiter rechts auf der x-Achse) ein geringeres Wirtschaftswachstum (niedriger auf der y-Achse) haben. Und der Zusammenhang ist sehr deutlich! Das bedeutet, dass hier ärmere Länder am Aufholen sind, die Ungleichheit innerhalb der OECD langfristig abnimmt. (Der Zeitraum ist 1960 bis 97, die x-Achse entspricht der Situation 1960).

Leider ist die Situation global anders:

Hier sieht das ganze mehr nach einem Trichter aus. Das Wirtschaftswachstum der verhältnismäßig reichen Länder liegt in einem schmalen Bereich, bei den armen Ländern sind die Unterschiede viel größer. Für die meisten liegt das Wachstum allerdings gleichauf oder sogar unter dem der reicheren Länder.

Was sind die Konsequenzen, die hieraus für Weltwirtschaftsordnung, Entwicklungspolitik etc. gezogen werden müssen?

Statt dessen zitiere ich aus einem Artikel über den Kampf der amerikanischen Banken gegen eine ausgeweitete Privatinsolvenz, in dem einige interessante Mechanismen ausgeführt werden:

[…] the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act, was missing its centerpiece: a change in bankruptcy law […] that would have given judges the power to lower the amount owed on a home loan.

It had been stripped out three weeks earlier in a showdown between Senate Democrats and the nation’s banks, including many that are getting big government bailouts.

As Congressional Democrats and the White House crow about multiple victories over the financial industry, including new rules for credit card issuers, banks are quietly savoring an even bigger victory of their own.

Es geht mit Geld:

Within his own party, moderates were badly split. Some, like Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Senator Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, represent states that are the corporate home to major banks. The industry has showered both lawmakers with campaign cash.

Und politischem Druck in verschiedenen Richtungen, um die Lager zusammenzuhalten:

Mr. Durbin next sought a compromise with credit unions and three large banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. In April, at a delicate stage in the talks, Mr. Durbin gave the banks a proposed compromise that was marked not to be circulated, a senior Congressional aide involved in the talks recalled.

Within six minutes, the memo was distributed to the entire Republican caucus — along with a warning from Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, to stay away from it. The compromise went nowhere.

[…]

Senator Jon Kyl, the Arizona Republican leading the charge against the bankruptcy change, told bankers there would be consequences if they dealt with the Democrats. According to an April 20 e-mail message between industry officials in touch with Mr. Kyl, he told them “not to make a deal with Durbin and then come looking to Republicans when they need help on something like regulatory restructuring.”

Am schönsten sind natürlich persönliche Kontakte:

Moreover, Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, did not seem to share Mr. Obama’s enthusiasm for the bankruptcy change.

Mr. Geithner was lobbied by the industry early. Two days after he was sworn in, he invited Mr. Fine from the community bankers to his office for a private meeting. The association, with influential members in every Congressional district, is one of Washington’s most powerful trade groups.

Könnte ja alles ein Teil des normalen demokratischen Prozesses sein, alle Interessen organisieren sich, verschaffen sich Gehör, am Ende steht die beste Lösung. Naja:

There was no counterweight to that legislative muscle. Bankrupt homeowners do not have a political action committee or lobbyists.

Mr. Fine reports that the political action committees run by his association alone have built a war chest of nearly $2 million, a 40 percent jump over the last year, even though members have had to cut other expenses in the recession.

“The banks get it,” Mr. Fine said. “They understand you need a strong political action committee to get access to the fund-raisers. That’s where the lawmakers are.”

Wer dazu mehr Informationen möchte, kann sich übrigens die Seite des Center for Responsive Politics anschauen, wo viele der Geldströme und Lobbyausgaben nachgezeichnet werden. Wenn man sich etwa die Tabelle mit den Top Spendern in Lobbyausgaben 2008 anschaut, wird einem schwummrig: