January 7, 2011

China’s Rise & The New Multipolar World

by Editors @ 7:22 pm. Filed under China, Economy, Globalization

Think Again: American Decline

This time it's for real.

BY GIDEON RACHMAN

ForeignPolicy.com

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

"We've Heard All This About American Decline Before."

This time it's different. It's certainly true that America has been through cycles of declinism in the past. Campaigning for the presidency in 1960, John F. Kennedy complained, "American strength relative to that of the Soviet Union has been slipping, and communism has been advancing steadily in every area of the world." Ezra Vogel's Japan as Number One was published in 1979, heralding a decade of steadily rising paranoia about Japanese manufacturing techniques and trade policies.

In the end, of course, the Soviet and Japanese threats to American supremacy proved chimerical. So Americans can be forgiven if they greet talk of a new challenge from China as just another case of the boy who cried wolf. But a frequently overlooked fact about that fable is that the boy was eventually proved right. The wolf did arrive -- and China is the wolf.

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January 1, 2011

Solidarity Economy Growing in Japan

by Editors @ 7:08 am. Filed under Economic Democracy, Japan, Solidarity Economy

Japan’s Lost Decades and a

Women-led Socio-Solidarity Economy

Yoko Kitazawa at ASEF II Tokyo November 2009

By Yoko Kitazawa

Asian Alliance for Solidarity Economy

The Burst of the Economic Bubble Since the bursting in 1991 of the bubble economy, which was a product of real estate and stock price inflation, Japan has experienced what is known as the “two lost decades,” with zero or minus growth and price deflation.

Consumers have stopped buying commodities except food and daily necessities with minimum amounts. Luxury department stores have few customers except just before the summer and winter holidays when people exchange gifts. Thus most of them have gone to either just bankrupt or merger with each other. In addition, small-scale shops have closed and nearly all the shopping districts have become shuttered streets with nobody wandering in the towns.

Small and medium-sized manufacturing factories, which were once a source of Japan’s economic vitality and technological innovation, have gone bankrupt. They acted as subsidiaries for the big corporations, and were forced to close when the big corporations scaled down their production

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December 31, 2010

China Cites Toffler in New Year Message

by Editors @ 9:17 pm. Filed under China, High Road Economics

 

2010 Ends with Immense Opportunities

for both China and the World

China's leading and most influential national newspaper, the People's Daily, on Friday carries on its third page a lengthy signed article signed by Guo Jiping on immense development opportunities that have been provided for both China and the world. Its excerpts are read as follows:

With new, qualitative changes accumulated in China's relations with the outside world in the outgoing 2010, the nation's development has become a supportive prop of vital importance in the contemporary era.

Economic recovery in developed countries is slow overall in the outgoing year, and China's domestic growth product (GDP) for 2010 is around 20 percent of world economic growth. Moreover, the nation's active participation in global economic governance and international economic policy coordination has promoted the enhancement of the representation of developing nations in the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

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December 28, 2010

Note to Obama: Why Green Industrial Policy Works, Why Neoliberalism Doesn’t

by Editors @ 9:42 am. Filed under Economy, Green Energy, High Road Economics

Photo; Trina Solar in China

China’s Trina Solar Launches $800 million

Expansion, as US SpectraWatt Sputters

Dec 28, 2010 - Reuters

Days after solar cell maker SpectraWatt notified New York authorities that it will shut down its seven-month-old factory and lay off 117 employees, China’s Trina Solar announced Monday that it will invest $800 million in new manufacturing plants over the next three years.

The move by Trina underscores just how difficult it has become for solar startups in the United States to compete against the massive investment being poured into Chinese photovoltaic module makers.

That’s particularly the case for startups making conventional silicon photovoltaic cells such as SpectraWatt, which was spun out of Intel in 2008 with an initial $50 million investment lead by the chip giant’s venture capital arm, Goldman Sachs and other investors.

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December 23, 2010

Plus for Obama: Solar Power in Nevada Takes a Step Forward for Green Jobs, Clean Energy

by Editors @ 8:03 am. Filed under Environment, Green Energy, High Road Economics

Solar-Power Project Closer to

Construction in Nevada's Nye County

By JENNIFER ROBISON
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

via SolidarityEconomy.net

Dec 21, 2010 - A big solar-power project in Nye County moved a step closer to construction Monday.

Power developer SolarReserve said the federal Bureau of Land Management has signed off on its Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project near Tonopah. The plant would generate 110 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 75,000 homes, and would use molten salt to store sun power overnight.

The company said the project will generate 450 building jobs during its construction, and 50 permanent operations and maintenance jobs once it's open. SolarReserve said it plans to break ground on the project in mid-2011.

NV Energy has signed a 25-year power-purchasing agreement to buy electricity from Crescent Dunes for 13.5 cents per kilowatt hour. State law requires the utility to buy 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025.

______________________

Crescent Dunes 110MW Solar Power Project

Wins Department of Interior Approval

Source: US Department of the Interior

Dec 21, 2010 - Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has approved the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, the ninth large-scale solar facility green-lighted as part of the administration’s initiative to encourage rapid and responsible development of renewable energy on U.S. public lands. The concentrated solar power plant will produce 110 megawatts, enough to provide electricity for up to 75,000 Nevada households, and generate about 450-500 new jobs during construction and up to 50 permanent operations and maintenance jobs.

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December 16, 2010

Taunton, Mass: Worker and Local Government Alliance vs Low-Road Capital

by Editors @ 7:00 am. Filed under Economic Democracy, Globalization, Organizing

UE and Taunton, Mass. Set Own Course

in Fight Against Job Outsourcing

By Roger Bybee
SolidarityEconomy.net via ZNet

Dec. 14, 2010 - The American economy increasingly functions like a high-tech machine that efficiently plunders money from the vast majority of citizens and shoots a jetstream of the cash upward into the bank accounts of the richest 1%. At the same instant, it sends family-supporting jobs zooming off to Mexico, China, India and other low-wage sites.

The Republican landslide, enabled by a weak job-creation strategy coming from the White House, might lead you to think that a majority buys into the notion of letting the economic machine run on, continuing to chew up lives and communities.

However, a growing number of restless and desperate Americans in places like Taunton, Mass., a factory town of 50,000 hard-hit by unemployment, are showing that they understand how disastrously the machine works for them.

They increasingly realize that they must fight to save every endangered job and do battle to preserve decent pay, benefits and union representation.

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December 13, 2010

Why Profit Must Not Rule Dept: ‘Eco-Accidents’ Done By Design

by Editors @ 11:45 am. Filed under Environment

 

EPA Document Shows It Knowingly

Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees

 

honey bee collection

By Ariel Schwartz

Solidarityeconomy.net via Fast Company

The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and farmers who know how critical bee pollination is for many crops. A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists.

The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a pesticide produced by Bayer that mainly is used to pre-treat corn seeds. The pesticide scooped up $262 million in sales in 2009 by farmers, who also use the substance on canola, soy, sugar beets, sunflowers, and wheat, according to Grist [1].

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December 6, 2010

AutoTram: Urban Transport Worth Fighting For

by Editors @ 8:34 am. Filed under Environment, Green Industry

 

AutoTram Combines a Bus and a Tram to Get the Best of Both Worlds

The AutoTram research platform for testing new components and systems for use in the elect...

By Darren Quick

SolidarityEconomy.net via GizMag.com

The AutoTram research platform for testing new components and systems for use in the electromobile vehicles of tomorrow (Image: Fraunhofer IVI)

As part of its research into the public transport of tomorrow, researchers at Fraunhofer have developed the AutoTram – a vehicle as long as a streetcar and as agile as a bus. Combining the best of both vehicles it has no need for rails or overhead contact lines, instead the “bustrolley” rolls on rubber tires and follows a simple white line on the road surface. It was constructed to serve as a research platform in the institute’s “Fraunhofer System Research on Electric-Powered Mobility” project – a large-scale research cooperative involving 33 Fraunhofer institutes that focuses on developing mobility solutions for the future.

The project is broken down into four areas of focus: Vehicle concepts; energy generation, distribution and conversion; energy storage technology; and technical system integration and social issues. The AutoTram was first mooted several years ago and was built to provide a platform for the researchers to test new developments in these areas, not only in simulations but in the real world. New modules for energy storage, double-layer capacitors and coupling coming directly from the Fraunhofer research laboratories are installed in the vehicle to allow them to prove their capabilities in the field. They have now presented their first results.

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December 5, 2010

China’s Strategic Framing of Global Ecology and Sustainable Growth

by Editors @ 9:39 pm. Filed under China, Green Industry, Socialism

 

While delivered nearly a decade ago, this speech by Zhu Rongji holds up rather well. Zhu was Premier of the State Council of The People's Republic of China, and spoke at the Round Table of World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, August 26-Sept 4, 2002

 
Mr. Chairman, today I am delighted to be with you here to discuss issues relating to global sustainable development.  The speeches of previous speakers were full of wisdom and most enlightening.  The question of how to implement the plan of action of this summit and to honor our commitments in real earnest bears not only directly on the success of the summit, but even more on the future of human society.


As the world's largest developing country in terms of population and land area, China attaches great importance to sustainable development.  In handling the relations between economic development and population, resources and environment, we have learned the following from experience:


----Emphasis on harmony between economic development and resource and environmental protection.  The primary task of developing countries is to develop the economy and eradicate poverty.  Without economic growth, there would be no material basis for a better life or better environment for the people.  But economic growth must not be achieved at the cost of environment or resources.  In the absence of proper resource and environmental protection, there could be no sustainable economic development.

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December 3, 2010

Clean Energy Answer Is Blowin’ in the Wind

by Editors @ 7:03 am. Filed under Environment, Green Energy

Offshore wind turbines in the Thames Estuary (Image: phault via Flickr)

Offshore wind turbines in the Thames Estuary (Image: phault via Flickr)

Spain’s Azimut Project Developing

World’s Largest Capacity Wind Turbine

By Darren Quick

SolidarityEconomy.net via Gizmag

Dec. 2, 2010 - Currently, the world’s largest capacity wind turbine is the Enercon E-126, which has a rated capacity of 7.58 MW. It has held that honor since its introduction in 2007, but is under threat of losing the title with a number of 10 MW turbines currently in development – including what was destined to be the world’s biggest wind turbine to be built in Norway. Now a Spanish project has upped the ante with its aim of building an offshore wind turbine with a capacity of 15 MW.

The Azimut project will see eleven Spanish companies and no less than 22 research centers joining forces with the aim of generating the know-how required to develop a large-scale marine wind turbine using 100 percent Spanish technology. This includes overcoming the challenges of constructing offshore wind turbine foundations, energy delivery to land, and narrowing the gap between the cost of offshore and onshore wind energy sites.

If these hurdles can be addressed, the plan is to then construct a large-scale offshore wind turbine with a capacity of 15 MW by 2020. The initial stage of the project, which is set to wind up in 2013, will cost 25 million euro (over US$33 million) over the four years.



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November 30, 2010

UE Workers Want to Takeover Gasket Plant

by Editors @ 5:49 pm. Filed under Economic Democracy, Labor Movement

Boston-Area Union Will Block

Factory Auction to Save Jobs

By Jane Slaughter
solidarityeconomy.net

via Labor Notes

Nov. 29, 2010 - In a move to save factory jobs that evokes shades of the ’30s, the United Electrical Workers [1] are asking supporters to block a December 14 auction of presses and equipment from a plant south of Boston. The UE is calling for mass picketing and blockading of entrances to the 80-year-old plant if necessary.

Esterline Technologies Corp. of Bellevue, Washington, has refused to hold off on selling the equipment till another buyer can be found. The union’s request to buy the closed plant, which would create an employee-owned factory, has been ignored.

“They told us a year ago they did not want the presses or equipment,” said UE Local 204 President Scott Marques. “But they would rather junk them than sell them to us.”

The plant makes crucial door-seals and silicone gaskets for aircraft. Esterline is consolidating operations in Southern California and in Mexico.

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November 25, 2010

Why We Need Growth In High Design: Two Articles on ‘Plastisoil’ and Solar Breakthroughs

by Editors @ 7:45 am. Filed under Green Energy, High Road Economics

'Plastisoil' could mean cleaner

rivers and less plastic waste

By Ben Coxworth

SolidarityEconomy.net

via Gizmag.com, Nov 21, 2010

With traditional concrete and asphalt paving, rainwater stays on the surface and runs into the storm sewers, accumulating oil and other road filth along the way. With pervious surfaces such as Plastisoil, that water is able to go down through them, and into the soil below. This certainly reduces the amount of pollutants entering the rivers, although Khoury and his team at Temple are currently trying to determine if Plastisoil could even serve as a filter, that removed pollutants as the water filtered through.

Khoury said that it uses less energy to produce one ton of Plastisoil than one ton of cement or asphalt, and that it’s less expensive to manufacture than similar products. It takes 30,000 PET bottles to make one ton of the material, although he is hoping to be able to use other types of plastic in the future.

Boeing to mass-produce

record-breaking 39.2

percent efficiency solar cell

By Darren Quick

SolidarityEconomy.net

via Gizmag.com, Nov. 24, 2010

Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab has announced it will mass-produce a 39.2 percent efficiency solar cell

When it comes to solar cells, everyone is chasing the highest conversion efficiency. Although we’ve seen conversion efficiencies of over 40 percent achieved with multi-junction solar cells in lab environments, Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab is bringing this kind of efficiency to mass production with the announcement of its C3MJ+ solar cells which boast an average conversion efficiency of 39.2 percent.

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November 15, 2010

Growing Influence of the Mondragon Coops in the US

by Editors @ 10:15 am. Filed under Economic Democracy, High Road Economics, Solidarity Economy

 

Worker-Owners in the Bay Area: A Business Model for the 21st Century

By Georgia Kelly

Solidarity Economy.net
via HuffPost

A few years ago, when former CA state legislator Tom Hayden suggested that Northern California should apply for observer status with the European Union, it was understood that our region had more in common with Europe than much of the rest of America. Widely recognized for its progressive politics, the Bay Area is also home to the largest number of worker-owned businesses in the country.

Though they receive little to no press, these models for 21st century business are still below the radar. Perhaps they are not dramatic enough (they are successful) or corrupt enough (no one is suing anyone), or exploitative enough (all worker-owners earn a living wage).

Inspired by the Mondragón Cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain, many of these local businesses have flourished for years and have developed a template that works in the US.

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November 13, 2010

Why Worker Factory Takeovers Are Good for Us

by Editors @ 6:52 am. Filed under Economic Democracy, Labor Movement, Socialism

Worker-Run Factories in Argentina Continue to Thrive,

Boosting the Economy and Influencing Workers in Other Countries


By Marcela Valente

SolidarityEconomy.net

viaIPS News, Nov. 12, 2010

After the late 2001 financial and political meltdown in Argentina, thousands of companies were abandoned by their owners in a sea of debt. But some of them were taken over and reopened by their employees. Today, as the economy continues to grow, these worker-run factories are still going strong.

There are now 205 "recovered" companies, with a total of 9,362 workers -- up from 161 companies with 6,900 workers in 2004, according to a study published in October.

"How has a phenomenon that emerged as a kind of life raft after the 2001 economic collapse grown rather than faded away during a period of economic boom?" asks the lead author of the study, Andrés Ruggeri.

"The workers learned that running a company by themselves is a viable alternative, to keep a company operating," he tells IPS. "That was unthinkable before."

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November 10, 2010

High Design Redux: Buckminster Fuller’s Auto Resurrected

by Editors @ 4:35 pm. Filed under Environment, Green Industry

Norman Foster rebuilds Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion car

The last remaining original Dymaxion (Photo: National Automobile Museum, Reno, Nevada)
By Tannith Cattermole
Gizmag.com

Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion car was never meant to be a car. Looking like something between a Zeppelin and a VW camper van it was intended to fly, but sadly only three of these concept vehicles were ever built after tragedy struck. Now, as part of a Madrid retrospective on Bucky Fuller's work, Norman Foster, Fuller's collaborator for twelve years, has rebuilt his hero's Dymaxion car.

Richard Buckminster ‘Bucky’ Fuller was born July 12th 1895 in Milton Massachusetts. A natural mechanic, he was sent to Milton Academy, and later Harvard from where he was expelled twice; once for spending all his money partying, and again for his “irresponsibility and lack of interest”. By 32 years he was bankrupt and unemployed and drinking regularly in order to remedy the pain of losing his youngest daughter to polio and spinal meningitis. He was finally moved from depression by a suicidal vision and embarked upon “an experiment, to find what a single individual [could] contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity.” He would become an early green environmentalist and futurist, engineer, prophetic visionary, poet and author, architect and designer, mathematician, map-maker and teacher.

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