EDITORIAL
Global Usury And Its
Consequences: America's Depression And China's Formidable Manufacturing Base
CHINESE SUPERCOMPUTER AND ITS
GESTALT
Released: 2 June, 2010.
© Macroknow Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The Cantos of Ezra Pound*
XLV
. . . With usura hath no man a house of
good stone . . .
with usura, sin against nature . . .
Stonecutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom . . .
Usura slayeth the child in the womb . . .
N.B. Usury: A charge for the use of purchasing power, levied without
regard to production; often without regard
to the possibilities of production. . .
L
. . . Debt when
the Medici took the throne was 5 million
And when they left was fourteen
And its interest ate up all the best income . . .
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THE NEBULAE EVENT
"A Chinese
supercomputer
[the Nebulae system] has ranked
as the world’s second fastest machine, surpassing European and Japanese
systems and underscoring
China’s aggressive commitment
to science and technology,"
so announced
the New York Times.1
This event cannot be taken in isolation. It is part of a
much bigger whole. A whole that gives the event its meaning. What is this
whole (or Gestalt2)? What is its meaning? For insight, we
need to
- Scope
the event from many perspectives,
- Identify
the players and their intentions, and
- Most
important, identify the unfolding global phenomenon which enframes the
event or in which the event inheres.
The event has been covered in the
press.1,3
The perspectives taken typically include:
- Ranking of
supercomputers by petaflops (the US Department of Energy's
"Jaguar" is top ranked
at 1.75 petaflops; the Chinese Nebulea is ranked second
at 1.271 petaflops).3
- Geopolitical distribution of
supercomputers (the US dominates the top 500 with 282
supercomputers, Europe with 144, China with 24, etc).3
Clearly, the event
itself –
the building of the Nebulae system
–
is part
of "China’s aggressive commitment to science and technology."1
Strong science and technology means more power
–
economic and military. But who are the players and what are their
intentions. The construction of the Nebulae
system involved Dawning, China's leader in
high-performance computing.4-5
It also involved components and
parts from several companies:
- Intel and Nvidia, two U.S. companies,
provided microprocessors.3
- Mellanox Technologies, an
Israeli-American company, provided connectivity products, including
adapters, switches, and
management software.4
Clearly, the intention of these
companies is commercial. In the Nebulae case, international trade
facilitated the acquisition by China of American and Israeli high-technology
subsystems, components, and parts; and increased America's and Israel's
exports. But there is more to this event, much more: China continues to
be dependent on America and Israel for components and parts. But for how
long?
THE GLOBAL PHENOMENON
IN WHICH THE NEBULAE EVENT
INHERES
In 2001, the G8,
the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and
business leaders pushed aggressively for the
globalization of "free trade." For many people
in the U.S., Canada, Italy, Sweden, etc., the
"free trade" doctrine could
not be trusted. Why? "Free
trade" is financed in large part by public and private debts
–
and, if you trust the wisdom of the Tanach, debt
is nothing but "economic slavery."5
Many equated the globalization of "free
trade" with the globalization of "usury" and its perverted "rule of law"
(the sense I give to the word "usury" is that given by the Hebrew sages in
the Tanach).6
"Free
trade," as a global phenomenon,
opened two wide horizons: one was immediately
exploited by American bankers
(and, ironically, by al-Qaeda); the other by China, India,
and others (including, ironically, Iran). The
first horizon resulted in the biggest financial meltdown since the
Depression
–
AIG, GM, Lehman Brothers, and countless other icons of American Capitalism
collapsed, –
and millions of Americans lost their homes. The second allowed China
to develop a formidable manufacturing base for producing
just about anything – toys, cars, planes,
pharmaceuticals, . . . and computers. To mitigate the nasty consequences of
dependence, China smartly opted to invest in U.S.
treasury securities.
As at March 2010, China held
$895.2 billion in U.S. treasury securities
(China's holdings of U.S. securities peaked
at $939.9 billion in July 2009).7
(According to Simon Johnson,
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, China holds "about $1 trillion
in U.S. Treasury securities, or nearly half the $2.37 trillion stock of
Treasury debt held by 'foreign official' owners"; and
according to Eswar Prasad, of
Cornell University, "China probably holds about
$1.7 trillion in U.S. government debt."8)
U.S. DEBT
OUTSTANDING
Which leads me to a discussion of
"debt." The debt outstanding of the United States has two components:
domestic nonfinancial sector and domestic financial sector. The domestic
nonfinancial sector debt includes household debt (home mortgages, consumer
credit, etc.), business debt, and government debt (local, state, and
federal). The domestic financial sector debt includes domestic financial
debt and foreign debt.
Data from the "Flow of Funds Account of
the United States" (Z.1 Release) indicate as follows:9
- U.S.
domestic nonfinancial sector debt outstanding soared from $3.2 trillion in
1978 to $34.7 trillion in 2009.
- U.S. financial
sector debt outstanding soared from $0.9 trillion in 1978 to more than $10
trillion in 2009.
- The total debt
outstanding of the U.S. soared from $3.8 trillion in 1978 to
$52.4 trillion in 2009 (a 13.9-fold increase).
- On a per capita basis, the total
debt outstanding of the U.S. soared from $16,891
in 1978 to $170,006 in 2009.10
The poetic hate of "usura"
in Ezra Pound's Cantos became everybody's hate!
U.S. STRATEGY:
ANYONE CAN BE BOUGHT
" . .
To the fine formulas of the anti-Semite – ‘Money can’t do everything’
– ‘There are things money can’t buy’ – the Jew replies sometimes by
affirming the absolute power of money: ‘Anybody can be bought, if you
can just find his price.’"11
Jean-Paul Sartre |
U.S. political leaders have made
it absolutely clear: the bailout of the global banking system trumps
everything. The
center of life is money and money is created as debt! I'm afraid
leaders who are ruling
many of the so-called Western enterprises (government and business) are not
capable of appreciating the significance of the Nebulae
event as part of the global usury phenomenon. Why? Because
they believe that
through money
they control the world. The meltdown
notwithstanding, there is no reason to worry:
a dollar e-minted in America is still more trusted than a Renminbi or
Yuan e-minted in China – at least for the time being!
With money you can buy anything –
and anyone.11
References
*
Ezra Pound,
The Cantos of Ezra Pound. Ezra Pound,
1934, 1937, 1940, 1948, 1950, 1956, 1959, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968,
1970, 1971. The Estate of Ezra Pound, 1969, 1972. The Trustees of the Ezra
Pound Literary Property Trust, 1973, 1986. Vice Versa, 1942. Harcourt, Brace
& World, Inc., 1950. New York, NY:
New Directions Publishing
Corporation.
Canto XLV, at 229-230; Canto L, at 246.
See also: Ezra Weston Loomis Pound,
Macroknow Library,
29-Sep-2006,
http://www.macroknow.com/books/quotes/q-pound.htm.
1
John
Markoff, Chinese
Edge Toward Supercomputing Record.
New York Times,
30-May-2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/science/01compute.html.
2
Maurice Merlau-Ponti,
Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1958. New York, NY: Routledge, 2002-2008. Originally
published as Phénomènologie
de la perception, Editions Gallimard, Paris,1945.
3
John E.
Dunn (TechWorld).
China chases US in latest supercomputer ranking.
NetworkWorld,
1-Jun-2010,
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/060110-china-chases-us-in-latest.html.
4
Mellanox-Connected Dawning “Nebula” Petaflop Supercomputer at
SIAT to Meet China’s National Needs in Healthcare and Manufacturing:
Mellanox 40Gb/s InfiniBand Solutions Enable Dawning to Achieve a Performance
Record for the Largest HPC System in China.
Mellanox
Technologies, Ltd.
(Sunnyvale,
California and Yokneam, Israel), News Release,
1-Jun-2010,
http://www.mellanox.com/content/pages.php?pg=press_release_item&rec_id=431.
5
Dawning
Information Industry Co., Ltd.
(Beijing, China). Website,
http://www.dawning.com.cn.
6
See Edward E. Ayoub,
Nothing But a Tail. Mind Hat,
Editorial, 8-Dec-2001 (Updated 10-Jan-2002),
http://mindhat.com/editorials-eea/op-ed-20011208.htm.
The Editorial includes this admonition:
Let the heads of nations beware!
They are being cajoled to join the "free trade" club. But this is a
monstrous deception. The deception is designed to transform free peoples
into nothing but a tail
(emphasis in the original). The admonition anticipated the
current financial crises in Portugal, Ireland, Greece,
and Spain (PIGS).
7
Major
Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities. U.S. Department of the
Treasury, Mar-2010,
http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt.
8
David M. Dickson,
China holds more U.S. debt than
indicated.
The Washington Times, 2-Mar-2010,
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/02/chinas-debt-to-us-treasury-more-than-indicated.
9
Z.1 Release
–
Flow of Funds Account of the United States:
Debt Growth, Borrowing, and Debt Outstanding Tables.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,
11-Mar-2010,
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1r-2.pdf.
10
Sources of
U.S. population estimates (December 31 population estimates obtained by
linear interpolation):
-
Historical National Population Estimates:
July 1, 1900 to July 1, 1999.
U.S. Census Bureau,
Population Division,
11-Apr-2000
(revised 28-Jun-2000).
http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/1990s/popclockest.txt.
- Table CO-EST2001-12-00
- Time Series of Intercensal State Population Estimates: April 1,
1990 to April 1, 2000. U.S. Census Bureau,
Population Division, 11-Apr-2002,
http://www.census.gov/popest/archives/2000s/vintage_2001/CO-EST2001-12/CO-EST2001-12-00.html.
-
Annual Estimates of the Resident
Population for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto
Rico: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009 (NST-EST2009-01).
U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division,
Dec-2009,
http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html.
11
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Anti-Semite and Jew. Translated by George J. Becker. Preface by
Michael Walzer, 1995. New York, NY: Schoken Books Inc., 1948, 1976.
Originally published as Réflexions sur la Question Juive, Paris,
France: Éditions Morihien, 1946. Chapter 3, at
128.
See also:
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Macroknow Library,
14-Oct-2001,
http://www.macroknow.com/books/quotes/q-sartre.htm.
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