Opinion

500 years ago, Machiavelli warned the public about self-interested charismatic figures

Vickie B. Sullivan

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, June 11, 2024 

Machiavelli knew from experience and his extensive reading that there was a long history of nations with republican governments falling victim to ambitious individuals who sought to subvert their nations’ practices and institutions so they could rule alone and unchecked. (Photo: Jeniffer Solis/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

A United States president sought to remain in office after his term ended, maintains a worshipful following and has declared he will operate as a dictator only on “day one” if reelected. His cunning and manipulation of American politics and its legal system have, so far, blocked efforts to hold him accountable.

That sort of activity has been called “Machiavellian,” after Renaissance writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who lived from 1469 to 1527. He wrote a notorious little treatise called “The Prince,” in which he advises sole rulers – his phrase for authoritarians or dictators – as well as those who aspire to sole rule to use force and fraud to gain and maintain power.

But scholars of Machiavelli like me know there is much more to his analysis. His 16th-century writings discuss not only princely rule but also republican governments, in which citizens select leaders directly or indirectly for specified terms. He instructs republican citizens and leaders, including those of the United States, to recognize how vulnerable the governments they cherish are and to be vigilant against the threats of tyranny. Machiavelli’s advice is as relevant now as it was then.

Machiavelli’s republican experience

Machiavelli knew from experience and his extensive reading that there was a long history of nations with republican governments falling victim to ambitious individuals who sought to subvert their nations’ practices and institutions so they could rule alone and unchecked, with all others serving at their behest and on their authority.

For example, he was from the city-state of Florence in what is now Italy. Florence had had a republican tradition for centuries, but about 30 years before Machiavelli’s birth, banker and politician Cosimo de’ Medici had subverted that system. Cosimo had used his family’s wealth to propel himself to political power by exerting influence over officeholders so that he was the ultimate decision-maker.

Cosimo’s descendants inherited his political power. They briefly lost their grip on power just long enough for Machiavelli to participate for about a decade as an official and diplomat in a restored republic. Machiavelli was in office when the republic collapsed with the return of the Medici family to power.

Removed from office, Machiavelli wrote “The Prince.” He prefaced it with a dedicatory letter to the young member of the Medici whom the family had designated as the new ruler of Florence. Commentators have long disagreed about what Machiavelli sought by so obviously pandering to an autocratic ruler.

The ‘Discourses,’ Machiavelli’s republican writing

That puzzle is all the more perplexing because elsewhere Machiavelli expresses his commitment to republican government. He wrote another book, less well known and much less pithy than “The Prince,” entitled “Discourses on Livy.” In the “Discourses,” Machiavelli uses the work of the ancient Roman historian Livy to examine how the Roman republic was overthrown by a single leader.

At its founding, Rome was a kingship, but when subsequent kings became tyrannical, the Roman people overthrew the monarchy and established a republic, which had a remarkable history and lasted almost 500 years.

The Roman republic collapsed in 44 BCE when Julius Caesar declared himself dictator for life. Machiavelli wrote that Julius Caesar was the first tyrant in Rome, with the result that Rome was never again free.

Julius’ immediate successor Octavius, who assumed the name Caesar Augustus, ruled as the first of a long line of emperors.

Lessons from the demise of the Roman republic

The key lesson of Machiavelli’s examination of Roman history in the “Discourses” is this: A republic is fragile. It requires constant vigilance on the part of both the citizens and their leaders.

That vigilance is difficult to maintain, however, because over generations, citizens and leaders alike become complacent to a key internal threat that haunts this form of government. Specifically, they fail to grasp early enough the anti-republican designs of exceptionally ambitious citizens among them who harbor the desire to rule alone.

Machiavelli provides instructive examples of how Rome failed to protect its republican practices and laws against such a threat. When the republic was young, Rome allowed candidates to nominate themselves for high offices. This practice worked well because only worthy candidates put themselves forward. Later, however, the practice of self-nomination allowed into office those who wanted to promote their own popularity rather than respond to the needs of their country.

Machiavelli said that leaders and citizens devoted to the republic should have closed off this easy route to power to such candidates. But Rome failed to act. Because of its complacency, Caesar was able to build on the popularity that his predecessors had amassed and to transform Rome into a tyranny.

The point of no return

If republican citizens and leaders fail to be vigilant, they will eventually be confronted with a leader who has accumulated an extremely powerful and threatening following. At that point, Machiavelli says, it will be too late to save the republic.

Machiavelli uses the examples of Caesar’s assassination in Rome and Cosimo’s exile from Florence to underscore this lesson. In each case, the supporters of their respective republic, finally perceiving the danger of tyranny, initiated an attack on the people’s idol. In each case, that effort led not to a restoration of republican freedom but rather to its elimination.

In Rome, Augustus used the public’s sympathy and devotion for the martyred Caesar to seal the republic’s demise. In Florence, Cosimo himself was welcomed back from exile to become Florence’s leading man.

The fate of the American republic

For Americans, the question is whether, as a result of public complacency, the republic will be lost. Will the American republic fall to the same perils that Machiavelli identified in ancient Rome and Renaissance Florence?

Perhaps an opportunity exists to breathe new life into the nation’s republican practices and institutions. Perhaps there is still time to reject through elections those who seek office only to enhance their own power.

Or perhaps it is so late that even that approach will not work. Then, Americans would be left to mourn the demise of their republic and to affirm Machiavelli’s counsel that republics fail through complacency. Such an outcome for one of history’s most exemplary republics would stand as a wretched testament to Machiavelli’s political insight.

The Conversation

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Norway wealth fund to continue 'constructive dialogue' with Tesla after AGM

Reuters
Fri, Jun 14, 2024

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's $1.7 trillion wealth fund, a top shareholder in Tesla, will continue "a constructive dialogue" with the automaker after its annual general meeting endorsed CEO Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package.

Tesla shareholders approved Musk's record pay on Thursday, a move the fund had voted against. The fund is the automaker's eighth-largest shareholder, according to LSEG data.

"We will continue to seek constructive dialogue with Tesla on this and other topics," said a fund spokesperson.

"We have regular and good dialogue with Tesla - just a week ago we met with the chair," she said, referring to Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm and without giving specifics of the discussion.

The fund held a 0.98% stake in Tesla at the end of 2023 worth $7.7 billion, according to fund data.

(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)

Bad News for Rivian Investors

Daniel Miller, The Motley Fool
Sat, Jun 15, 2024, 7


Unless you've been hiding from the news, you've likely heard that electric vehicle (EVs) sales have slowed to a crawl in the U.S. market. Among the concerns are the lack of affordable options and lack of sufficient charging infrastructure.

But according to a recent survey by McKinsey & Co., there's even worse news for investors of companies such as Rivian Automotive (NASDAQ: RIVN).
What's going on?

McKinsey, as a part of its biennial survey, asked roughly 200 questions to more than 30,000 consumers in 15 countries that comprise roughly 80% of global sales volume. And what the survey found should be of concern to EV investors.


The survey found that more than 4 out of 10 owners of EVs in the U.S. are likely to buy a combustion engine for their next car purchase. That's a much higher rate than the global 29% that said they're planning to reverse course from their EV purchase.

Those results were a surprise to some: "I didn't expect that," Philipp Kampshoff, leader of the consulting firm's Center for Future Mobility, told Automotive News. "I thought, 'Once an EV buyer, always an EV buyer.'"

The primary concern from respondents was the lack of public charging infrastructure, but other concerns include the high costs of ownership and difficulty in taking long-distance drives. It's true that public charging infrastructure has been slower than anticipated, with only eight stations operational from the creation of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program two years ago. Worse yet, only 23 states have dished out financing from the $5 billion federal program.

In addition to the survey finding that more than 40% of U.S. consumers wanted to switch back from EVs, 21% of global respondents do not ever want to switch to an EV, again citing charging infrastructure concerns.

While those statistics should be concerning to EV investors, the news wasn't all bad. The survey also found that overall consumers are still slightly more likely to consider EVs in the future. More specifically, 38% of non-EV owners say they anticipate a hybrid or full EV to be their next vehicle, which was a smidge higher than the 37% who anticipated it would be their next vehicle from 2022's survey.
Down the road

Sure, the news that many EV owners would prefer to swap back to combustion engines isn't a good sign, but Rivian can only control what it can control. That means the company's focus remains on refreshing its current R1 platform -- which it recently completed -- and preparing for the launch of its upcoming R2 crossover in 2026.

In fact, Rivian has even accelerated its launch schedule by planning to bring initial production to its Illinois facility, rather than waiting for the completion of its factory in Georgia. It's a move that will soak up excess capacity in its original facility and save the company over $2.25 billion. The move is pretty much a no-brainer for a company that needs to launch its more competitively priced vehicle sooner rather than later.

Ultimately, the survey's findings are a bit troubling and the latest sign that the U.S. EV market is going to grow more slowly than hoped.

Chinese Firm Says It’s Probing Case of Missing Russian Copper


Bloomberg News
Thu, Jun 13, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- The Chinese state-owned firm whose shipment of copper from Russia went missing said it’s investigating the matter which involves a monetary value of about 110 million yuan ($15 million).

Wuchan Zhongda Group Co. bought 2,000 tons of refined copper from a Russian company that should have been delivered last month but never arrived, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

In a statement Friday, the firm said it had conducted a preliminary review after media reports about its copper business. The case concerns an international trading subsidiary, it said.

“The company has a sound internal control system that can effectively manage and control risks related to trade operations,” it said. The value involved was small compared with group revenues of more than 580 billion yuan last year, it said, and the incident “will not have a significant impact on the company’s operations.”

The shipment was purchased from a Russian company called Regional Metallurgical Co. late last year, according to people familiar. But the metal was listed as much cheaper granite and has likely ended up in Turkey, according to the records of the shipping line that handled the consignment, the people said, declining to be identified discussing a sensitive matter.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

WORKERS CAPITAL

US Pensions Vie With Gulf Funds for First Shot at PE Deals





Marion Halftermeyer
Fri, Jun 14, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- It took Scott Chan two years to convince his bosses at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to free up more cash for lucrative investments alongside the world’s biggest private equity firms.

In the time it took the Calstrs deputy chief investment officer to build his case, faster and nimbler investors — mostly Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds — snapped up more than $38 billion of such deals.

US pension funds, long among the most coveted clients for buyout firms, are rapidly losing ground to deep-pocketed Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. That’s especially true in deals known as co-investments, where private equity managers tap favored investors to put more money into individual purchases — without the hefty fees. Sovereign wealth funds such as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Mubadala Investment Co. have been seizing on such opportunities, deploying billions to help get private equity deals over the line in recent years.

The increased competition for such deals comes just as they’re becoming a more important tool for US pensions to save on management fees and bet on higher returns. That’s changing the dynamics of how US pensions invest, public fund executives say. The largest US pensions are cranking into gear, revamping decision-making processes that made them slow to evaluate new investments and increasing allocations to capture more of these deals.

The board of the largest US pension fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, has given its investment team permission to make decisions in 48 hours if they need to. At Calstrs, which manages approximately $338 billion, Chan persuaded the fund’s board this year to tweak an existing co-investment program to be more flexible and put more money to work.

“Pensions are trying to move a lot faster now that the big sovereign wealth funds are in the picture,” said Marcus Frampton, the chief investment officer for the $78 billion Alaska Permanent Fund. The fund made 50 co-investments in the past decade and last year decided to expand its private equity team to do more of such deals.

US public pensions, managed on behalf of teachers, firefighters and other public-sector workers, have for years invested in private equity funds as a means of generating strong returns with less volatility than in the public equity markets. The aim is to close a funding gap that has left many of them tens of billions short of covering expected retirement benefits.

But the asset class is expensive. Some US pensions spend roughly a half-billion dollars on private equity management fees per year.

In recent years, US pensions have ramped up co-investments to gain exposure to attractive companies in a fund’s underlying portfolio, with zero fees to pay. Calpers, which manages about $490 billion, increased its private equity target allocation to 17%, in part to shift more money into such co-investments. The pension made its biggest yet just last year, investing $750 million in an undisclosed US buyout deal.

Access to these deals often goes hand in hand with commitments to a private equity firm’s next fundraise. Meanwhile, private equity firms benefit from having a partner who can shoulder some of the risk at the outset, rather than fronting it all themselves.

The entry of giant sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East has introduced a complication. US pensions have historically taken weeks or even months to make an investment decision, hamstrung by a cumbersome process involving investment committees, consultant reviews and political battles over the stewardship of retirees’ money. By contrast, the likes of ADIA and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund can commit large sums quickly — sometimes in hours.

“We needed to streamline the entire organization’s operations to become nimble so that we could compete in the marketplace at anyone’s speed and scale,” Chan said in an interview with Markets Group in March about the fund’s efforts to improve its co-investment strategy. “If we’re going to do a co-investment, we have to make sure we respond the same day.”

Calstrs saved $185.5 million in fees in 2022, helping to bolster Chan’s case. It now aims to do a co-investment for every fund investment it makes.

Calstrs can provide “quick turnarounds in making co-investment decisions and the ability to take down sizable amounts,” said Mindy Tirapelle, a spokesperson for Calstrs in an emailed response to Bloomberg’s questions about the pension fund’s co-investments.

Calpers declined to comment.

While US pensions aren’t new to co-investing, they’ve typically committed capital at a slower pace and in much smaller amounts than their sovereign wealth peers, which have grown at breakneck speed in recent years.

The 10 largest Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds manage a collective $4.5 trillion in assets, edging closer to the amount the 10 biggest public investors in the US, Australia and Canada manage combined. That means they have large investment targets to fulfill, which in turn is pushing some deals into the multibillion-dollar range.

KKR, EQT, and Brookfield all turned to Middle East sovereign wealth funds last year to help fund big-ticket deals. And Apollo Global Management Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Rowan said in February that the best investors are now in places such as Singapore and the United Arab Emirates.

“The first people that get phone calls for some of these deals, especially the bigger deals, are the people that can write a billion-dollar check into one deal,” said Michael Lazorik, the director for private equity principal investments at the roughly $200 million Teacher Retirement System of Texas. “That’s a small number of people.”

That means over the past eight years, Lazorik said, investors — also known as limited partners — who could commit to backstopping a deal with 10-figure sums carved out a new tier for themselves. In that time, Gulf countries have pushed through reforms on business policies and made other efforts to diversify their economies away from oil.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program, launched in 2016, has fueled the kingdom’s aggressive investment strategy in companies abroad. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said he wants to make investments the source of the government’s revenue, not oil. Instead of stashing a large share of their oil wealth in safe assets like cash, bank deposits and US debt, the sovereign funds are increasingly funneling money into investments in stocks, real estate, infrastructure and private equity.

The largest now underwrite deals alongside private equity firms and are involved much earlier in the investment process than historically was the case. Canadian and Australian public pension funds, as well as Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds GIC and Temasek, have been at the forefront of this type of investing and can keep up with the Middle Eastern players — and in some cases, when a deal gets too big, partner with them.

This has pushed some US pension funds into a so-called second tier. They get phone calls later, after a deal is signed, so that they buy sell-downs, portions of the investments that the larger limited-partners don’t want to keep.

Not every buyout firm has relegated US pensions to second place. Some have responded by creating an alternating system for who they offer deal access to first. More often than not, however, it’s about finding the money fast and avoiding having too many investors to negotiate deal terms with.

One large pension investor said that some money managers prefer a limited partner that has strict governance, as it forces more questions about a transaction and thereby adds a level of comfort to the viability of the deal itself. Many of the Middle East players are organized to write large tickets, but the speed of such deals leaves less time for due diligence compared to the approach of established limited partners, this person said, citing conversations with investment firms and experiences partnering with those players.

Still, US public pensions, which collectively manage several trillion, have started to tout that they, too, can be nimble and move quickly, and that they’re reliable long-term partners. Some of the more sizable ones still compete neck-in-neck with sovereigns on some deals.

“It’s very hard to attain a position in a private equity industry as an LP, and it’s even more important to maintain that position,” Lazorik said. To keep access to co-investments, limited partners often need to make promises of fat commitments in a private equity firm’s next fund raise. As both sovereign wealth funds and investment firm fund sizes grow larger, few US players can keep up.

Calstrs says its new policy makes them more competitive against rivals, letting the fund commit to very large deals that other US investors wouldn’t be able to do because of allocation constraints. Their eventual goal is to co-lead deals, taking as much as 49% ownership in companies and snagging observer board seats.

The largest US pension funds acknowledge privately that they’ve been eyeing the growth of sovereign wealth funds for the past decade, and watching how that has influenced their access to investment managers, according to people familiar with their thinking, who asked to remain anonymous discussing strategy that isn’t public.

Some of them even see trying to compete with the Middle East funds as a futile exercise.

Calpers invests $7.5 billion to $8 billion per year in co-investments, up from just $3 billion in 2022. This year it decided that it’s no longer planning to invest that money with the big-name private equity shops that run the blockbuster deals and garner steep competition with sovereign wealth funds.

Instead, Calpers is shifting its money to smaller managers and deals that can be less competitive. While the pension made that decision primarily to diversify its portfolio, getting meaningful traction with those funds is another benefit. As one person familiar said, Calpers wants to put its money where its tickets mean something.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

DP World Plans $3 Billion African Ports Investment by 2029

Jennifer Zabasajja and Paul Burkhardt
Fri, Jun 14, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- DP World plans to spend $3 billion over the next three to five years on new port and logistics infrastructure in Africa to meet long-term growth that includes surging demand for critical mineral exports.

“The cost of logistics and supply chain across Africa is very high relative to other global markets,” which presents a good opportunity, Mohammed Akoojee, DP World’s chief executive officer and managing director for sub-Saharan Africa, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. The port operator is expanding in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and has recently assessed harbors in South Africa and Kenya for potential investment.

DP World will focus $2 billion of the upcoming investment on ports, specifically, and $1 billion on the logistics business, he said.

Eight of the world’s 15 fastest-growing economies will be in Africa this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. That’s luring companies including Dubai-based DP World, despite economic pain from accelerating inflation, depreciating currencies and high borrowing costs in the region.

Africa’s potential should be viewed over the long term, not by short-term macroeconomics, according to Akoojee. “It’s a cycle and it certainly hasn’t impacted our appetite for growth on the continent,” he said. “We’re still investing.”

A booming market for critical minerals including copper from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are helping drive the need for greater logistics capacity, Akoojee said. “We’ve seen demand increasing over the last few years, largely driven by the whole electrification drive globally and the demand for commodities like cobalt, lithium.”

Port Interest

DP World ’s Africa unit has 27,000 workers and covers ports, terminals, logistics and supply chain businesses. It failed in a bid to partner with South Africa’s Transnet SOC Ltd. to develop the biggest container port on the continent, losing to International Container Terminal Services Inc., which is owned by Filipino billionaire Enrique Razon.

That hasn’t deterred the company from looking to continue its expansion on the continent. As South Africa moves forward on the partial privatization of Transnet, “we remain interested in those opportunities,” Akoojee said. DP World is also looking at the port of Lamu in Kenya, where there’s also a privatization process underway.

You can follow Bloomberg’s reporting on Africa on WhatsApp. Sign up here.

--With assistance from Matthew Hill.

Bloomberg Businessweek

WWIII
New China rules allow detention of foreigners in South China Sea

Jing Xuan TENG
Sat, June 15, 2024 

A China Coast Guard ship maneuvers past a Philippine fishing boat in the disputed South China Sea (Ted ALJIBE)


New Chinese coast guard rules took effect Saturday, under which it can detain foreigners for trespassing in the disputed South China Sea, where neighbours and the G7 have accused Beijing of intimidation and coercion.

Beijing claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, brushing aside competing claims from several Southeast Asian nations including the Philippines and an international ruling that its stance has no legal basis.

China deploys coast guard and other boats to patrol the waters and has turned several reefs into militarised artificial islands. Chinese and Philippine vessels have had a series of confrontations in disputed areas.


From Saturday, China's coast guard can detain foreigners "suspected of violating management of border entry and exit", according to the new regulations published online.

Detention is allowed up to 60 days in "complicated cases", they say.

"Foreign ships that have illegally entered China's territorial waters and the adjacent waters may be detained."

Manila has accused the Chinese coast guard of "barbaric and inhumane behaviour" against Philippine vessels, and President Ferdinand Marcos last month called the new rules a "very worrisome" escalation.

China Coast Guard vessels have used water cannon against Philippine boats multiple times in the contested waters.

There have also been collisions that injured Filipino troops.

Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner told reporters on Friday that authorities in Manila were "discussing a number of steps to be undertaken in order for us to protect our fishermen".

Philippine fishermen were told "not to be afraid, but just to go ahead with their normal activities to fish there in our Exclusive Economic Zone", Brawner said.

The Group of Seven bloc on Friday criticised what it called "dangerous" incursions by China in the waterway.

"We oppose China's militarisation, and coercive and intimidation activities in the South China Sea," read a G7 statement at the end of a summit on Friday.

- G7 criticism -

The South China Sea is a vital waterway, where Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei also have overlapping claims in some parts.

Most recently, however, confrontations between China and the Philippines have raised fears of a wider conflict over the sea that could involve the United States and other allies.

Trillions of dollars in ship-borne trade passes through the South China Sea annually, and huge unexploited oil and gas deposits are believed to lie under its seabed, though estimates vary greatly.

The sea is also important as a source of fish for growing populations.

China has defended its new coast guard rules. A foreign ministry spokesman said last month that they were intended to "better uphold order at sea".

And the Chinese defence minister warned this month that there were "limits" to Beijing's restraint in the South China Sea.

China has also been angered in the past by US and other Western warships sailing through the South China Sea.

The US Navy and others undertake such voyages to assert the freedom of navigation in international waters, but Beijing considers them violations of its sovereignty.

Chinese and US forces have had a series of close encounters in the South China Sea.


Philippine military chief urges fishermen to ignore China's new coastguard rules

Reuters
Updated Fri, June 14, 2024 


FILE PHOTO: Members of the media take footage of a Chinese Coast Guard vessel blocking a Philippine Coast Guard vessel on its way to a resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea


MANILA (Reuters) -The Philippine military chief urged Filipino fishermen to keep fishing in the country's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, despite China's new coastguard rules allowing it to detain trespassers without trial, which take effect on June 15.

China, which claims almost all of the South China Sea including parts claimed by the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, has issued new rules that would enforce a 2021 law allowing its coastguard to use lethal force against foreign ships in waters that it claims.

"That's our message to our fishermen, for them not to be afraid but to just go ahead with their normal activities in our exclusive economic zone," Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief Romeo Brawner told reporters on Friday.

"We have the right to exploit the resources in the area so our fishermen have no reason to be afraid," he added.

The new rules, which allows China's coastguard to detain suspected trespassers without trial for 60 days, have sparked international concerns, with the Philippines describing them as "worrisome" and a "provocation".

Taiwan's coastguard said in a statement "it will strengthen fishing protection tasks, resolutely defends the safety of our fishermen's operations and ensure the rights and interests of shipping, and defend national sovereignty”.

It also called on China "not to use this reason to justify unilateral acts that undermine regional peace".

The United States, which has a mutual defence treaty with the Philippines and is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, said Chinese domestic law "has no applicability to other states’ flagged vessels in other states’ exclusive economic zones or in the high seas, according to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention.

"Enforcement would be highly escalatory and detrimental to regional peace and security," a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department added. "We’ve urged Beijing – and all claimants – to comport their maritime claims with international law as reflected in the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention."

China has stepped up military activities near democratically-governed Taiwan, which it views as its own territory. It is also involved in an increasingly bitter stand-off with the Philippines in the disputed South China Sea.

The Chinese foreign ministry has said previously the new rules were meant to protect the maritime order, and that there was no need to worry if there was no illegal behaviour by the individuals and bodies involved.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Alex Richardson and Chizu Nomiyama)

BEFORE ISLAMOPHOBIA

 

EDWARD SAID; ORIENTALISM PDF

Monoskop.orgmonoskop.org/images/4/4e/Said_Edward_Orientalism_1979.pdf

Orientalism by Edward Said PDF - Monoskop

Originally published by Pantheon Books, A Division of. Random House, Inc., in November 1978. Library of Congress Cola/oging in Publico/ion Da/a. Said, Edward W.

Why Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos Want Women to Stay Barefoot and Pregnant

Thom Hartmann
Thu, June 13, 2024 

Elon Musk, the father of 11 children, thinks that declining population is a crisis and the world needs more babies—particularly those with his DNA—or there will be a catastrophe. For example, he recently proclaimed: “Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.”

Billionaire Jeff Bezos echoed the idea, promoting the fallacy that more people means “more Einsteins.” He said: “I would love to see, you know, a trillion humans living in the solar system. If we had a trillion humans, we would have at any given time a thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins.… Our solar system would be full of life and intelligence and energy.”

The fact is, though, that countries with huge populations generally are more likely to have more slum dwellers than scientists or musicians. It’s only when people have widespread prosperity, so there’s time for a creative middle class to form, that such extraordinary people have the time to develop their talents.


This literally cancerous idea—that continual population growth is a good thing—has been with us for about 2,000 years, and, while it has arguably accounted for some of the positive aspects of modern civilization, it has also left our world in a shambles.

Nonetheless, it’s official doctrine within the Catholic Church, a tiny slice of orthodox Jews and Hindus, and major parts of Islam. Because Christianity and Islam are evangelical, they are constantly trying to spread their influence, the primary means by which they grow their political and economic power.

Close behind evangelism to accomplish that “larger army” is the doctrine that it’s the duty of families to be as large as possible, relegating “conservative ideal women” to broodmare status. Barefoot and pregnant. Kitchen and bedroom only.

The origin of this ideology dates back to the earliest times of warfare, when families, tribes, local baronies, or nation-states went to war. The biggest factor that determined who won a battle was which side had the larger army. And aggressively working against birth control and advocating fecundity is a great way to increase the pool of entrants to your army.

So, really, Musk and Bezos are just echoing a thought virus that has infected much of humanity since the early days of evangelical religion and warfare.

But that time of continuous human population growth is nearly over, and, billionaire eccentrics aside, populations are now declining in many parts of the world. We’d be seeing population decline here in the United States too, if it weren’t for immigration, both legal and otherwise.

It’s become a conservative tenet of faith—drawing from Catholicism, Islam, evangelical Christianity, and crackpot economics—that this decline in population is a bad thing. The biggest army and all that.

It also seems to have captured the mainstream media as if it were conventional wisdom. It’s very rare that you see reporting about population declines that doesn’t position them—often with headlines announcing a “population crisis”—as failures or disasters.

But there are significant advantages to population declines when they’re done thoughtfully and are not the result of disaster. These include economic, environmental, and social benefits that are substantial.

The first is that wages generally rise as populations decline because there is more competition among employers than among employees. Conservatives and, weirdly, the mainstream press present this as a bad thing, although they rarely talk about insurance, banking, or private equity executives walking off with over a billion dollars as something we should know or care about.

We saw this play out in a huge way at a particularly unique moment of history: the Black Plague. When it decimated fourteenth-century Europe, killing a third to half of all the people in just a few short years, the labor force of survivors became so small that—even though kings and usually their barons had literally the power of life or death—workers could negotiate with their employers and demand good pay, fewer working hours, and meaningful benefits.

The result was a flowering of civilization, arts, music, and literature; suddenly, working-class people were paid well enough that they could be creative in their spare time. We called that era the Renaissance, and it was an example of the first truly “middle” class in the history of the post–agricultural revolution world.

The main gift of the Renaissance to future generations was that it birthed the first guilds, the prototype for today’s modern unions.

As working-age population declines, unions will get stronger, which has always, historically, had a positive effect on society.

It’s also better for business: Studies show that unionization reduces worker turnover, which is both expensive and dangerous in many industries. When companies treat workers fairly, workers treat their employers back fairly.

We saw this in the era from 1945 until 1980, when unions were so powerful that CEOs rarely took more than 30 times what the top worker made, while working-class wages were rising faster than any time in American history.

This was, of course, the time before the Reagan Revolution, when an average worker with a single income could buy a home, raise a family, put their kids through college, buy a new car every two years, and take a vacation every summer. Ask any Boomer.

Strong unions reduce economic inequality primarily by lifting up out of poverty an entire middle class. That’s what happened in this country during that roughly 40-year period, until Reagan and the billionaires who own the GOP took a meat ax to it all.

A smaller number of people in the workplace also makes it much harder for businesses to maintain historic and rigid racial and gender hierarchies and pay scales. The workplace becomes more diverse, more interesting, and more innovative. Reducing population is thus also the ultimate women’s equality move.

There’s also less need for extensive infrastructure, like building new office buildings, housing, and shopping centers. This allows the resources of a society to be redirected toward making sure everybody has full access to quality health care and education, and to rebuild the physical, economic, and social infrastructure of the nation.

These don’t just benefit everybody, they also generate overall, nationwide economic prosperity.

As technology continues to advance and replace humans, everything from computers to supermarket checkouts to artificial intelligence is reducing the need for human laborers. A smaller population balances for this, so the impact of automation is also diminished while its benefits are enhanced.

There are also substantial environmental benefits to declining populations. There’s less of a strain on natural resources, less deforestation, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Smaller human populations produce smaller populations of our food animals, which represent about 60 percent of all mammalian flesh on earth. The world’s biodiversity can then be enhanced, wildlife and wild spaces protected, ecosystems repaired, and ecological balance restored.

Catholic and evangelical ideologues continue portraying population decline as a bad thing. But they’re fighting an uphill battle; women all over the world are choosing fewer babies (where they can), sperm counts are collapsing, and infertility is rampant (both, apparently, because we’ve poisoned our environment and food supply trying to meet the needs of eight billion people).

That won’t stop Republicans on the Supreme Court and in Congress, however, from pandering to those groups with their anti-abortion and anti–birth control legislative and judicial attacks on women’s rights.

But, as Dwight Eisenhower once wrote about a couple of oil baron brothers and their followers, “Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

US judge blocks Biden's Title IX protections for LGBTQ+ students in some states

Nate Raymond
Fri, June 14, 2024

A federal judge in Louisiana on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden's administration from enforcing in four states a new rule that protects LGBTQ+ students from discrimination based on their gender identity in schools and colleges.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty in Monroe issued a preliminary injunction barring a U.S. Department of Education rule that extended sex discrimination protections under Title IX to LGBTQ+ students from taking effect in the Republican-led states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho.

Those states had argued that unless the rule was blocked, schools would be required to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms conforming to their gender identities.

Students and advocates rally to call for the Biden administration to release a final Title IX rule in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023.

"Enacting the changes in the final rule would subvert the original purpose of Title IX: protecting biological females from discrimination," Doughty, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, wrote.

The ruling was the first by a judge blocking the rule, which had been challenged in nine lawsuits by Republican-led states and conservative activists who argue it amounts to an unlawful rewrite by the Democratic president's administration of a law designed to protect women from discrimination in education.

"This is a big win for women's rights," Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, said in a statement. "This decision will keep young women and girls protected from dangerous situations, just as Title IX has done for decades."

An Education Department spokesperson said it is reviewing the ruling but stands by the rule, which takes effect Aug. 1.

New Title IX rules, explained: Biden finalizes policies to boost rights of sexual assault victims, LGBTQ+ students

The department in issuing the rule in April said it clarified that the prohibition against sex-based discrimination in schools and colleges that receive federal funding contained in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 also includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The department cited a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that a ban against sex discrimination in the workplace contained in a different law, Title VII, covered gay and transgender workers.

Courts often rely on interpretations of Title VII when analyzing Title IX as both laws bar discrimination on the basis of sex.

But Doughty agreed with the Republican state attorneys general of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana and Idaho that the rule was "inconsistent with the text, structure, and purpose of Title IX."

Biden promised to reform Title IX. Students are tired of waiting

Doughty said the rule would require schools to use whatever pronouns a student preferred and allow them to access bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity, an issue of political significance the agency lacked authority to address.

He said it also ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution's Spending Clause by containing ambiguous conditions and violating other constitutional provisions, including the First Amendment's protections for free speech and the free exercise of religion.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden protections for LGBTQ+ students blocked in some states by judge