Insurance Woes and Whines

Insurance firms feel profit pinch
Industry giants blame roiling markets, high loonie for dampening fourth-quarter earnings and outlook

Sez the headline. But the reality is that it has less to do with the loonie, and more about their investments in the U.S. including of course their exposure to the sub-prime credit mess. Ah the joys of global capitalism. The reason that banks want to merge of course is to compete for positions in the global financial markets, that is the U.S. market. And this is what happens when they do.....

Manulife is Canada's largest insurer. Approximately 64 per cent of its earnings are generated in the United States and Asia. Smaller rival Sun Life faces a similar predicament with about 52 per cent of its earnings originating from the U.S., U.K. and Asia.

For the October-December quarter, Sun Life reported earnings of $555 million or 97 cents per share. That compared with net income of $545 million or 94 cents per share for the same period in 2006. "This quarter was also marked by significant market turbulence," McKenney said.

Chief executive Donald Stewart said that volatility would likely affect the industry's outlook in the near term. Echoing those sentiments, Manulife CEO Dominic D'Alessandro suggested that "unsettled markets" would likely affect wealth businesses.

Sun Life also disclosed it has $84 million in direct exposure and $961 million in indirect exposure to monoline bond insurers. Those companies, which provide insurance against default in securitized debt, have become a source of worry because certain firms have had their credit ratings downgraded.

Chief investment officer Jim Anderson said Sun Life's direct exposure to monolines is with two insurers that are "AAA rated with a stable outlook." Its indirect exposure is to insurers with "investment grade" ratings, adding most of its exposure is in the U.K.

Insurance companies used to be the most risk adverse and conservative of financial institutions. However with the shift to globalization of the marketplace in the eighties and nineties from production to FIRE (financial services, insurance, real estate,) this all changed. A renewed financial market dominated the market, as it once had prior to WWI, the result of this financial exuberance, and shift from investment in production to investment in investment instruments bailed out New York and London from their Reagan/Thatcher excesses and declines. In doing so insurance companies as well as the banks and other financial businesses exposed themselves to the dangers of the balloon and bust market. Chickens, home, roost.

Just as people meet and authorize someone from among their own number to take specific action on their behalf, so commodities must meet to authorize a single commodity to confer full or partial citizenship in the world of commodities. The act of exchange is the occasion for such a meeting of commodities. The social activity of commodities on the market is to capitalist society what collective intelligence is to a socialist society. The consciousness of the bourgeois world is concentrated in the market report. It is only after the successful completion of the exchange that the individual can have any insight into the process as a whole, or any guarantee that his product has satisfied a social need, as well as the incentive to begin his production anew. The object which is thus authorized by the common action of commodities to express the value of all other commodities is – money. The authority of this particular commodity develops along with the development of the exchange of commodities.

Finance Capital, Hilferding 1910

SEE:

Lenin Was Right

Petro Dollars Bail Out The CITI

Bank Smack Down

U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone

Lenin's State Monopoly Capitalism

40 Years Later; The Society of the Spectacle

Commodity Fetish a Definition

State Capitalism in the USSR

Plutocrats Rule

The Right To Be Greedy

Social Credit And Western Canadian Radicalism

It's the Labour Theory of Value, stupid

China: The Truimph of State Capitalism

Deconstructing Hayek

Social Insecurity- The Phony Pension Crisis


tags
taylorism,fordism, NEP, state capitalism, state monopoly capitalism, monopoly capitalism,

liberalism, state, Anarcho-Capitalism, libertarian, Von Mises,anarchism,, gold bug,, gold,, Albert J. Nock,
Bemjamin Tucker, Liberty, libertarian, anarchism, invdidualist-anarchist, Rothbard, Austrian School of Economics, mutualism,
homes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, Canada, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,
China, Greenspan, correction, capitalism, Rothbard, Keynes, Galbraith, stocks, markets, capitalism

Bank Smack Down

It was a Canadian female financial wonk working for CIBC who brought down America's biggest bank.

Woman behind US banking rumble

CIBC World Markets analyst Meredith Whitney, an outspoken television pundit who is married to a professional wrestler, delivered a body slam to the U.S. banking sector this week that has sent stocks reeling in markets around the world.

The champion stock-picker even talks a bit like Rowdy Roddy Piper.

"No one had the moxie to put in print, what I put in print," Ms. Whitney said yesterday.

She had earlier hit Citigroup with a downgrade when it was already hurting from weak profits.

"Is Citigroup's dividend safe?" she demanded in a tough report that followed a 57% drop in third-quarter earnings at the world's largest bank.

Pro Wrestling of course was a popular blue collar sport in Canada well
before it became big entertainment in the U.S. Take that.

And so she was subjected to the macho American male egos in their marketplace, no uppity woman and a Canuck at that will tell them the Emperor has no clothes. Not when they keep cheering on the fiction that nothing is wrong in their market.

CIBC analyst got death threats on Citigroup - report

Meanwhile the CEO of Citigroup leaves the bank with the booty while the U.S. market crashes.

Citi Watch: A Princely Sum for CEO’s Exit?

Perhaps he will take it out with a wheelbarrow like they did in Germany way back when.



As Jim in San Marcos who blogs as The Great Depression of 2006, writes;

Economic Turpitude

Banks, hedge funds and what ever are taking billions of dollars in loan loss provisions. I have been suggesting for over a year, that a lot of this money may be coming from our retirement funds. Think about it. If your wife buys a new fur coat with your paycheck, now you can’t pay the rent, that is obvious very fast. If the wife turned a trick with the old geezer down stairs and bought the coat, you are stuck wondering how she did it. The reason I suggest Retirement funds, is that the losses suffered so far appear to affect no one. But bear in mind, retirement income funds deal with the future. Most people are not ready to retire so these funds should have plenty of time to recover losses (keep quiet, keep your job). The write downs are massive. Nobody even blinks an eye. What’s a 10 billion dollar loss? The perspective is beyond comprehension. This money has to be coming from somewhere. Whoever’s money it is, they don’t seem to need it--yet.

The money supply worldwide seems to be contracting. Usually this would imply a rise in interest rates. That doesn’t seem to be happening. Commodities are increasing in value, which could be an inflation indicator. If reserves are being added to the banking system, then this could explain why rates are not rising (using a truck is cheaper than a helicopter).

A lot of the new earned money entering into the economy is not being used to create new jobs, its being “invested” in financial instruments. Workers are not creating new product, investors are placing side bets on the financial markets. The profit is gone from home building industry. Investment in rental property is a losing enterprise. Consumption seems to be tapering off. Home remodeling appears to have hit the skids. Starbucks seems to be doing OK, you have to draw the line somewhere.

Interest rates are dropping but you can't force people to borrow money unless there is some sort of return (like a house appreciating at 20% a year). That would explain why the stock market as well as the commodity’s markets are still in play. Cramer the other night was forecasting Google at $750. Everything is still going up. The stock market had a little hiccup on Friday. Nothing to worry about, Google kept on ticking just like a Timex watch. Of course it can’t be a bubble, bubbles don’t get that big!

You have a bunch of banks forming a consortium to bail out the CDO and SIV holders . They are creating a new financial instrument called a "USA," which is short for “Up in Smoke Assets.” It ought to be a hot item if they can figure out a way to package it. It’s kind of like selling invisible goldfish. Give the buyer one or two extra for free, so he thinks he’s getting a real bargain and sell him some invisible fish food to boot.

The economy’s current condition reminds me of the embezzler and a millionaire taking a vacation at the same resort. The embezzler knows whose money he is spending. The millionaire has no idea that he is broke, but hey, everyone is having fun. Are we broke yet?

It's All Good

The Wall Street Journal came out with an article on write downs tied to mortgage debt Saturday. Their bar graph (left) displays about 20.7 billion in 3rd quarter losses. Washington Mutual with 1 billion of charges this quarter didn't even make the list. The amount shown for the Bear Sterns doesn't really reflect what happened when this mess started (BS had a 1.6 billion hedge fund bankruptcy). Of course Amaranth is long forgotten.

The above chart is mixing brokerage houses with banks. So these write offs or what ever, could be coming from several different places, bad housing loans, credit card debt and hedge fund investments. Don't worry everything is "contained." Yea, right!


Here's a list of the top world banks. The banks in the top picture seem to have a handle on projected losses if you compare their net holdings (left) to declared write downs (top). But this is just third quarter losses. So do we multiply this by four to come up with a yearly total? It sounds logically conservative and nightmarish. [Note: Morgan Stanley in the top pic and JP Morgan Chase in the one at the left are not the same company, the first is a brokerage house and the latter is a bank, they were one entity at one time]

HSBC wrote off 11 billion in March, Citibank plans to announce earnings October 15 and refers to earnings as "abysmal" in their news release last week. Two banks not saying much are Bank America, and JP Morgan. It could be an eye opener when they report quarterly earnings.

Now mix in 2.46 trillion dollars of credit card debt. Here is list of the top ten issuers of general purpose credit cards:

1. Bank of America
2. J P Morgan Chase
3. Citigroup
4. American Express
5. Capital One
6. Discover Card
7. HSBC
8. Washington Mutual
9. Wells Fargo
10.U S Bancorp


The puzzle is starting to come together. We know who the players are. Citigroup made all three lists, which doesn't sound too good. They might have company, if Bank of America and J P Morgan "measure up" in the next week or two when they announce earnings. The real problem is the three month time frame this mess transpired in. How can we believe that things are now OK?

The stock market is still going up, go figure. I guess you could call it herd (heard) mentality. Follow your favorite stock commentator over the cliff.

Good to see some American's are realizing that all those folks on the 24/7 Business News channels are wearing rose coloured glasses to go along with their ruby slippers. Of course these Market Wizards belong in the land of Oz.

'It will be a garden variety recession'
Economic Times, India -
US consumption, which is now a record 72% of US GDP, has nowhere to go but down and that has raised the risk of recession in the US and the potential impact ...

Morgan Stanley exec: US recession likely BusinessWeek

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | global credit crunch

For shaky economy, oil spike is irritant
Housing, credit messes -- now this?

But $100-a-barrel oil and possible higher gasoline prices would come at a bad time for the U.S. economy. As an economic force, analysts said, higher oil prices alone would not be enough to cause severe economic damage. Yet on top of other major economic concerns -- a brutal housing correction, troubled financial markets and hard-hit banks -- they could be the catalyst for a possible recession.

Recession symptoms near fever level

Scott Badesch of the United Way is used to seeing people in need. Usually, it is the homeless or the poor who tap the services of Palm Beach County's leading community fund.

But these days, Badesch notices something different.

"We're seeing more and more of the middle class falling into these situations. The demand in our shelters and in our emergency food pantries has never been as great as it is," said Badesch, chief executive of the United Way of Palm Beach County.

Ken Rappaport, a Boca Raton bankruptcy lawyer, also sees people in financial distress.

But when Rappaport received 250 applications for a $10-an-hour receptionist job in his office, that's when the area's economic troubles hit home. Many of the applicants were real estate and mortgage brokers used to sky-high salaries.

"That's scary," Rappaport said. "And that was the thing that brought me to the conclusion: I don't care what anybody says, we are in a recession."

Let's hope women are wrong

Women will be pleasantly surprised if we're not all dining at soup kitchens soon. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll asked people whether it's likely the economy will go into recession in the coming year, and women of all sorts were much more likely than their male counterparts to think that it will. Among people with household income under $40,000, for instance, 78 percent of women expect a recession, vs. 44 percent of men. There's a similar gap between college-educated women and men, 71 percent vs. 54 percent. Among Democrats, 82 percent of women and 64 percent of men expect a recession; among Republicans, the gap is 67 percent vs. 54 percent. Overall, 73 percent of women and 56 percent of men foresee a recession in the coming year.

See:

Fred Thompson WYSIWYG

U.S. Economy Entering Twilight Zone

Sub Prime Exploitation

The Cost of War

America's Debt Economy

Tags

, liberalism, state, Anarcho-Capitalism, libertarian, Von Mises,anarchism,, gold bug,, gold,, Albert J. Nock,
Bemjamin Tucker, Liberty, libertarian, anarchism, invdidualist-anarchist, Rothbard, Austrian School of Economics, mutualism,
homes, mortgages, housing, bubble, US, economy, Canada, sub-prime mortgage, Wall Street, crash, recession,
China, Greenspan, correction, capitalism, Rothbard, Keynes, Galbraith, stocks, markets, capitalism

Why Russia gave up Alaska, America's gateway to the Arctic

THE CONVERSATION
William L. Iggiagruk Hensley, 

Visiting Distinguished Professor, 

University of Alaska Anchorage
Sat, April 2, 2022, 

One hundred and fifty-five years ago, on March 30, 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and Russian envoy Baron Edouard de Stoeckl signed the Treaty of Cession. With a stroke of a pen, Tsar Alexander II had ceded Alaska, his country’s last remaining foothold in North America, to the United States for US.2 million.

That sum, amounting to just 8 million in today’s dollars, brought to an end Russia’s 125-year odyssey in Alaska and its expansion across the treacherous Bering Sea, which at one point extended the Russian Empire as far south as Fort Ross, California, 90 miles from San Francisco Bay.

Today Alaska is one of the richest U.S. states thanks to its abundance of natural resources, such as petroleum, gold and fish, as well as its vast expanse of pristine wilderness and strategic location as a window on Russia and gateway to the Arctic.

So what prompted Russia to withdraw from its American beachhead? And how did it come to possess it in the first place?

As a descendant of Inupiaq Eskimos, I have been living and studying this history all my life. In a way, there are two histories of how Alaska came to be American – and two perspectives. One concerns how the Russians took “possession” of Alaska and eventually ceded it to the U.S. The other is from the perspective of my people, who have lived in Alaska for thousands of years, and for whom the anniversary of the cession brings mixed emotions, including immense loss but also optimism.
Russia looks east

The lust for new lands that brought Russia to Alaska and eventually California began in the 16th century, when the country was a fraction of its current size.

That began to change in 1581, when Russia overran a Siberian territory known as the Khanate of Sibir, which was controlled by a grandson of Genghis Khan. This key victory opened up Siberia, and within 60 years the Russians were at the Pacific.

The Russian advance across Siberia was fueled in part by the lucrative fur trade, a desire to expand the Russian Orthodox Christian faith to the “heathen” populations in the east and the addition of new taxpayers and resources to the empire.

In the early 18th century, Peter the Great – who created Russia’s first Navy – wanted to know how far the Asian landmass extended to the east. The Siberian city of Okhotsk became the staging point for two explorations he ordered. And in 1741, Vitus Bering successfully crossed the strait that bears his name and sighted Mt. Saint Elias, near what is now the village of Yakutat, Alaska.

Although Bering’s second Kamchatka Expedition brought disaster for him personally when adverse weather on the return journey led to a shipwreck on one of the westernmost Aleutian Islands and his eventual death from scurvy in December 1741, it was an incredible success for Russia. The surviving crew fixed the ship, stocked it full of hundreds of the sea otters, foxes and fur seals that were abundant there and returned to Siberia, impressing Russian fur hunters with their valuable cargo. This prompted something akin to the Klondike gold rush 150 years later.
Challenges emerge

But maintaining these settlements wasn’t easy. Russians in Alaska – who numbered no more than 800 at their peak – faced the reality of being half a globe away from St. Petersburg, then the capital of the empire, making communications a key problem.

Also, Alaska was too far north to allow for significant agriculture and therefore unfavorable as a place to send large numbers of settlers. So they began exploring lands farther south, at first looking only for people to trade with so they could import the foods that wouldn’t grow in Alaska’s harsh climate. They sent ships to what is now California, established trade relations with the Spaniards there and eventually set up their own settlement at Fort Ross in 1812.

Thirty years later, however, the entity set up to handle Russia’s American explorations failed and sold what remained. Not long after, the Russians began to seriously question whether they could continue their Alaskan colony as well.

For starters, the colony was no longer profitable after the sea otter population was decimated. Then there was the fact that Alaska was difficult to defend and Russia was short on cash due to the costs of the war in Crimea.

Americans eager for a deal

So clearly the Russians were ready to sell, but what motivated the Americans to want to buy?

In the 1840s, the United States had expanded its interests to Oregon, annexed Texas, fought a war with Mexico and acquired California. Afterward, Secretary of State Seward wrote in March 1848:

“Our population is destined to roll resistless waves to the ice barriers of the north, and to encounter oriental civilization on the shores of the Pacific.”

Almost 20 years after expressing his thoughts about expansion into the Arctic, Seward accomplished his goal.

In Alaska, the Americans foresaw a potential for gold, fur and fisheries, as well as more trade with China and Japan. The Americans worried that England might try to establish a presence in the territory, and the acquisition of Alaska – it was believed – would help the U.S. become a Pacific power. And overall the government was in an expansionist mode backed by the then-popular idea of “manifest destiny.”

So a deal with incalculable geopolitical consequences was struck, and the Americans seemed to get quite a bargain for their .2 million.

Just in terms of wealth, the U.S. gained about 370 million acres of mostly pristine wilderness – almost a third the size of the European Union – including 220 million acres of what are now federal parks and wildlife refuges. Hundreds of billions of dollars in whale oil, fur, copper, gold, timber, fish, platinum, zinc, lead and petroleum have been produced in Alaska over the years – allowing the state to do without a sales or income tax and give every resident an annual stipend. Alaska still likely has billions of barrels of oil reserves.

The state is also a key part of the United States defense system, with military bases located in Anchorage and Fairbanks, and it is the country’s only connection to the Arctic, which ensures it has a seat at the table as melting glaciers allow the exploration of the region’s significant resources.

Impact on Alaska Natives

But there’s an alternate version of this history.

When Bering finally located Alaska in 1741, Alaska was home to about 100,000 people, including Inuit, Athabascan, Yupik, Unangan and Tlingit. There were 17,000 alone on the Aleutian Islands.

Despite the relatively small number of Russians who at any one time lived at one of their settlements – mostly on the Aleutians Islands, Kodiak, Kenai Peninsula and Sitka – they ruled over the native populations in their areas with an iron hand, taking children of the leaders as hostages, destroying kayaks and other hunting equipment to control the men and showing extreme force when necessary.

The Russians brought with them weaponry such as firearms, swords, cannons and gunpowder, which helped them secure a foothold in Alaska along the southern coast. They used firepower, spies and secured forts to maintain security, and selected Christianized local leaders to carry out their wishes. However, they also met resistance, such as from the Tlingits, who were capable warriors, ensuring their hold on territory was tenuous.

By the time of the cession, only 50,000 indigenous people were estimated to be left, as well as 483 Russians and 1,421 Creoles (descendants of Russian men and indigenous women).

On the Aleutian Islands alone, the Russians enslaved or killed thousands of Aleuts. Their population plummeted to 1,500 in the first 50 years of Russian occupation due to a combination of warfare, disease and enslavement.

When the Americans took over, the United States was still engaged in its Indian Wars, so they looked at Alaska and its indigenous inhabitants as potential adversaries. Alaska was made a military district by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant with Gen. Jefferson C. Davis selected as the new commander.

For their part, Alaska Natives claimed that they still had title to the territory as its original inhabitants and having not lost the land in war or ceded it to any country – including the U.S., which technically didn’t buy it from the Russians but bought the right to negotiate with the indigenous populations. Still, Natives were denied U.S. citizenship until 1924, when the Indian Citizenship Act was passed.

During that time, Alaska Natives had no rights as citizens and could not vote, own property or file for mining claims. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, in conjunction with missionary societies, in the 1860s began a campaign to eradicate indigenous languages, religion, art, music, dance, ceremonies and lifestyles.

It was only in 1936 that the Indian Reorganization Act authorized tribal governments to form, and only nine years later overt discrimination was outlawed by Alaska’s Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945. The law banned signs such as “No Natives Need Apply” and “No Dogs or Natives Allowed,” which were common at the time.
Statehood and a disclaimer

Eventually, however, the situation improved markedly for Natives.

Alaska finally became a state in 1959, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act, allotting it 104 million acres of the territory. And in an unprecedented nod to the rights of Alaska’s indigenous populations, the act contained a clause emphasizing that citizens of the new state were declining any right to land subject to Native title – which by itself was a very thorny topic because they claimed the entire territory.

A result of this clause was that in 1971 President Richard Nixon ceded 44 million acres of federal land, along with 

https://theconversation.com/to-help-insects-make-them-welcome-in-your-garden-heres-how-153609 

Sat, 02 Apr 2022

 14:11:08 +0000 tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/153609

Looking for a new gardening challenge? Turning your yard into an insect-friendly oasis could mean less work and more nature to enjoy.

 Brian Lovett, Postdoctoral Researcher in Mycology, West Virginia University

As winter phases into spring across the U.S., gardeners are laying in supplies and making plans. Meanwhile, as the weather warms, common garden insects such as bees, beetles and butterflies will emerge from underground burrows or nests within or on plants.

Most gardeners know how beneficial insects can be for their plots. Flies pollinate flowers. Predatory bugs, such as the spined shoulder bug, eat pest insects that otherwise would tuck into garden plants.

As a scientist whose research involves insects and as a gardener, I know that many beneficial insect species are declining and need humans’ help. If you’re a gardener looking for a new challenge this year, consider revamping all or part of your yard to support beneficial insects.

Lawns are insect food deserts

Some gardeners choose native plants to attract and support helpful insects. Often, however, those native plants are surrounded by vast expanses of lawn.

The vast majority of insect species find blades of grass as unappetizing as we do. Yet, lawns sprawl out across many public and private spaces. NASA estimated in 2005 that lawns covered at least 50,000 square miles (128,000 square kilometers) of the U.S. – about the size of the entire state of Mississippi.

A well-manicured lawn is a sure sign that humanity has imposed its will on nature. Lawns provide an accessible and familiar landscape, but they come at a cost for our six-legged neighbors. Grasses grown as turf provide very few places for insects to safely tuck themselves away, because homeowners and groundskeepers cut them short – before they send up flowering spikes – and apply fertilizers and pesticides to keep them green.

Entomologists have a recomendation: Dig up some fraction of your lawn and convert it into a meadow by replacing grass with native wildflowers. Wildflowers provide pollen and nectar that feed and attract a variety of insects like ants, native bees and butterflies. Just as you may have a favorite local restaurant, insects that live around you have a taste for the flowers that are native to their areas.

This bold choice will not just benefit insects. Healthier insects support local birds, and meadows require fewer chemical inputs and less mowing than lawns. The amount of attention lawns demand from us, even if we outsource the work to a landscaping company, is a sign of their precarity.

A meadow is a wilder, more resilient option. Resilient ecosystems are better able to respond to and recover from disturbances.

Entomologist Ryan Gott, integrated pest management and quality control specialist at Maitri Genetics in Pittsburgh, describes lawns and meadows as two opposite ends of a resiliency spectrum. “As far as basic ecological functions go, a lawn does not have many. A lawn mainly extracts nutrition and water, usually receiving outside inputs of fertilizer and irrigation to stay alive, and returns very little to the system,” he told me.

Native flowers, by definition, will grow well in your climate, although some areas will have more choices than others and growing seasons vary. Native plants also provide a palette of colors and variety that lawns sorely lack. By planting them as a meadow, with many different flowers emerging throughout the growing season, you can provide for a diverse assortment of local insects. And mowing and fertilizing less will leave you more time to appreciate wildlife of all sizes.

There are many different types of meadows, and every wildflower species has different preferences for soil type and conditions. Meadows thrive in full sunlight, which is also where lawns typically do well.

Making insects feel at home

Not every yard can support a meadow, but there are other ways to be a better, more considerate neighbor to insects. If you have a shady yard, consider modeling your garden after natural landscapes like woodlands that are shady and support insects.

What’s important in landscaping with insects in mind, or “entoscaping,” is considering insects early and often when you visit the garden store. With a few pots or window boxes, even a balcony can be converted into a cozy insect oasis.

If you’re gardenless, you can still support insect health. Try replacing white outdoor lights, which interfere with many insects’ feeding and breeding patterns. White lights also lure insects into swarms, where they are vulnerable to predators. Yellow bulbs or warm-hued LEDs don’t have these effects.

Another easy project is using scrap wood and packing materials to create simple “hotels” for bees or ladybugs, making sure to carefully sanitize them between seasons. Easiest of all, provide water for insects to drink – they’re adorable to watch as they sip. Replace standing water at least weekly to prevent mosquitoes from developing.

A refuge in every yard

Many resources across the U.S. offer advice on converting your lawn or making your yard more insect-friendly.

The Xerces Society for Insect Conservation publishes a guide to establishing meadows to sustain insects. Local university extension offices post tips on growing meadows with specific instructions and resources for their areas. Gardening stores often have experience and carry selections of local plants.

You may find established communities of enthusiasts for local plants and seeds, or your journey could be the start of such a group. Part of the fun of gardening is learning what plants need to be healthy, and a new endeavor like entoscaping will provide fresh challenges.

In my view, humans all too often see ourselves as separate from nature, which leads us to relegate biodiversity to designated parks. In fact, however, we are an important part of the natural world, and we need insects just as much as they need us. As ecologist Douglas Tallamy argues in his book, “Nature’s Best Hope,” the best way to protect biodiversity is for people to plant native plants and promote conservation in every yard.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Brian Lovett, West Virginia University.

Read more:

The impulse to garden in hard times has deep roots

City compost programs turn garbage into ‘black gold’ that boosts food security and social justice

Insect apocalypse? Not so fast, at least in North America

 The Current·Back to the Land

How BIPOC farmers are working to make rural agriculture more diverse

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Farmers of colour often forced more than white farmers to prove credibility: expert

CBC Radio · Posted: Sep 26, 2021 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 7 hours ago

Aliyah Fraser started Lucky Bug Farm on a rented plot of land in Erin, Ont., earlier this year. As one of the only Black farmers in her area, she hopes to bring produce such as collard greens and Scotch bonnet peppers to local markets. (Submitted by Aliyah Fraser)

The Current23:36Back to the Land: How a first-generation farmer hopes to make rural agriculture more diverse

On her farm in small-town Ontario, Aminah Haghighi is trying to shake the perception that farmers are typically older white men.

Though she acknowledges she didn't have much of a green thumb when she moved to Hillier, Ont., two hours east of Toronto, last year, the first-generation farmer now sells a cornucopia of produce from her quarter-acre of land.

"I'm not an outdoorsy person, but I really, really felt connected with growing food," she told Back to the Land host Duncan McCue.

"I saw that there weren't a lot of people that looked like me in this. And so I thought, maybe, if I'm not going to do it, then who else is going to look like me in this space," said Haghighi, 31, who is of Iranian and Filipino descent.

Even though some of Haghighi's family in the Philippines are rice farmers, she admits she couldn't picture herself in agriculture

For most people, the childhood nursery rhyme, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, conjures up an image of the typical farmer: a "white guy," says Jacqueline L. Scott, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto who studies the intersection of race and nature.

"Nature is coded as a white space; the city is coded as a multicultural space," she told McCue.

"So when Black people, people of colour show up in nature — whether in the rural areas, on the farms or in the wilderness in outdoor recreation, you're seen as out of place. It's always like, 'Oh, what are you doing here?'"

• What one Ontario farming group is doing to get more racialized farmers into agriculture

Whether selling produce at markets or performing as cowboys at the Calgary Stampede, Black farmers have a long history in Canada, Scott says.

"If you go to Niagara-on-the-Lake, at one point in the 1850s, a huge chunk of the population there were Black farmers," she said. If you visited St. Jacob's, Ont., around the same time, many of the vendors selling at markets would have also been Black farmers.

"But if you don't know the history, and you go today, it's like, 'Oh, Black people weren't here.'"

Jacqueline L. Scott is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Toronto who studies the intersection of race and nature. (Submitted by Jacqueline L. Scott)

From city to country

Young farmers like Haghighi are fighting to upend that assumption.

Spurred by a love of food and the COVID-19 pandemic, Haghighi started Raining Gold Family Growers late last year. She focuses on ecologically minded farming methods — there is no tilling to reduce weeds and efforts are made to reduce water use. This summer, she employed two BIPOC workers.

Raining Gold began with a backyard garden at Haghighi's Toronto home in the midst of the city's first lockdown.

• Meet some of Toronto's food justice advocates championing Black food sovereignty

"I had no idea what I was doing — zero," she said.

With the help of YouTube and books, she had grown a "jungle" of food: tomatoes, peppers and "crazy cucumber plants that would have overtaken my house" by the end of her first summer.

When friends announced they were moving east from Toronto to Prince Edward County, a two-hour drive away, Haghighi and her husband, Bryce, took notice. The pair scraped together their savings for a down payment on land in the county.

Grown at her quarter-acre plot in Prince Edward County, Haghighi sells produce from microgreens to tomatoes in subscription boxes and at local markets.

But marketing herself as a woman of colour farmer in the rural county of about 24,000 residents has been a source of pushback from locals and hateful comments online, she said.

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"One of the things that was very difficult was that people would look at us and would assume that we weren't from here or assume that we don't live down the street, and therefore we don't get to receive the same treatment that the other white folks would be getting," she said.

Scott said those perceptions can cause BIPOC farmers to feel as though they "have to prove their credibility, their competence as farmers, because they are not what we are expecting to see."

Changing the food system

When she started Lucky Bug Farm in Erin, Ont., earlier this year, Aliyah Fraser says she wanted to prove there is space in the food system for BIPOC farmers.

"We are the ones who think outside of the normal box of just the way that things are done, and I think if there are more of us in the food system, we can just create greater change," said Fraser, 25.

Scott stands beside a plaque commemorating the history of Black settlement in Ontario's Oro Township. (Submitted by Jacqueline L. Scott)

At the Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., market where Fraser sells produce such as collard greens and Scotch bonnet peppers, she's one of the only Black growers.

While reception to Fraser's offerings has been largely positive, she says some shoppers visit the stall and "assume that I'm not the grower until I say those words," often believing that her partner, who is white, is the farmer.

"We're [Black farmers] always bumping up against other people's assumptions and expectations for us and having to really set the record straight often. And I mean, that's just a form of racism."

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Scott notes that the majority of vendors at farmers' markets are white, while Black and brown agriculture workers — many from Latin American and Caribbean countries — are in the background.

"It's sold as this wholesome, healthy, alternative way of producing food. But it is white people who are doing the selling. It's mainly white people who are buying," Scott said. Black and brown people "very rarely get the public face, the public image."

Fraser says as a Black farmer, people often make assumptions about her role in agriculture. (Donalee McIntyre)

Accessing land, resources for BIPOC farmers

An additional barrier is the significant overhead costs associated with starting a farm — and historically low rates of rural land ownership among people of colour, Fraser says.

In fact, 2016 Statistics Canada data found that women are more likely than men to rent or lease land.

Fraser has been renting a quarter-acre of land since February but will move to a new plot where she feels more supported, not only as a Black farmer but as someone new to agriculture.

"I have luckily found a space for next year where the landowners are white, but they understand that it takes time to build a business and they understand that it takes time to build soil, and they understand that farming and food growing for market is really tough," she said.

Resources are top of mind for Haghighi. In addition to starting Raining Gold, purchasing the family's property in Prince Edward County provided an opportunity to set her children up for the future.

"Creating generational wealth for our children is of utmost importance to us because we don't come from any financial privilege at all, and we don't want our kids to have the same issues that we did," she said.

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Given the challenges she's faced — and worries about her kids — Haghighi says she's not sure if she will stay in Prince Edward County for the long term.

But she says it's clear there's interest for the kind of farm she runs.

When Haghighi posted an online ad for two farm crew members that encouraged BIPOC individuals and those who face systemic barriers to traditional farming to apply, she says she received more than 300 responses.

"It's funny when other old, white men farmers say, 'Well, nobody wants to work on my farm,'" Haghighi said. "I think that people really resonated with the job posting and with me as a potential employer.

"People do want to do this ... there's just no opportunity for it."

---

Written by Jason Vermes. Interviews with Aminah Haghighi and Jacqueline L. Scott produced by Zoe Tennant.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Cryptoverse: Blockchain bridges fall into troubled waters

By Tom Wilson and Medha Singh - Yesterday 

© Reuters/Dado RuvicIllustration shows representation of cryptocurrency Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dash plunging into water

(Reuters) - Another day, another hack - and another blockchain bridge burned.

When thieves stole an estimated $190 million from U.S. crypto firm Nomad last week, it was the seventh hack of 2022 to target an increasingly important cog in the crypto machine: Blockchain "bridges" - strings of code that help move crypto coins between different applications.

So far this year, hackers have stolen crypto worth some $1.2 billion from bridges, data from London-based blockchain analysis firm Elliptic shows, already more than double last year's total.

"This is a war where the cybersecurity firm or the project can't be a winner," said Ronghui Hu, a professor of computer science at Columbia University in New York and co-founder of cybersecurity firm CertiK.

"We have to protect so many projects. For them (hackers) when they look at one project and there's no bugs, they can simply move on to the next one, until they find a one weak point."

At present, most digital tokens run on their own unique blockchain, essentially a public digital ledger that records crypto transactions. That risks projects using these coins becoming siloed, reducing their prospects for wide use.

Blockchain bridges aim to tear down these walls. Backers say they will play a fundamental role in "Web3" - the much-hyped vision of a digital future where crypto's enmeshed in online life and commerce.

Yet bridges can be the weakest link.

The Nomad hack was the eighth-biggest crypto theft on record. Other thefts from bridges this year include a $615 million heist at Ronin, used in a popular online game, and a $320 million theft at Wormhole, used in so-called decentralised finance applications.

"Blockchain bridges are the most fertile ground for new vulnerabilities," said Steve Bassi, co-founder and CEO of malware detector PolySwarm.

ACHILLES HEEL

Nomad and others companies that make blockchain bridge software have attracted backing.

Just five days before it was hacked, San Francisco-based Nomad said it had raised $22.4 million from investors including major exchange Coinbase Global. Nomad CEO and co-founder Pranay Mohan called its security model the "gold standard."

Nomad did not respond to requests for comment.

It has said it is working with law enforcement agencies and a blockchain analysis firm to track the stolen funds. Late last week, it announced a bounty of up to 10% for the return of funds hacked from the bridge. It said on Saturday it had recovered over $32 million of the hacked funds so far.

"The most important thing in crypto is community, and our number one goal is restoring bridged user funds," Mohan said. "We will treat any party who returns 90% or more of exploited funds as a white hats. We will not prosecute white hats," he said, referring to so-called ethical hackers.

Several cyber security and blockchain experts told Reuters that the complexity of bridges meant they could represent an Achilles' heel for projects and applications that used them.

"A reason why hackers have targeted these cross-chain bridges of late is because of the immense technical sophistication involved in creating these kinds of services," said Ganesh Swami, CEO of blockchain data firm Covalent in Vancouver, which had some crypto stored on Nomad's bridge when it was hacked.

For instance, some bridges create versions of crypto coins that make them compatible with different blockchains, holding the original coins in reserve. Others rely on smart contracts, complex covenants that execute deals automatically.

The code involved in all of these can contain bugs or other flaws, potentially leaving the door ajar for hackers.

BUG BOUNTIES

So how best to address the problem?

Some experts say audits of smart contracts could help to guard against cyber thefts, as well as "bug bounty" programmes that incentivise open-sourced reviews of smart contract code.

Others call for less concentration of control of the bridges by individual companies, something they say could bolster resiliency and transparency of code.

"Cross-chain bridges are an attractive target for hackers because they often leverage a centralized infrastructure, most of which lock up assets," said Victor Young, founder and chief architect at U.S. blockchain firm Analog.

(Reporting by Tom Wilson in London and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pravin Char)

THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS

Whoever Controls the Moon Controls the Solar System

Passant Rabie
Sat, February 26, 2022

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway and Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy declared that his nation would be the first to land a man on the moon. That ambitious goal would later be fulfilled as two NASA astronauts took wobbly steps across the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, much to the dismay of Russia’s own space program leaders.

More than 60 years later, a new space race to the moon has begun, albeit with much higher stakes and brand new players ready to make the 238,855-mile journey. This time, the race to the moon is about much more than just planting a flag on its dusty surface. Getting to the moon first could also mean calling dibs on its limited resources, and controlling a permanent gateway to take humans to Mars—and beyond.

Whether it’s NASA, China, Russia, or a consortium of private companies that end up dominating the moon, laying claim to the lunar surface isn’t really about the moon anyway—it’s about who gets easier access to the rest of the solar system.
Everyone’s Got an Agenda

James Rice, a senior scientist at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, remembers growing up with the Apollo program and getting bitten by the space bug as he watched the 1969 moon landing unfold on television.

“As a kid, I saw that happening and I wanted to be a part of it,” Rice told The Daily Beast. “That’s basically why I’m in this career today.”

As Rice reflected on the current space race, he recognized some key differences. “Things have really changed dramatically in terms of the technology and the players that are out there,” he said. “This is not the moon we thought of during the Apollo days.” Scientists have learned so much more about the moon through more detailed analysis of lunar samples, as well as several missions that have probed exactly what might be sitting on the moon’s surface and remain hidden deep underground.

Though we have known for over a decade that the moon is probably teeming with reserves of water ice, NASA announced just last year that it had found the best evidence yet that water trapped in icy pockets were far more spread out across the lunar surface than previously believed. The discovery further fueled the idea of building a permanent base on the moon, which astronauts could then use to reach Mars and other celestial destinations.

Conceptual art for a NASA-led astronaut base involving water ice prospecting and mining.
NASA

Why is this such a big deal? Water is a precious resource for space travelers—not just for astronauts to drink, but also to turn into rocket fuel to use to blast off.

Remember your grade-school science here: Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is known to be the most efficient rocket propellant whereas oxygen can be combined by fuel to create combustion. The ability to break down all that water ice on the moon means you have access to both of its constituent elements—an enormous supply of rocket fuel. (And as an added bonus, you can use any excess oxygen as breathable air for astronauts.)

Finding these resources on the moon is much better than transporting them from Earth. Packing resources to space comes at a hefty price—it costs about $10,000 just to launch a payload weighing a single pound into Earth’s orbit, according to NASA. It could be far less costly to use what the moon has to offer to build a lunar pitstop to cosmic destinations.

“I think the moon has been placed as this midpoint, or first step towards Mars,” Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society, told The Daily Beast. “It’s not an end destination.”

In other words, going back to the moon is not really about the moon, at least not entirely. It’s a gateway to truly larger space ambitions. That’s why Artemis—NASA’s new lunar exploration program—has been consistently touted not as simply a redux of Apollo, but rather the initial foundation for a permanent presence on the moon.

Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk, left, and Rick Gilbrech, director of NASA's Stennis Space Center, right, watch as the core stage for the first flight of NASAs Space Launch System rocket undergoes a second hot fire test in the B-2 Test Stand on March 18.
NASA/Robert Markowitz via Getty

Martha Hess, the director for human exploration and spaceflight at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit for technical guidance on space missions, echoed those sentiments. “This time, the moon is a training ground, and Mars is the destination,” she told The Daily Beast.

Today’s space race is also not merely between competing nations and political ideologies. It also involves private companies trying to pursue profits. “We are at a unique point in time where our economy and technology are aligned, allowing for private and commercial investment in space based capabilities,” said Hess. “This investment takes the pressure off government agencies to sustain the industry.”

Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are also looking beyond the moon. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has an obsessive vision of going to Mars and terraforming the planet to make it suitable for human colonization. Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos is looking to be a dominating player in the field of commercial space travel, transporting (probably very wealthy) citizens to the moon or beyond.

“Private companies have their own long term goals that exist outside of the national space program,” Dreier said. “They’ll do whatever NASA asks them to do, they don’t care whether NASA is going to the moon or Mars.”
A fight over resources

Something that will define the upcoming moon race is the fact that not every region on the moon is equal in value. “There are limited places to go, and it’s all about location,” Rice said.

Just as the California gold rush of the 19th century was defined by where the gold was found, so too will the water rush to the moon be defined by where the water is stored. The U.S. is looking to build its lunar base at the moon’s south pole, where there is thought to be a wealth of water ice reserves.

Moreover, the south pole is a wellspring for fulfilling energy needs: It’s exposed to more sunshine than anywhere else on the moon, which would fuel solar panels and supply power to the base.

Li Xianhua, China Academy of Sciences academician and Institute of Geology, speaks during a press conference in Beijing on Oct. 19.
Noel Celis/AFP via GettyMore

And with no clear space laws currently in place over ownership of objects in space, lunar resources may very well come down to whoever calls dibs first.

Who else wants to build a base on the moon’s south pole? For starters, there’s China, which recently announced long-term plans to build a base on the moon with Russia. Its more distant goal, of course, is to send a crewed mission to Mars by the year 2033.

The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, or the Chang’e Project, is relatively new to the scene but has already made great strides. In Jan. 2019, the country’s Chang’e-4 lunar probe was the first spacecraft in history to safely land on the far side of the moon. In Dec. 2020, the Chang’e-5 mission returned samples from the lunar surface. Those new moon rocks are already paying off in new scientific revelations. .

China’s space agency recently approved three more missions to the moon, targeting—you guessed it—the lunar south pole. The nation’s space program is hoping to land astronauts on the moon by the year 2030. Down the line, we may see Chinese and American astronauts hanging out on the moon at the same time.
The finish line

Nevertheless, China and Russia don’t pose much competition to the U.S. as long as NASA doesn’t dawdle on its way back to the moon. “China is absolutely working on building up its capability,” Dreier said. “But I’d say they’re at least a decade behind, if not more, compared to the U.S. capability.”

First up on NASA’s agenda is Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight to the moon that is meant to debut the brand new Space Launch System (the biggest rocket system ever built) and the Orion crew capsule that will eventually take astronauts back to the moon. Launching tentatively in April, Artemis I will simply orbit the moon and come back to Earth. It won’t be until Artemis III, set to launch in 2025 (if you’re an optimist), that we’ll finally see human boots make it to the lunar surface.

Hess does believe, however, that China has one advantage over the U.S. that it could exploit to make speedy progress.

“China has the benefit of being able to establish a long-term plan and funding, which allows them the ability to chip away at their 30-50-100 year vision,” Hess said. “We don’t have that luxury; our plans are good for a presidential term, and our budgets are appropriated annually so our programs start, stop and starve.” Long-term exploration of the solar system isn’t actually something that’s crystallized in U.S. budgets for decades to come.

NASA estimates that the Artemis program will cost $86 billion by 2025. The current U.S. administration has made a $24.8 billion fiscal 2022 budget request for NASA to cover the return to the moon.

During the first space race, the agency spent $28 billion to land the first humans on the moon, which is about $280 billion when adjusted for inflation, according to The Planetary Society.


As the space program for each of the space race participants begins to take shape, policy makers are realizing that they need to update the laws at hand to better govern the new era of space exploration that’s about to launch.

Regardless of who gets to plant space boots on the moon next, there is an overarching benefit to human exploration as a whole.

“There's more to it than that because there's an inspiration to it that you can't put a price tag on,” Rice said. “It does something to you when you walk out there and look at the moon and now there are people out there doing something, that just resonates.”