chaosMonster (The Mind of Bob 2.0)

Who is winning the GOP Primary: Obama

2012-01-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

This graph showing the betting in the Iowa Elections Market, and educational stock market were people can trade stocks in political outcomes. Though there have been a lot of missed projections in this market over the years it does generally represent the sentiment of the population.

Since there is real money at play here, if someone thought the odds were wrong they could make money buying and selling stocks in candidates. So overtime the market should reflect a consensus valuation in a candidates odds.

For example right now a share of Obama runs about 60 cents, a share of GOP about 40 cents. At election time the person holding a winning share will get a full dollar. So the odds on Obama are set presently about 6 out of 10.

The drop in the GOP over the past 6 months shows, in part, the negative impact the primary is having on the party. Unlike with the Democrats in 2008 this year the primary process is working against the party out of power.

Unemployment in an age without memory

2012-01-25T01:12:00.000-08:00

We all know the story, Germany's economy has managed to play everything right while the UK and other 'information age economies' messed everything up. Germany is the model the United Kingdom needs to follow.

Certainly the last couple of years would indicate this. German unemployment has been amazing while the UK unemployment continues to rise.

But take a view of about 20 years and the story looks very different. In 1995 UK unemployment went under German unemployment and stayed their for the better part of 15 years. Today it is common among conservatives to call this a bubble, but the longer term trend shows more stability in the UK employment market than the German.

Certainly re-unification has been a major problem for Germany. But what ever the causes UK unemployment has shown far more stability than Germany, and even after the 2008 collapse the UK rise was far less dramatic than repeated German rises in the 1990s (a lost decade for Germany) and massive rises between 2002 and 2006. Only over the pas t5 years has German unemployment been coming down, but even in this it shows the radical swings that have plagued the economy for decades.

Certainly the United Kingdom needs to reflect upon its economic policies, current austerity alone is proving to not be a solution at all. But the German model is not only not valid for a nation that whipped out most of its industrial base years ago, but given Germany wild ride on unemployment over the past 20 years would probably not be wise.

I note also that British society and community is not as strong as German. If the UK entered the kind of up and down insanity of unemployment as is normal for Germany you would likely see more social problem than you do in Germany. This social element is sadly missed. Morally the economy only exists to serve the society, but that ideas has been turned around in the minds of modern European leaders, where society must be transformed to serve the economy.

A generation lost to austerity

2012-01-24T04:57:00.000-08:00

Above IMF projections on unemployment, in reality the US has done much better and the UK has done much worse, and austerity is the major reason.
IMF got it wrong. The above data has checked lines for projected unemployment between the United States and the UK. The prediction of the IMF at the start of 2010 they saw UK unemployment staying stable, despite the coming austerity, at just under 8%. US unemployment for starting 2012 for the US was going to be 9%, UK was going to be 7.8%.

In reality 2012 has opened with US unemployment at 8.5%, UK unemployment at 8.3%. So in both cases the IMF was off.

As an evaluation of austerity, the UK has embraced austerity strongly in 2011 more than the US. The US economy has outperformed IMF projections by a 0.5% on unemployment. The UK has under performed IMF projects by 0.5%.

So how come the IMF was wrong?

Mostly because the IMF failed to fully understand the destructive impact of austerity. The assumption the IMF had was that the blow to unemployment in 2008 would be followed by a slow recovery, what the IMF failed to take in to consideration is the danger of government change in the UK. The UK was previously ruled by Brown's government, one of the most accomplished macro-economic leaders in the west (I know that does not say much) but Brown was able to keep the impact of the recession lower in the UK.

The UK public rewarded this amazing accomplishment by, typical to their self destructive style, putting in a rich right wing government which the Occupy Movement would call the 1%. This government has only one policy: austerity. This austerity policy reversed the track of the recovery

The above graph shows just how conditions under the new government have harmed employment. Austerity had assumed a growing private service sector would make new jobs for public sector workers, thus painlessly accomplishing the long held free market fetish of dismantling public sector work, the public sector being a major employer of women and ethnic minorities thus reducing their power as well.

What has actually happened is the private sector has found demand reduced as 100s of thousands of public sector workers pull back for fear of losing their jobs.

What is most disturbing about this double dip graph has been the failure of the UK government to even consider a course change. Austerity still remains the only economic policy of the government. The UK, like much of the EU has no strategy from growth. And the EU is learning that investors in job creation are not really that interested in public debt compared to growth.

Economies with massive debts have boomed before. The USA in the 1980s had a long period of prosperity in a massive explosion of debt. With the UK able to borrow money at about 2.3% for an ENTIRE 10 years (0.23% per year) while unemployment grows and business close there is no logic at all for an austerity only program.

The Debt Lie

2012-01-24T01:54:00.000-08:00

Over the past few years a myth has developed in Europe that nations presently facing austerity caused the problem by too much government debt during the good years.

This chart that shows dept levels of Ireland, United Kingdom debt per GDP vs the World, the EU and the Euro area shows this simply not to be true.

In reality Ireland, Spain and the UK had very low levels of debt, not only compared to the EU but to the entire world before the 2007 recession.

But it does not stop there: Spain continues to have low levels of debt by both a European and EU standard. The United Kingdom's debt has risen but is still only at the global average. Only Ireland has seen its debt rise well above the EU level.

Much of this raised debt caused by the slow down of the economy, but in the case of Ireland, and to a lesser degree the UK a banking collapse had a lot to do with it. In all three a major housing boom also contributed to the raised debt.

So in the EU outside of Greece, which is a minor economy but gets a lot of attention because it confirms the conservative bias of governments, the cause of raised government debt was NOT previous high spending on government services. In fact the PIIGS + UK economies show a tendency to have had solid debt performance in the years running up to the collapse. The issue was a dependency on banking and property to drive the economy.

In fact with the collapse of banking and property as engines of growth, and the lose of industrial production in much of the west, economies like Spain, the UK and Ireland are now precisely more dependent upon government to keep them from collapsing further. It will takes decades to rebuild industry, if that is even possible, and probably a decade or more to rebuild the value of housing, and the banks are in terrible shape. In the case of the UK and Ireland the economies have turned to debt spending to keep themselves alive. The problem has been public finances are being used to secure the incomes of a small minority of very wealthy people who work at banks while cutting support to the poorer elements in society.

This austerity, built more upon a myth than a reality, means that the banking sector retains its power and the members of it retain their status and wealth while the people suffer unemployment, poverty, and even in growing cases homelessness, cold and hunger. It shows the negative extent to which the free market fetish as distorted our moral and social values, where the mistakes of the rich and powerful are paid for by the innocent and poor.

In the UK among Tory voters I have witnessed first hand a really ugly brand of social hatred that always turns my stomach. Well off Tory voters are now prone to rant about abuses of upper middle class, about their over spending and their pursuit of fun from 2000 to 2008 as an excuse for further cuts, cuts that are more likely to hit the people who not only did not enjoy the fruits of that time, but actually saw their own status fall.

Austerity has imposed a cruel anti-social injustice upon the societies in which it has taken hold, were the haves justify austerity by pointing to their own waste to justify even further inequality.

But something happened to this, like to most myths: it has collapsed.

Stop complaining you are still rich

2012-01-17T02:52:00.000-08:00

American and Europeans have seen a significant drop in their per average GDP, but in context Europe and especially Americans are vastly wealthy compared to China. China's per person GDP in 1990 was only a few dollars a day, Sub-Sahara Africa levels. Even today the average Chinese still does not make a half what the Average Spanish person made 20 years ago!

The Myth of Debt Labour

2012-01-17T01:59:00.000-08:00

In the UK a common myth is generally held to be true by people about the nature of the debt. The myth is that the United Kingdom under Labour regimes of Blair and Brown had run up too much debt during the good times, and that when the economic crisis came the UK government was already so in debt that it did not have the resources to deal with the economic collapse. Cameron became Prime Minister running on the government debt and nothing else.

The above graph shows how false this claim is. In the years running up to the 2008 collapse the UK had significantly less debt as share of GDP than the world average. and far less than Germany.

In fact when you include in the analysis nations like Iceland, Ireland and Spain, which are all in major debt crisis now, you see a clear pattern. EU nations that had very low levels of debt before 2009 suddenly see debt exploded. The levels of government debt are clearly the effect not the cause here.

And this is the nightmare the Europe is facing, the conservative European governments are technically bleeding their nations to death: treating the symptom while ignoring and even hiding the cause. The UK debt is a product of the imbalance of finance, housing and and retail over other sectors, and these sectors have collapses. Actually there is reason to believe that low debt before 2009 was a sign of danger. This may be because the low debts were driven by tax revenues from the boom and this certainly is the case in the US.

But it may also be possible that low levels of government debt were allowing large deposits in banks to be mis-allocated. People generally don't think about public and private debt very deeply. But for a nation like the UK think about it. Public debt will go to things like building roads, schools and hospitals, paying teachers, making repairs and promoting education. Cuts, like the vicious cuts being seen in the UK today have a negative impact on human services like education.

While government debt goes in to things that on the whole are certain to return value (schools, police, health care) private debt in a boom will go where ever. Popular places to pump private debt is real estate, especially building high rises, overseas investments, credit card loans, and what ever new vehicle they banks can come up with. This kind of debt has two negatives, firstly much of it returns no economic benefits (building more high rises than you need does not help the economy and only reduces the value of other assets) but also the high interest rates of private debt mean that things like consumerism leave future generations with debt.

So it is possible that these high levels of private debt and low levels of public debt in nations like the UK, Ireland and Iceland actually hurt the economies, moving the nations investment wealth out of providing solid public services in to speculation.

Greenhouse footprints: Who are the real pigs?

2012-01-12T05:43:00.000-08:00

We all know that Americans produce way to much greenhouse gas per person, but Canadians have been catching up in the past 10 years, and Gulf nations like Kuwait and Bahrain are even dirtier per person, while Saudi Arabia is not far behind the US and Canada. The nations of Europe, Japan and Israel are cleaner per person, but the emerging world of Brazil, Cuba, Egypt, Nicaragua and India produce a fraction of the greenhouse gas.

Even if everyone on the planet was as clean as Japan or France the world's production of greenhouse gas would got above the current level, while if we all produced as little as the average Indian the world would be vastly cleaner.

The Exporters

2012-01-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

This chart shows export growth for the world, United States, United Kingdom, Germany and China.

Not surprising the China's growth has been much higher than the global rate for most of the bast 20 years. But there is a troubling, for China, legacy of boom and bust that might spell trouble for China, which saw a major boom in the 1990s lead to a hard landing.

It is also interesting to see that among Western nations German is currently seeing the weakest export growth, as the UK is see the strongest. But the most telling thing is how connected trade makes the worlds major economies, when they rise they all rise together and then the fall they tend to fall together. In the cases of global, UK, US and Germany the rates normalize after one year, with a single case of any of these nations under performing global average by more than a year or so.

Who is export driven? Debunking the BRICs myth

2012-01-03T04:11:00.000-08:00

We all know about the BRICs, developing economies growing because of strong exports that put more advanced nations to shame right.

The problem is it is hard to see this in the evidence. Above I compare the export dependency of Norway, Canada, and the UK against China, Russia, India and Brazil and find that Norway is the largest exported as percentage of GDP, with China and Russia exporting as much, as percentage of GDP as Canada and the UK, and India and Brazil lagging behind.

Also notice that massive bubble in Chinas export levels! Is China facing a export bubble?

Slavoj Zizek: Capitalism and Democracy are seperated

2012-01-01T06:32:00.000-08:00

Zizeck speaks on the state of Capitalism, and the end of Capitalism's justification with Democracy in the form of a new kind of Capitalism in China.

Why is it Not the BBRICS?

2012-01-01T05:20:00.001-08:00

Looking just at recent economic growth Belarus has done as well, recently, as Russia and Brazil. Why is not in the BRICs.

Russia in the BRICS?

2012-01-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

Looking at new business formation, Russia is not performing like the emerging economies of Brazil and China. In fact Russia is now lagging behind France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in rates of new Business Ownership.

Not really an emerging economy.

Define an english person, collective attack

2011-12-15T03:10:00.000-08:00

Because so many people have linked define an english person with this link to Google gives a wonderful result

The BRICs collapse

2011-12-12T05:46:00.000-08:00

10 years ago the BRICs was an innovative idea by Jim O'Neill of Goldman Sachs. The idea that emerging grouping of India, Russia, Brazil and China would form a third well driving the global economy. That this would add a new economic engine to the global economy along with the United States and European Community. For the better part of a decade the concept has been the favorite of trendy talk on the developing world. But now with India and Brazil's economies entering hard recessions and Russia on the verge of chaos the entire BRIC idea just looks like another derivative sold by Goldman Sachs: utter trash.

Lets come out and say it right way. Goldman Sachs bundled 4 utterly isolated economies in India, China, Brazil and Russia to sell emerging market stocks to consumers. This was no different than how bankers bundled mortgage mixing good mortgages with subprime make Mortgage Backed Securities that would have been better called Mortgage Infected Insecurities. Then bankers started loaning to EU nations seeing sovereign debt as a good investment, but again they mixed solid debts like Holland, Germany, France and the United Kingdom with higher interest subprime countries like Greece and Italy.

The pattern of bankers combining things that are unrelated, mixing trash with gold to try and make a commodity to push to other investors is well established.

Well I am going to say it here, the entire concept of the BRICs was just another case of this. The member nations of the BRICs had NOTHING truly in common. Their economies were all very different, facing different risks and advantages, and didn't really form a singular whole or reinforce each other in any way. It was just another Goldman Sachs scheme to think people were buying in to something they were not.

China has had an impressive economic run for the past few decades and it makes sense that many investors would like to get in to China. But bankers were not happy just selling China, they had stocks in India, Brazil and Russia (all growing and large as well) that they wanted to pass off to suckers, I mean investors.

Problem was while China had a solid record people had reasons to wonder about India and Brazil, and would have been crazy to want to invest in Russia. So what was a firm like Goldman Sachs to do? Honestly sell the stocks people wanted to the people who wanted them. Okay seriously, Goldman Sachs simply stacked the four together, mixing basket case societies like Russia and Brazil with China in order to create a new kind of investment instrument.

Well the BRICs are pretty much falling about. Just check the news.

India is in an economic collapse right now. India's production and mining sector has fallen over 5% from October 2010 to October 2011. For a developing country that still has as many poor people as all of Africa to lose 5% in industry is very weak. The EU may have caught a cold, but India seems to have cancer.

Brazil, the most isolated of the BRICs is not doing much better. In the last quarter of 2011 Brazil, which was growing at 7.5% in 2010 came to a complete standstill. Again for a developing nation with major poverty that needs development just to crawl out of a hole a sudden period of 0% growth is a catastrophe.

But these nations seems golden compared to Russia, where core survival of civil society is in danger. Brazil and Russia have had peaceful transitions of power and fair elections, Russia does not even have a civil society as the presence of over 50,000 protests to a rigid election shows that the system is more Soviet than anything else.

Even China is endangered to some extent by the collapse in Europe, but her economy is doing much better than the other 'BRICs'

So what can we conclude:

The BRICs is a meaningless useless concept for economics, joining unrelated and unlinked economies in to something trying to sound like NAFTA or EU.
The BRICs is an effort by banking community to sell equities is less stable nations like Brazil and Russia by someone making them seem linked to China.
The nations of India, Brazil and China are still heavily dependent on US and EU economies and are not some kind of third engine. There recent growth has come at the cost of jobs lost in the west.
A new spirit of protectionism, which is certainly coming, will wash much of the recent growth away.
Russia is a fiasco, Brazil is a narco-democracy, India isn't even a nation at all, and China as a Fascist Uber Corporatist State that all reason says must be headed for a bubble burst.

But to sum up: One has to be an idiot to believe anything Goldman Sachs ever said.

Police turn innocent Occupy Melbourne protest in to ugly incident

2011-12-11T05:15:00.001-08:00

In Australia the Occupy movement responded to the ban on tents with a clever protest. They made outfits out of tents and expressed their protest in what can only be called a playful, harmless and utterly innocent fashion.

But in a world run by the banks their is no longer the freedom of innocent protest. Any descent against the banking system will be meet by a violent response. This fun, small innocent protest ended in a terrifying scene of the police disrobing on of the female protesters and leaving her in her underwear in public then walking off.

If anything is a wake up call to decent humans about what the banking system has done to their society it is these two movies. This is Soviet Union kind of stuff, where women are violated and humiliated sexually for any act of opposition.

Clearly the banks and free market reforms of 30 years has produced a indecent uncivil world. It is time to admit that the 'experiments' of Reagan and Thacher have not delivered prosperity and cost our society its core decency.

Reality check: Public debt caused collapse? No

2011-12-11T04:40:00.001-08:00

There is a popular myth in the US and UK that someone nations that did not run big deficits during the 'good' years from say 1999-2007 condemned themselves to economic hardship and massive deficits.

This kind of thinking is often grounded in the kind of homespun folk knowledge that most false concepts are cluttered in. An example from Twitter is pretty typical:

dougdevos doug de vos

@rober1236Jua my father's father used to say: in the good years, save; in the bad years, don't spend. the diff between uk & nl #euroaside

2 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

The saddest thing about the Internet is how quickly people went front typing questions in to Google to typing opinions in to Twitter. Because it is very easy to test ideas like this. Above I graph the debt to GDP performance of 6 nations, 3 which are seen as doing well during the current crisis (Germany, Holland and France) and 3 of the worst PIIGS (Iceland, Ireland and Spain).

It is true that Ireland, Iceland and Spain have far higher debt to GDP ratios today than France, Germany and Holland. BUT from 1998 to 2008 the OPPOSITE was true. Iceland, Ireland and Spain not only balanced their budgets but also ran significant surpluses over much of the 21st Century. On the other hand Holland was the only of the three non-PIIGs that was able to balance it books running a small surplus but nothing compared to the massive surpluses that Iceland, Ireland and Spain had.

So if you are the kind of person interested in facts the notion that governments surplus could have been stored away to avoid the current crisis is clearly false. The sad thing is how few people are ever interested in facts.

Russian Twitter launches troll bomb

2011-12-09T08:20:00.000-08:00

"Hijacked PCs may have helped drown out online chat about Russian election protests, say security experts.

The computers were used to disrupt Twitter as Russians chatted about ongoing protests in Moscow's Triumphal Square, said security firm Trend Micro.

Analysis of the many pro-Kremlin messages posted to some discussions suggested they were sent by machines.

Russian activists said thousands of Twitter accounts were being used to drown out genuine dissent.

BBC News - Russian Twitter political protests 'swamped by spam'

Government Debt and the economy

2011-12-09T01:35:00.001-08:00

The above chart of Government debts for Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Iceland, United States and United Kingdom makes clear some facts.

1. Running a surplus during the boom changed nothing, maybe even made things worse. Iceland and Spain both ran large surpluses during the boom and neither economy benefited at all, in fact nations taht improved their balance sheet during this time tended to do worse after the 2008 bust.

2. Event is essentially global and everyone was impacted.

3. Event was more a factor of exposure to housing boom and related banking sector, and not government spending.

India ends shopmarket globalisation idea

2011-12-04T02:19:00.000-08:00

Small shops throughout India keep 100,000,000s from falling in to povery, photo by Gail Orenstein

India's government is reported to have put on hold plans to open up the retail market to global supermarket chains.
Just days after approving long-awaited proposals to raise the limits on foreign investment, a government ally said he had been told the policy was suspended.
The decision to allow chains such as Walmart and Tesco into India has sparked fierce opposition.
Critics fear the move would destroy millions of jobs and businesses.

BBC News - India 'suspends' plan to open up to global supermarkets

In a promising sign about the death of the neo-liberal free market fetish and some sane thinking about globalisation India has decided to not throw millions of small shop owners out of business in order to allow massive public traded firms to do to India what has been done to shop owners in the UK and the US.

Tesco has essentially killed the smaller grocer in England, leaving an exploitative firm that produces few jobs, pushes 'express' stores on poorer communities that charge more money, and as I have learned even refuse to allow homeless access to food waste. Tesco is a sad case, but Walmart is perhaps even worse. Walmart has essentially made it impossible for a mom and pop shop to function in America.

India's common sense move should please both Occupy movement and right wingers. Occupy will clearly be happy about multi-national global public companies not being allowed access to India market which produces jobs for millions of small shop owners. But free market types have to start actually reading their Adam Smith. Adam Smith said that Monopoly always produces the highest price that could be had, where as heavy competition produces the lowest. The Indian small shop market is pure competition, with tens of millions of players entering the market. Tesco and Walmarts work towards Monopoly power.

As a strong supporter of Occupy I am not looking for a socialist regime, I certainly don't think one is possible. What I want to see is the break up of much of the monopoly power that has developed which has created risk and made our world rather sterile and dead.

Occupy Rave in London

2011-12-03T17:13:00.001-08:00

Occupy Portland Launches a Sneak Tent Attack

2011-12-03T16:46:00.001-08:00

7 new tweets

MattBors Matt Bors

Police orders a tent to stop being built. #opdx

49 seconds ago

OccupyOregon OCCUPY OREGON

2 bike cops walking up to 1st tent. #opdx - @robistall

43 seconds ago

MediaOccupyOly OccupyOlympia

#solidarity #occupycascadia RT @OccupyOregon: Park & Salmon occupied! #occupyportland #occupypdx #opdxpic.twitter.com/NHFhDQMC

56 seconds ago

robistall Rob

2 bike cops walking up to 1st tent. #opdx

1 minute ago

sarahmorrigan Sarah Morrigan

We #occupy! #opdx #occupyportland (@ Shemanski Fountain)4sq.com/u4RMkl

2 minutes ago

info_maven Liz Paulus

Advice - get OFF of the frackin' monuments! Don't break stuff - fountain is damn fragile!Please!! @theriaultpdx #opdxpic.twitter.com/sANhZjEc

2 minutes ago

OccupyOregon OCCUPY OREGON

PA at the new #occupyportland being set up. Come to Salmon & Park to join the re-occupation! #occupypdx #opdxpic.twitter.com/Vittp0eR

2 minutes ago

kmcdade Kathleen McDade

Wayne Havrelly is here from @KGWNews. #opdx

3 minutes ago

occupationmeow ian carmany

#opdx sets it up yfrog.com/g0udthj

3 minutes ago

robistall Rob

Peace & safety meeting at blue tent now! #opdx

3 minutes ago

OccupyMoon OccupyMoon

RT @OccupyOregon: rt @MattBors: Tents fly up in park blocks at Main St. #opdx

3 minutes ago

Phillip Glass joins Occupy

2011-12-03T14:58:00.001-08:00

Bailed bank thinks to not give bonus to failed CEO

2011-12-03T14:45:00.001-08:00

Well here in a bit of rationality

Lloyds Banking Group is looking to "claw back" up to half of the £1.45m bonus it awarded to its former chief executive, it has been reported.

The Telegraph says lawyers have told Eric Daniels and other senior executives that it is considering withholding part of their bonuses.

The part-nationalised bank is taking action after it announced a £3.9bn loss for the first nine months of 2011.

Eric Daniels stepped down as chief executive of Lloyds in March
Source BBC
The public of the UK owns about 43% of this bank. So it should be an outrage that anyone gets any bonus. Especially a 1.45 million pound bonus.

US women win the education war

2011-12-03T14:31:00.001-08:00

This graph show the rise of women obtain BA and BS degrees from US Universities. As you can see male educational level has utterly stagnated in the US while women's education obtainment has raised significantly.

So what does this mean. Two things: first women obviously are going to have advantages in the information age work force. But since women are generally always paid less than men the rising number of women in the information economy will mean work requiring University degree will become lowered paid. This is a sad trend that we always see with women coming in to any section of the work force.

The US economy seems to have recovered

2011-12-03T14:18:00.001-08:00

Retail drives the US economy. Looking at the statistics for retail it has taken three years for the US economy to recover to the levels before the collapse. This does not mean the economy is healthy, it means that the United States driving force has finally recovered, but the population of the United States has continued to grow in this time.

During the same time the US economy has increased by 5 million from 302 to 307 million. This almost 2% rise in population since the bust means that the retail is still below where it needs to be to meet the rise in population.

But the Nominal Gross Domestic Product has increased after a significant drop. So as long as the bankers don't mess up again the economy seems to be in the overall right direction.

The English Defence League demonstrate in East London

2011-09-04T03:05:00.000-07:00

The English Defence League demonstrate in East London

Capitalists destroying Capitalism

2011-06-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

Brilliant point. It seems that over the past 10 years or so the primary enemy of the Capitalist system have been people in Capitalism, from Enron to the bank bailout the Capitalists seem unable to control their desire for self wealth even at the cost of self destruction.

2011-06-06T03:15:00.002-07:00

The spirit of Acampada Puerta del Sol

Photo By Gail Orenstein for the web 3.0 laB/CLIMA/MADRID

The heavy rain never broke the spirit of those at Acampada Del Sol. This young woman celebrated in the rain with some dancing and singing.

Observations from a "Social Media" revolution in Spain

2011-06-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

chaosMonster (The Mind of Bob 2.0): Plaza Del Sol protest in Madrid: "Gail Orenstein 5 June 2011 Madrid"

The key lesson we have learned talking to people in Madrid and observing the protests is that is it best not to think of this as a Social Media organized revolution. Rather, this is a social event carried out by a new generation who use Socail Media and the Internet as an every day part of their lives. But the events stress direct physical experience of social life, which is missing form social networks.

What is striking among the protests in the Plaza Del Sol of Madrid is the absence of continual mobile phone and computer usage . Most of the mobile phone usage is by visitors taking photos of the sites. The participants are more likely to be talking, cooking, singing or demonstrating.

That is not to say that social media and the Internet are not important for these protests. The camp has a communications center at there are signs with URLs, facebook groups and Twitter hashtages everywhere. Its likely the demonstration would not have taken place, or been so well organized without the new technology.

But one also see a decisive change in how the technology is use. The events mark a very deliberate and strategic use of digital and social network technology. To organize, to bypass indifferent national media, and to connect to people in remote locations around Madrid, around Spain, around Europe and around the world. The local protest here is very linked in to the global events from Tahrir in Cairo to Athens.

But its also striking how much less these young people are glued to their computers and phones than we are used to seeing in their generation. Within the acampada of Plaza Del Sol there is not the vast boredom and lack of social engagement which is normal for our modern world. Young people are simply to0 busy, too happy, and too engaged to waste time checking their facebook profiles or foursquare mayorships.

In Madrid young protesters are likely exchanging addicative purposeless usage of socail media in isolation for deliberate strategic usage to larger social ends. And most of the activies the stress is on engage here and how activity which people a physical sense of community. Maybe its just a Spanish thing but people are embracing each other constantly.

Acampada Plaza Del Sol June 4th 2011

2011-06-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Photograph by Gail Orenstein of Acampada protests in Madrid 2011

Nothing will break the spirit of the Acampada Puerta del Sol. The heavy rain only contributed to the sense of never feeling defeated!!

Plaza Del Sol Acampada protest 5 June 2011

2011-06-05T09:34:00.001-07:00