Hypoxia (environmental): oxygen depletion, a reduced concentration of dissolved oxygen in a water body leading to stress and death in aquatic organisms

From Wikipedia. From the World Resources Institute (via the Daily Green):

Like carbon, the nitrogen cycle is all out of whack. In this case, the origins are similar. Instead of burning petroleum or coal, nitrogen comes from natural gas transformed into ammonia fertilizer and used to grow crops; what doesn’t absorb into the soil runs off into streams, which flow into rivers, which flow to the ocean, where the nitrogen fuels “dead zones” – areas where nitrogen (and phosphorus) fertilizes so much algae growth that it absorbs enough oxygen to make the water inhospitable to fish and other marine life. Jellyfish are about the only thing that thrives in these conditions; corals certainly do not.

…

The World Resources Institute recently mapped the world’s dead zones and found a whopping 415 eutrophic zones, including 169 that are known to be hypoxic and another 169 that probably are. The researchers believe the number is much higher, since only the United States and the European Union do an adequate job of counting and reporting problem coastal areas. China and other fast-growing Asian economies are likely polluting their coasts, but the problem hasn’t been documented, the researchers say.

The map (click for the larger version):

According to the WRI:

More than 1,000 scientists estimated, in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, that, as a result of human activities over the past 50 years, the flux of nitrogen has doubled over natural values while the flux of phosphorus has tripled.

It appears to be part of a broader policy release, due in February. They’ve written a couple of things (in 2003) about the problem on a more localised scale. Globally, I’m looking forward to seeing their ideas about funding conservation and replacing incomes (since agriculture usually pumps the nitrogen into these areas – not for nothing am I Australian). In a world with increasing food prices, I can’t imagine pressure easing from agricultural intensity naturally.

“…personal protection and personal music for people on the go”

… the hell?

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, expected to see more than 140,000 visitors this week, is no stranger to bizarre gadgets but the iTaser – as it has been dubbed – must rank as one of the oddest. It combines a Taser stun gun, used by 12,000 police and security forces worldwide including the Metropolitan police, with an MP3 player and earphones….Arizona-based Taser International sells the handheld stun guns under the rather hyperbolic banner of ‘Changing the World and Protecting Lives’. It maintains that the iTaser “allows for both personal protection and personal music for people on the go”.”Personal protection can be both fashionable and functionable,” according to Rick Smith, founder of the company, who also used CES to unveil a new Leopard-print Taser aimed at the more feminine arm of the stun gun-loving community.

This sort of thing is entirely the fault of Warren Ellis. I’m serious. This is Transmetropolitan, Doktor Sleepless stuff. All his fault.

Tasers – as far as I’m aware – require background checks (for the purchase/use thereof). Asking for one with an mp3 player, though, should automatically disqualify you.

Monopolistic competition, comma, Starbucks

The news this morning (post delayed while I went and found suitable Common-Cold Paraphernalia for my wife). The benefit of a two-year long Presidential campaign is the ability to ignore the economy – it’s like a holiday that distracts for a whole year and requires nothing of our credit cards. Ignoring the news that Merill Lynch has called Recession on the US, based on Unemployment data, today’s message is, instead, the “lift” Wall Street is receiving:

(story now running under the heading “Wall St falls amid US consumer worries“).

Speaking of the Big Picture (source of the Merrill Lynch story): it has a wonderful, truly entertaining strike at housing in the US; the numbers, the media and, in particular, the National Association of Realtors. Very much worth reading.

So, Starbucks. Apparently lifting Wall Street, thanks to the return of wonder-CEO Howard Schultz. Will he manage to turn around the 42% drop in Starbucks’ stock? The announcement alone managed a more-than-10% spike:

Although to look at the year…

Yeah. Similar for the “lift”ed Wall Street:

But back to Starbucks. Starbucks is a textbook example (in the case of my Eco 1 class, the textbook example) of a monopolistically competitive firm: many sellers, low barriers to entry, slight product differentiation. Short-run economic profits, and an opportunity to secure long-run economic profits (through a continuous cycle of product re-differentiation, as per the fashion industry). Except Starbucks has gone in for relatively little in the way of such re-differentiation: a sure way of making sure your industry’s Remora fish grow into sharks themselves, and take you on.

So to Andrew Clark, writing for the Guardian. Specifically, he’s been writing about Starbucks, their internal awareness of the problem (including the new/old CEO), and the pleasant pace at which those low barriers to entry are allowing catch-up:

McDonald’s is stepping up a caffeine-fuelled onslaught on Starbucks by introducing specially trained baristas and prominent coffee bars at its fast-food outlets across America.

The world’s biggest hamburger chain is adding lattes, mochas and an ice-blended frappé to its menus, plus a broader range of “grab and go” beverages such as iced tea, smoothies and bottled drinks.

…

Mindful of its many blue-collar customers, McDonald’s is keen to make premium coffee as accessible as possible. Sizes will be called small, medium and large – rather than Italian terms such as grande, massimo and venti favoured by chains such as Starbucks and Costa Coffee.

In advertisements running in test markets around Kansas City, McDonald’s assures customers that they will not get a “condescending look” if they mispronounce the size of the drink they want.

I wouldn’t go into McDonalds, but that’s a smell issue (what? I’m vegan. It smells bad in there. There are a few bakeries that reek of egg in NYC, too) – this is pretty clever advertising. McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts (or however they manage to misspell it here) are serious competition for the coffeehouse chains.

Back to Andrew Clark, and we get entirely another perspective to the FT spin, at the top:

With its green logo, enticing muffins and semi-Italian vocabulary, Starbucks is a familiar haven to coffee lovers around the world. But as new outlets open on street corners at a dizzying rate, doubts are mounting on Wall Street about just how many “venti frappuccinos” the public can stomach.

…

In the final quarter of the year, Starbucks revealed what many had feared: although business remains strong in Britain and other overseas markets, footfall at Starbucks’ 10,500 American outlets is slowing down. The average number of transactions per US store was down by 1%.

“They have to slow their growth – they’ve been growing far too fast,” says Howard Penney, a restaurants analyst at broker Friedman, Billings, Ramsey in New York. He says Starbucks is following a path familiar from Coca-Cola and McDonald’s and is in danger of facing a revolt by shareholders.

“Act one – a great concept starts and grows, becomes a global behemoth and ultimately grows too fast. It takes two or three CEOs to realise they’ve hit a level of maturity that means they’ve got to adjust.”

…

An American website, Foodio54.com, has begun measuring “Starbucks saturation” by postcode. In the centre of New York, for example, it reckons there is one Starbucks every 0.07 square miles. In Beverly Hills, the ratio is one every 4.7 square miles.

So, what can be expect from Starbucks, post re-entry of Schultz? Will they rip it up, Apple/Target style? I hope so – those were pretty exciting. If they don’t, they’ll end up where many such chains have, trying hard to keep profits and shareholders going in a market that doesn’t value its brand any longer.

BONUS STORY: my wife also showed this story to me, recently:

What is the most expensive drink at Starbucks? A New York software engineer, Billy Chasen, decided to find out when he was given a voucher for a free drink of any variety. A venti white mocha is the priciest on the menu. He asked a barista at a Manhattan branch to squeeze as many extra shots and syrups into the cup as possible. The result? A 13-shot venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with extra white mocha and caramel. The cost was $13.76 (£6.97). His verdict? “It was very sweet and I’m still shaking a bit,” he reported on his blog. “I didn’t attempt to drink the entire thing, since I’d like to sleep tonight.”

The problem is that, while soy milk costs extra (40 cents, I think), espresso shots cost more: meaning Chasen’s drink would have been more expensive had he left the milk out altogether, and filled the cup entirely with espresso shots and flavour.

So there may be some fiscal policy response, after all

According to Bloomberg,

President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that U.S. economic indicators are sending “mixed” signals and that they are considering whether a stimulus is needed.

“We’re all focused on this,” Paulson told the New York Society of Security Analysts. “This is a decision he still has to make,” Paulson said of the president, who told an audience in Chicago today “indicators have become increasingly mixed.”

“Become”? Meh. This is the man who Treasury-Secretary’d our way into this mess – God only knows how he interprets “signals”. Someone should ask him what sort of signal those CMO trades sends.

Oddly, though, he had this to add:

Paulson said he expected the economy would keep growing and suggested the administration wouldn’t rush to Congress with a fiscal stimulus plan.”Working through the current situation and getting the policy right is more important than getting the policy announced quickly,” he said.

“This economy is really quite resilient in the face of some pretty strong headwinds,” Paulson said. At the same time, he added that “the consumer is facing some real challenges right now – the housing downturn, energy prices, the unemployment numbers.”

The “resilience” crack is fine – it’s the extent of the job, in modern times, but “getting policy right”? – this would, of course, not include Monetary Policy. The policy known to have substantial long-term effects when used heavy-handedly. The policy we’ve all been black-mailing the Fed into using, successively, for the last few months because the Federal Government preferred to throw its spare hundreds of billions of dollars at the Defence Department.

So it looks like more (or making permanent the existing) tax cuts on non-labour income. With Public Debt now a tick above USD30,269.04 per citizen (Federal Debt less, but still over USD5tr overall), it would nevertheless appear that we’re about to blow – yet again – through the most recent debt limit increase – the limit now standing at USD9.8tr. The mere tanking of the dollar very likely brings us closer to that this year, without dropping more government income.

Do you live in New York City?

According to Wikipedia, back in 2000 when the Debt Clock was de-activated people thought the debt was gone (it was still around USD5tr). Now, the clock is still going to go because it doesn’t have enough digits to show USD10tr in debt.

But back to the article. Former students will remember me harping on about the impossible job of the Fed, and the absence of fiscal policy (and why). Now talk of it emerges and I’m still not happy. Well (a) vegans can be miserable bastards, socialist scum-types doubly-so. More importantly, though, consider this:

Paulson said making permanent the tax reductions Bush implemented in 2001 and 2003 would “provide great relief” to investors. He acknowledged that it’s unlikely he will be able to convince a Congress led by Democrats who campaigned on pledges to reverse some of Bush’s tax policy to go along.

Tax cuts on non-labour income are regressive. They benefit people who make money from money, rather than money from labour – and you can guess how the ownership of capital is distributed. The people losing their houses will not benefit. The Waltons will be able to stick a few more masterpieces in their living room. National parks, public schools, city police departments, public housing – these will all feel the bite of cuts in government expenditure, as tax receipts decline in the face of a public debt larger than a lot of whole economies. Grover Norquist will be pleased.

My silver lining? The Batman comics for such an era ought to be pretty cool. It isn’t much.