biologists finally catching on?

Video - Craig Venter on Genomics from Human to the Environment.

Bytesize Biology | An article published today in Science shows the first case of animals synthesizing carotenoids. Nancy Moran and Tyler Jarvik form the University of Arizona looked at the recently sequenced genome of the pea aphid. The pea aphid is known for having two different colors: green and red. It was not very clear though how the aphids got their color. Aphids feed on sap, and sap does not contain carotenoids. When looking at the genomes of the aphids, Moran and Jarvik found that they contained genes for synthesizing carotenoids: this is the first time carotenoid synthesizing genes are found in animals. The question they naturally asked is “where did those genes come from”? The animal kingdom does not contain genes for making carotenoids, so how come aphids have them? Indeed, when they looked for the most similar genes to the aphid carotenoid synthesizing genes they found that they came from fungi, which means they somehow jumped between fungi and aphids, in a process known as horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer is not unheard-of in animals, and is actually quite common in plants (yeah, fungi are not plants, I know that), but this is the first time someone has shown a jump from fungi to animals, and that the trait that this gene conveys — color — became embedded and functional in the genome.

Aphid color is important: red aphids get picked easily by predators off green plants, and vice-versa. So there is an evolutionary aspect here: the carotenoid genes play a role in the predator-driven selection of aphids. So in the case of aphids, as opposed to puffins and flamingo, the selective pressure is that of predation, not of mating. (I’ll refrain from comments about Auntie Mae.)

"Long ago, an ancestor to today's pea aphid somehow internalized a large important chunk of DNA from a fungus. This DNA now allows the aphid to generate its own carotenoid molecules. All animals need carotenoids for body functions as important as eyesight. However this aphid is the only organism in the Animal Kingdom so far to have been reported capable of producing it internally. The rest of us must forage for foods such as carrots, containing carotenoids. The precise way the DNA transfer occurred is not yet understood; however patterns within the DNA conclusively show a link to a fungus. DNA transfer from fungus to animal is unprecedented." (text taken from the NSF announcement). Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation

As an aside, many of our pseudogenes and other contents of “junk DNA” are thought to have been acquired by horizontal gene transfer. Still, this is the first time a case of gene transfer that is so clear between two different kingdoms. However, I have the sneaking suspicion that as we sequence more animal, plant, fungal and other genomes of multicellular organism, we would find more cases of “large-leap” HGT of functional genes happening: we just don’t have enough genomes yet to appreciate the frequency of these occurrences! Fist tap Dale.

dna robots get sophisticated

The Scientist | Scientists are one step closer to creating molecular robots that may eventually perform complex tasks, such as building nanomolecules or delivering drugs to target tissues.

They have constructed DNA-based robots that can walk along a specific path unaided or collect various nanoparticles along an assembly line, according to two studies published this week in Nature.

"This has the feel to me of the beginning of a technology revolution," said Andrew Ellington, an evolutionary engineer at the University of Texas at Austin and the vice president of the International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation and Engineering, who was not involved in the research. "This work will absolutely pave the way for how you build molecular robots."

The robots built in one study are a type of DNA walker, called a molecular "spider." They are minute, mobile molecules that move along a flat surface made out of folded DNA, known as DNA origami, binding to and unbinding from the surface as they go.

The movement of these spiders is largely random, however, said biochemist and study co-author Milan Stojanovic of Columbia University. But together with several other big players in the nanotechnology and DNA computing fields, including Nils Walter of the University of Michigan, Erik Winfree of the California Institute of Technology, and Hao Yan of Arizona State University, Stojanovic designed a DNA origami surface that directed the DNA spider down a specified path (see video).

"You just have to start it, and it walks the path," said chemist Kurt Gothelf, director of Centre for DNA Nanotechnology at Aarhus University in Denmark, who was not involved in the research.

the immune system controls everything?

Video - leptin rewires neurons that control satiety

Neurological Correlates | Now take leptin, and preferably take it for a coupleahundredmil or so, that’s about how much money had been thrown at that molecule trying to figure out if it was a drug. Leptin is one of those molecules that has had hundreds of zillions of dollars thrown at it in hopes that it could be a miracle drug. It never was. It made genetically leptin-deficient mice skinny. A new company is running the clinical trials taking a combination approach, and the reports are good so far.

Leptin, though, is a four helical bundle and very cytokine-like. (E.g., here).And, cytokines live and work in the immune system.

So, being the anti-Occam, our new theory is that the immune system controls everything, and therefore it must simply be aliens that have taken over our bodies and are instructing us to carry out their will. Maybe not the most parsimonious explanation, but still.

"biologists'" insufferable confusion...,

Video - describing and explaining marine snow.

LiveScience | Bacteria and other germs latch on to clumps of decaying matter floating in the ocean, creating "germ islands" that could spread disease, a new study reveals.

When plants and animals near the surface of the ocean die, they decay and gradually fall to the seafloor. This dead matter can clump together with sand, soot, fecal matter and other material to form what is called "marine snow," so named because it looks like tiny bits of white fluff. Marine snow continuously rains down on the deep ocean, feeding many of the creatures that dwell there.

A group of scientists studying marine snow found that these clumps, or aggregates, may act as island-like refuges for pathogens, the general term for disease-causing organisms or germs, such as bacteria and viruses. (The "island" term comes from the comparison of the existence of pathogens on marine snow with the way insects, amphibians and other creatures establish homes and persist on remote islands in the oceans.)

The scientists are evaluating the degree to which aggregates made up of this decaying organic matter provide a favorable microclimate for aquatic pathogens. These "refuges" seem to protect pathogens from stressors, such as sunlight and salinity (amount of salt in the water) changes, and from predators. They also might provide sources of nourishment for the pathogens.

"If the microclimate is favorable, aggregates likely facilitate the persistence, prevalence and dispersal of aquatic pathogens," said study team member Fred Dobbs of Old Dominion University (ODU) in Norfolk, Va.

The researchers found the bacteria had an increased metabolism (meaning they were more active), and a greater diversity, when living on individual organic aggregates compared with those in the surrounding water. These results indicate that aggregates might be potential reservoirs and vectors for aquatic pathogens.

"We've shown, for example, that vibrios [a type of pathogen] proliferate in aggregates and decline in adjacent, aggregate-free water," the authors wrote in the paper describing their findings, which is included in the May 4 issue of the journal Aquatic Microbial Ecology.

Current models developed to look at the transmission of waterborne diseases and illnesses, however, don't consider the benefits microorganisms gain from hitching a ride on marine snow.

the great depression of the 21st century

Video - President Obama's commencement address at Hampton.

Globalresearch | The existence of a "Great Depression" on the scale of the 1930s, while often acknowledged, is overshadowed by an unbending consensus: "The economy is on the road to recovery".

While there is talk of an economic renewal, Wall Street commentators have persistently and intentionally overlooked the fact that the financial meltdown is not simply composed of one bubble – the housing real estate bubble – which has already burst. In fact, the crisis has many bubbles, all of which dwarf the housing bubble burst of 2008.

Although there is no fundamental disagreement among mainstream analysts on the occurrence of an economic recovery, there is heated debate as to when it will occur, whether in the next quarter, or in the third quarter of next year, etc. Already in early 2010, the "recovery" of the U.S. economy had been predicted and confirmed through a carefully worded barrage of media disinformation. Meanwhile, the social plight of increased unemployment in America has been scrupulously camouflaged. Economists view bankruptcy as a microeconomic phenomenon.

The media reports on bankruptcies, while revealing local-level realities affecting one or more factories, fail to provide an overall picture of what is happening at the national and international levels. When all these simultaneous plant closures in towns and cities across the land are added together, a very different picture emerges: entire sectors of a national economy are closing down.

Public opinion continues to be misled as to the causes and consequences of the economic crisis, not to mention the policy solutions. People are led to believe that the economy has a logic of its own which depends on the free interplay of market forces, and that powerful financial actors, who pull the strings in the corporate boardrooms, could not, under any circumstances, have willfully influenced the course of economic events.

The relentless and fraudulent appropriation of wealth is upheld as an integral part of "the American dream", as a means to spreading the benefits of economic growth. As conveyed by Michael Hudson, the myth becomes entrenched that "without wealth at the top, there would be nothing to trickle down." Such flawed logic of the business cycle overshadows an understanding of the structural and historical origins of the global economic crisis.

the last taboo

MotherJones | What unites the Vatican, lefties, conservatives, environmentalists, and scientists in a conspiracy of silence? Population.

"Using United Nations projections of fertility, and projecting statistically through the lifespan of the mother's line—some lineages being short-lived, others indefinitely long—an American child born today adds an average 10,407 tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of her mother. That's almost six times more CO2 than the mother's own lifetime emissions. Furthermore, the ecological costs of that child and her children far outweigh even the combined energy-saving choices from all a mother's other good decisions, like buying a fuel-efficient car, recycling, using energy-saving appliances and lightbulbs. The carbon legacy of one American child and her offspring is 20 times greater than all those other sustainable maternal choices combined." (See chart ["Little Bundle of Carbon"].)

Murtaugh's research shows that even though India has a much larger population and a higher rate of population growth than the US, its overall carbon legacy is vastly reduced, due to its population's drastically lower levels of consumption combined with shorter lifespans (63.8 years on average for India, versus 80.2 years for the US). At current rates, an American child has 55 times the carbon legacy of a child born to a family in India. While India is conservatively predicted to grow by 400 million people by 2050, the US is projected to grow by 86 million. But take those additional Americans and factor in their 55-times-higher carbon legacy (at current national consumption rates), and they will equal the legacy of 4.7 billion Indians.

"The irony," says Ramdas of the Global Fund for Women, "is that just as some Americans are starting to learn to live more like traditional Indians—becoming vegetarian, buying locally, eating organic—aspiring middle-class Indians are trying to live more like over consuming Americans. The question really is, which kind of people do we want less of?"

we're back where we were 20 years ago

NYTimes | For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides.

But not this year.

On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.

Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”

Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.

“It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

biosecurity laws hobble research

Video - Director K-State National Agricultural Biosecurity Center.

The Scientist | Ever since the U.S. government has taken steps to protect and encourage research involving pathogens that could be used as biological weapons, that research has become much less efficient, according to a new analysis.

Though funding for research on so-called "select agents," or pathogens that can be used as weapons, has shot through the roof, and the number of papers using those organisms has risen in recent years, the work has become up to five times less efficient -- meaning, the same amount of funding produces fewer papers than it did before.

"The price of the research was multiplied by maybe a factor of 5 for anthrax and maybe a factor of 2 for Ebola," said Carnegie Mellon University associate professor Elizabeth Casman, who led an analysis of the select agent literature that is published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Casman told The Scientist that her group found, for example, that prior to 2002, an average of 17 papers on anthrax were published for every $1 million of funding, whereas after 2002, that average dropped to 3.

At issue, according to the analysis, are two laws designed to regulate select agent research: the PATRIOT Act and the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act, enacted in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

The laws' new regulations govern the exhaustive documentation of the transportation, guarding, and use of select agents. As a result, they are burying researchers studying select agents with administrative duties, Casman noted. Researchers to whom Casman spoke "all complained of the paperwork," she said. "A lot of it, they just find overwhelming."

Some researchers told Casman that their work took twice as long to carry out because of all the paperwork related to select agents, and that money was being diverted from research expenses to pay for things like security cameras, hiring guards, and building walls. "It's expensive to comply with the regulations," Casman said.

blogging toward the kingdom

Video - Sister Rosetta Tharpe Up Above My Head.

JoeBageant | Many of my essays were born in an attempt to communicate working class alienation, separation and rage -- which is the same as middle class rage, but self-described and expressed differently. Most of the liberal thinkers I know still do not grasp that the anxiety working people have, even the Tea Partiers, are rooted in the same things as their own. Yes, the right is definitely cruel. And yes, it can by now be called fascist. However, to deal with what has happened, one must come to grips with what produced the internal distrust upon which fascist empires are built.

The brutal way Americans were forced to internalize the values of a gangster capitalist class continues to elude nearly all Americans. Most foreigners too. This is to say nothing of how our system replaced our humanity with ideology, our liberty with money, and fostered fascist nationalism through profound degeneration of the people's mind and spirit. It's not as if one can ever escape that sort of thing, either by going to a place like Mexico, getting drunk or whatever. We are made in Americas' image, whether we admit it or not, and America's image is the face on a ten dollar bill

Liberal or conservative, money is what we care about -- period. From birth, the empire has made one thing very clear to us: If you do not produce or acquire enough of the green stuff, meet the quota, you will be ground beneath the heel of the machine we call a society. No universal health insurance or higher education, no guaranteed minimum income, no worker rights, nothing for you suckers but the tab. So keep humping.

With such a national ethos, who can blame Americans for caring most profoundly about money? Everything is secondary to money. The future of the world's children, the planet, everything. I've been watching the horrific BP oil spill on CNN (doncha love the way they call it a "spill," as if it was a cup of coffee?) The first and biggest ongoing question has been, "Who is going to pay for it?" Right off hand I'd say the fish, birds and wetlands will pay for it, along with future generations. One quart of motor oil will pollute 250,000 gallons of water, and already there have been millions of gallons of oil blasted into the earth's waters from this single spill. Yet the big question has been "Whose money and how much is going to change hands here?"

the trophic theory of money

Video - Fun facts about money.

steadystate.org | I introduced the trophic theory in chapter 3 of Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train. The theory, in a nutshell, is that the volume of real money (adjusted for inflation) in an economy is a pretty good indicator of the ecological impact of that economy. I believe that the trophic theory of money should become the principle monetary framework in ecological economics, and am grateful that it will be presented in the second edition of the Daly and Farley textbook.

Let’s review the basics here. In ecology, or the economy of nature, “trophic” refers to the flow of energy and nutrients. The lowest trophic level is the producers, or plants that produce their own food in the process of photosynthesis. Herbivorous animals eat plants, and carnivorous animals eat herbivores. That’s the economy of nature in a nutshell. No plants, no animals. In other words, plants are the foundation in the economy of nature, and they must be productive enough to produce more food than needed only for their own reproduction. There has to be surplus plant production in order for herbivores to exist and, in turn, enough herbivores to support the carnivores.

In the human economy, the producers are farmers. Only with an agricultural surplus can there be a division of labor into manufacturing and service sectors. There are, of course, complex nuances to trophic theory, whether applied to the economy of nature or the human economy. I have addressed some of these nuances in the journal Conservation Biology and in our CASSE fact sheet on the Trophic Structure of the Economy. If, for example, you’re wondering where the service providers fit in these trophic levels, I recommend the article in Conservation Biology.

Here, we’ll stick with the basics and tie this trophic theory right back to the origin of money. By “origin,” I’m not referring to the development in the human mind of abstract exchange value, nor to the evolution of monetary instruments from wampum to legal tender. Rather, I am referring to the agricultural and extractive surplus that frees the hands for the division of labor and makes money a meaningful concept and a useful tool of exchange. More real money means more agricultural surplus and therefore more environmental impact.

“Real” money, as we know, means adjusted for inflation. In the simplest of terms, inflation means rising prices, which makes your money worth less. The problem with this simple definition is that it puts the focus on money, so monetary policy miracles are sought to fix the problem. What gets overlooked is that the prices are of real things, real goods and services. That’s why inflation is measured using baskets of goods and services ranging from milk to shirts to haircuts. Even funeral expenses go into the calculation of inflation.

All of these real goods and services occupy some portion of the economic trophic structure. Because this trophic structure as a whole can only increase with increasing agricultural and extractive surplus, an expanding real money supply represents an increasing environmental impact. To think otherwise is to fall into the fallacious trap that “there is no conflict between growing the economy and protecting the environment.” So the trophic theory of money helps to explain why there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, and why that conflict cannot be solved by throwing evermore money at it.

The trophic theory of money also helps to explain financial and monetary crises. The monetary authorities and banks can extend credit and expand the money supply all they want, but if the capacity of the planet to generate more real money has been exceeded, credit leads to default, and the expanded money supply becomes “unreal” or inflated.

The main thing to remember, though, is that money – real money – represents a unit of pressure on the environment. Benjamin Franklin said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Accounting for inflation, we might say, “A dollar spent is a dollar burned.” But what does that mean, “burned?” Let me explain by example.

Video - U.S. Economic Collapse Survival Map.

nature loss to damage economies

BBCNews | The abundance of mammals, birds, reptiles and other creatures is falling rapidly

The Earth's ongoing nature losses may soon begin to hit national economies, a major UN report has warned.

The third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3) says that some ecosystems may soon reach "tipping points" where they rapidly become less useful to humanity.

Such tipping points could include rapid dieback of forest, algal takeover of watercourses and mass coral reef death.

Last month, scientists confirmed that governments would not meet their target of curbing biodiversity loss by 2010.
Continue reading the main story

Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity

"The news is not good," said Ahmed Djoglaf, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

"We continue to lose biodiversity at a rate never before seen in history - extinction rates may be up to 1,000 times higher than the historical background rate."

The global abundance of vertebrates - the group that includes mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and fish - fell by about one-third between 1970 and 2006, the UN says.

FBI - O

The Scientist | You may soon be visited by an FBI agent, or a scientist acting on behalf of one. Here's why.

They tried to fit in at this year’s iGEM synthetic biology competition. They really tried. Piers Millet from the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs sported a white hoodie with an iGEM insignia that was slightly too tight. Beside him, Lindsay Hartmann, a Weapons of Mass Destruction analyst with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, wore nails painted black—the look of a rebellious college kid. The bracelet with charms of a badge, handcuffs, and gun, however, gave her away.

Around them, student competitors whooshed by before the next round of presentations inside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stata Center. Some headed for the cookies and juice trays. Some gossiped about the 11-year-old who made a liquid handling robot out of Lego bricks. A duo of artists working with a team from Cambridge shuttled around a suitcase of fake, neon-spotted feces—replicas, they said, of a digestive diagnostics tool from an imagined future.

In the midst of the giddy confusion, the agents handed out brochures for a newly invigorated FBI initiative. Its goal: Collaborate with the science community to secure biology from those who would use it to harm people, by engineering a synthetic epidemic, for instance. Only, for the campaign to succeed, the FBI will have to bridge an enormous rift between the science community and law enforcement.

“I’m here to deliver a message,” Millet told students during a presentation. “Securing synthetic biology is not my job, it’s your job. Our job is to give you guys the tools to do that.” The tools were printed on the back of every brochure—56 direct phone lines to the regional offices of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, an FBI division devoted to handling WMD threats. The agents asked students and biologists alike to call if they spotted anything “suspicious” in their labs.

Titled the Biological Sciences Outreach Program, the campaign to start a dialogue with biologists about potential biosecurity risks from their science has begun with the synthetic biology community and is spreading from there. It’s being praised by biosecurity experts for its foresight. What scientists think, however, is a different story.

is bp's blowout the three mile island of offshore drilling?

Treehugger | I'm a big fan of scenario thinking. Although no one can predict "the future," several plausible scenarios can be constructed, informing decisions made difficult by many unknowns. A good decision works in all the scenarios, a very weak decision only in one, and so on. The Big Picture blog has a wonderful article, called Oil Slickonomics, in which three up-to-date prospective scenarios for the BP blowout are succinctly described as: The Bad; The Worse; and,The Ugliest. The writing is powerful good at the end of The Ugliest, in which economics are discussed. Check it out - a short outtake follows.

Deepwater and all offshore drilling in the US has been set back for a generation, just as Three Mile Island set back nuclear power development for decades. No politician can win an election now with a permissive view on drilling. Sarah Palin's "Drill, baby, drill" now condemns her to political marginalization. Off shore drilling has lurched to the top of the political agenda in this November's election cycle.

I'll go out on a a limb here: if by elections this fall we are into The Ugliest, any oil money will be absolutely toxic to politicians who have accepted it. All bets would be off as to who'd ever again invest in deep water drilling platforms. Hence the TMI metaphor used in my headline (credit for the idea goes to The Big Picture). If on the other hand the responders pull off "The Bad" BP will be a corporate hero and their stock will rebound. Government Agencies will have regained the reputation they lost from the Katrina fiasco, Ms Palin will have her chops back, and so on. Higher stakes can not be imagined. Fist tap Dale.

how we wrecked the ocean

In this bracing talk, coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson lays out the shocking state of the ocean today: overfished, overheated, polluted, with indicators that things will get much worse. Astonishing photos and stats make the case.

oil spill may endanger human lives

Physorg | In this image provided by the U.S. Navy Members of Elastec/American Marine Inc., a marine science engineering company, prepare to deploy a lighting agent on oil contained in a boom May 5. The "in situ burn" was conducted by contracted fishing vessels working in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard, BP PLC, and other federal agencies to aid in preventing the spread of oil following the April 20 explosion on Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Deepwater Horizon. (AP Photo/US Navy - Jeffery Tilghman Williams)

(AP) -- With a huge and unpredictable oil slick drifting in the Gulf of Mexico, state and federal authorities are preparing to deal with a variety of hazards to human health if and when the full brunt of the toxic mess washes ashore.

The list of potential threats runs from temporary, minor nuisances such as runny noses and headaches to long-term risks such as cancer if contaminated seafood ends up in the marketplace. While waiting to see how bad things will get, public health agencies are monitoring air quality, drinking water supplies and seafood processing plants and advising people to take precautions.

"We don't know how long this spill will last or how much oil we'll be dealing with, so there's a lot of unknowns," said Dr. Jimmy Guidry, Louisiana's state health director. "But we're going to make things as safe as humanly possible."

Oil has been spewing into the Gulf at a rate of at least 200,000 gallons a day since an offshore drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people. Little if any has reached land thus far, but shifts in wind speed and direction could propel the slick toward populated areas.

In a possible hint of things to come, a foul stench drifted over parts of southwestern Louisiana last week. The oil probably was the culprit, said Alan Levine, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, whose office heard about dozens of complaints - even from state legislators in New Orleans, some 130 miles from the leaky undersea well.

"Their eyes were burning, they felt nauseated, they were smelling it," Levine said.

Farther up the coast at Shell Beach, marina operator and commercial fisherman Robert Campo said the smell gave him a headache as he collected oysters 20 miles offshore. "It was rotten," he said.

debt is violence..,

This Is Sparta, The Whole Scene - The best home videos are here

Eurozine | What follows is a fragment of a much larger project of research on debt and debt money in human history. The first and overwhelming conclusion of this project is that in studying economic history, we tend to systematically ignore the role of violence, the absolutely central role of war and slavery in creating and shaping the basic institutions of what we now call "the economy". What's more, origins matter. The violence may be invisible, but it remains inscribed in the very logic of our economic common sense, in the apparently self-evident nature of institutions that simply would never and could never exist outside of the monopoly of violence – but also, the systematic threat of violence – maintained by the contemporary state.

Let me start with the institution of slavery, whose role, I think, is key. In most times and places, slavery is seen as a consequence of war. Sometimes most slaves actually are war captives, sometimes they are not, but almost invariably, war is seen as the foundation and justification of the institution. If you surrender in war, what you surrender is your life; your conqueror has the right to kill you, and often will. If he chooses not to, you literally owe your life to him; a debt conceived as absolute, infinite, irredeemable. He can in principle extract anything he wants, and all debts – obligations – you may owe to others (your friends, family, former political allegiances), or that others owe you, are seen as being absolutely negated. Your debt to your owner is all that now exists.

This sort of logic has at least two very interesting consequences, though they might be said to pull in rather contrary directions. First of all, as we all know, it is another typical – perhaps defining – feature of slavery that slaves can be bought or sold. In this case, absolute debt becomes (in another context, that of the market) no longer absolute. In fact, it can be precisely quantified. There is good reason to believe that it was just this operation that made it possible to create something like our contemporary form of money to begin with, since what anthropologists used to refer to as "primitive money", the kind that one finds in stateless societies (Solomon Island feather money, Iroquois wampum), was mostly used to arrange marriages, resolve blood feuds, and fiddle with other sorts of relations between people, rather than to buy and sell commodities. For instance, if slavery is debt, then debt can lead to slavery. A Babylonian peasant might have paid a handy sum in silver to his wife's parents to officialise the marriage, but he in no sense owned her. He certainly couldn't buy or sell the mother of his children. But all that would change if he took out a loan. Were he to default, his creditors could first remove his sheep and furniture, then his house, fields and orchards, and finally take his wife, children, and even himself as debt peons until the matter was settled (which, as his resources vanished, of course became increasingly difficult to do). Debt was the hinge that made it possible to imagine money in anything like the modern sense, and therefore, also, to produce what we like to call the market: an arena where anything can be bought and sold, because all objects are (like slaves) disembedded from their former social relations and exist only in relation to money.

But at the same time the logic of debt as conquest can, as I mentioned, pull another way. Kings, throughout history, tend to be profoundly ambivalent towards allowing the logic of debt to get completely out of hand. This is not because they are hostile to markets. On the contrary, they normally encourage them, for the simple reason that governments find it inconvenient to levy everything they need (silks, chariot wheels, flamingo tongues, lapis lazuli) directly from their subject population; it's much easier to encourage markets and then buy them. Early markets often followed armies or royal entourages, or formed near palaces or at the fringes of military posts. This actually helps explain the rather puzzling behaviour on the part of royal courts: after all, since kings usually controlled the gold and silver mines, what exactly was the point of stamping bits of the stuff with your face on it, dumping it on the civilian population, and then demanding they give it back to you again as taxes? It only makes sense if levying taxes was really a way to force everyone to acquire coins, so as to facilitate the rise of markets, since markets were convenient to have around. However, for our present purposes, the critical question is: how were these taxes justified? Why did subjects owe them, what debt were they discharging when they were paid? Here we return again to right of conquest. (Actually, in the ancient world, free citizens – whether in Mesopotamia, Greece, or Rome – often did not have to pay direct taxes for this very reason, but obviously I'm simplifying here.) If kings claimed to hold the power of life and death over their subjects by right of conquest, then their subjects' debts were, also, ultimately infinite; and also, at least in that context, their relations to one another, what they owed to one another, was unimportant. All that really existed was their relation to the king. This in turn explains why kings and emperors invariably tried to regulate the powers that masters had over slaves, and creditors over debtors. At the very least they would always insist, if they had the power, that those prisoners who had already had their lives spared could no longer be killed by their masters. In fact, only rulers could have arbitrary power over life and death. One's ultimate debt was to the state; it was the only one that was truly unlimited, that could make absolute, cosmic, claims.

The reason I stress this is because this logic is still with us. When we speak of a "society" (French society, Jamaican society) we are really speaking of people organised by a single nation state. That is the tacit model, anyway. "Societies" are really states, the logic of states is that of conquest, the logic of conquest is ultimately identical to that of slavery. True, in the hands of state apologists, this becomes transformed into a notion of a more benevolent "social debt". Here there is a little story told, a kind of myth. We are all born with an infinite debt to the society that raised, nurtured, fed and clothed us, to those long dead who invented our language and traditions, to all those who made it possible for us to exist. In ancient times we thought we owed this to the gods (it was repaid in sacrifice, or, sacrifice was really just the payment of interest – ultimately, it was repaid by death). Later the debt was adopted by the state, itself a divine institution, with taxes substituted for sacrifice, and military service for one's debt of life. Money is simply the concrete form of this social debt, the way that it is managed. Keynesians like this sort of logic. So do various strains of socialist, social democrats, even crypto-fascists like Auguste Comte (the first, as far as I am aware, to actually coin the phrase "social debt"). But the logic also runs through much of our common sense: consider for instance, the phrase, "to pay one's debt to society", or, "I felt I owed something to my country", or, "I wanted to give something back." Always, in such cases, mutual rights and obligations, mutual commitments – the kind of relations that genuinely free people could make with one another – tend to be subsumed into a conception of "society" where we are all equal only as absolute debtors before the (now invisible) figure of the king, who stands in for your mother, and by extension, humanity.

What I am suggesting, then, is that while the claims of the impersonal market and the claims of "society" are often juxtaposed – and certainly have had a tendency to jockey back and forth in all sorts of practical ways – they are both ultimately founded on a very similar logic of violence. Neither is this a mere matter of historical origins that can be brushed away as inconsequential: neither states nor markets can exist without the constant threat of force. Fist tap Dale.

greek debt woes ripple outward...,

Video - rioting in Athens.

NYTimes | In Spain Saturday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. underscored the importance of the issue after meeting with Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. “We agreed on the importance of a resolute European action to strengthen the European economy and to build confidence in the markets,” Mr. Biden said. “And I conveyed the support of the United States of America toward those efforts.”

Beyond Europe, the crisis has sent waves of fear through global stock exchanges.

A decade ago, it took more than a year for the chain reaction that began with the devaluation of the Thai currency to spread beyond Asia to Russia, which defaulted on its debt, and eventually caused the near-collapse of a giant American hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management.

This crisis, by contrast, seemed to ricochet from country to country in seconds, as traders simultaneously abandoned everything from Portuguese bonds to American blue chips. On Wall Street on Thursday afternoon, televised images of rioting in Athens to protest austerity measures only amplified the anxiety as the stock market briefly plunged nearly 1,000 points.

“Up until last week there was this confidence that nothing could upset the apple cart as long as the economy and jobs growth was positive,” said William H. Gross, managing director of Pimco, the bond manager. “Now, fear is back in play.”

While the immediate causes for worry are Greece’s ballooning budget deficit and the risk that other fragile countries like Spain and Portugal might default, the turmoil also exposed deeper fears that government borrowing in bigger nations like Britain, Germany and even the United States is unsustainable.

“Greece may just be an early warning signal,” said Byron Wien, a prominent Wall Street strategist who is vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Partners. “The U.S. is a long way from being where Greece is, but the developed world has been living beyond its means and is now being called to account.”

gibberish...,

Video - Biden telling wheelchair bound man to "stand up".

WaPo | Biden urges 'resolute European action' to halt financial crisis. With the European debt crisis putting the fragile global economic recovery at risk, Vice President Biden met Saturday with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and tried to walk a delicate line of encouraging a more forceful and unified response without appearing like a heavy-handed intruder into the continent's affairs.

"We agreed on the importance of resolute European action to strengthen the European economy and to build confidence in the markets, and I conveyed the support of the United States of America for those efforts," Biden said on the steps of Madrid's Moncloa Palaceafter a 40-minute meeting. About half the meeting was spent discussing economic matters, particularly the crisis that began with debt problems in Greece and now threatens Spain and other nations.

It was the most public step to date in a concerted effort by the Obama administration to nudge European leaders to respond more aggressively to the crisis -- an effort that has picked up steam in the past 10 days. It has come mostly in the form of private conversations between senior leaders, as the Americans have attempted the tricky task of pressing the Europeans to deal boldly with the burgeoning crisis without seeming pushy themselves.

Their effort could backfire if European leaders tune the Americans out or if their citizens come to blame the United States for unpopular decisions made in responding to the crisis. That could make it even harder for Europe's leaders to contain the crisis.

The meeting with Zapatero, who is also president of the European Union, comes at a crucial time. Finance ministers of E.U. member nations are meeting in Brussels this weekend to craft a plan to restore confidence that the debt of European nations is safe.

An announcement is planned Sunday of an emergency fund to stabilize the value of the euro, although the size and structure of that fund remained unclear Saturday.

"We will defend the euro, whatever it takes," European Commission President José Manuel Barroso of Portugal told reporters in Brussels on Saturday, according to Bloomberg News.

it's not about greece anymore

NYTimes | The Greek “rescue” package announced last weekend is dramatic, unprecedented and far from enough to stabilize the euro zone.

The Greek government and the European Union leadership, prodded by the International Monetary Fund, are finally becoming realistic about the dire economic situation in Greece. They have abandoned previous rounds of optimistic forecasts and have now admitted to a profoundly worse situation. This new program calls for “fiscal adjustments” — cuts to the fiscal deficit, mostly through spending cuts — totaling 11 percent of gross domestic product in 2010, 4.3 percent in 2011, and 2 percent in 2012 and 2013. The total debt-to-G.D.P. ratio peaks at 149 percent in 2012-13 before starting a gentle glide path back down to sanity.

This new program is honest enough to show why it is unlikely to succeed.

Daniel Gros, an eminent economist on euro zone issues who is based in Brussels, has argued that for each 1 percent of G.D.P. decline in Greek government spending, total demand in the country falls by 2.5 percent of G.D.P. If the government reduces spending by 15 percent of G.D.P. — the initial shock to demand could be well over 30 percent of G.D.P.

Obviously this simple rule does not work with such large numbers, but it illustrates that Greece is likely to experience a very sharp recession — and there is substantial uncertainty around how bad the economy will get. The program announced last weekend assumes the Greek G.D.P. falls by 4 percent this year, then by another 2.6 percent in 2011, before recovering to positive growth in 2012 and beyond.

Such figures seem extremely optimistic, particularly in the face of the civil unrest now sweeping Greece and the deep hostility expressed toward the country in some northern European policy circles.

The pattern of growth is critical because, under this program, Greece needs to grow out of its debt problem soon. Greece’s debt-to-G.D.P. ratio will be a debilitating 145 percent at the end of 2011.

Now consider putting more realistic growth figures into the I.M.F. forecast for Greece’s economy — e.g., with G.D.P. declining 12 percent in 2011, then the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio may reach 155 percent. At these levels, with a 5 percent real interest rate and no growth, the country needs a primary surplus at 8 percent of G.D.P. to keep the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio stable. It will be nowhere near that level. The I.M.F. program has Greece running a primary budget deficit of around 1 percent of G.D.P. in that year, and that assumes a path for Greek growth that can be regarded only as an “upside scenario.”

The politics of these implied budget surpluses remains brutal. Since most Greek debt is held abroad, roughly 80 percent of the budget savings the Greek government makes go straight to Germans, the French and other foreign debt holders (mostly banks). If growth turns out poorly, will the Greeks be prepared for ever-tougher austerity to pay the Germans? Even if everything goes well, Greek citizens seem unlikely to welcome this version of their “new normal.”