Dmitry Orlov's Blog, page 43

An Evening with Dmitry Orlov

Where? Studio 353 353 West 48 St. New York City, NY 10036
When? July 11, 2009 6:30-8:30 PM
How much? $20 (Buy tickets here.)

Here are some topics for you to choose from or add to (ahead of time) by submitting comments. The venue happens to be in New York, and I can talk fast, so let it rip.

How our society has moved from one of generalists to specialists making us especially vulnerable and resistant to reengaging with nature and our ability to have numerous skills.The continuing

Reinventing Collapse wins Independent Publisher Award

The 2009 IPPY Awards have awarded my Reinventing Collapse silver in the Current Events category. The IPPYS are for independent publishers, with over 4000 entries each year in 65 categories. They don’t necessarily garner much media attention; they tend to look more at the big literary prizes. I am tied with Pat Murpy's Plan C. These are both New Society titles.[image error]

Feasta Conference, Dublin

I will be giving a couple of talks at a conference in Dublin, Ireland, June 9th through 12th. The conference is sponsored by Feasta (The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability www.feasta.org.) This is its 10th anniversary conference, entitled:

Creative Solutions for the New Emergency
Managing Risk and Building Resilience in a Resource Constrained World

I will be giving a public lecture at the Davenport Hotel in Dublin on the evening of the 9th, as well as a keynote on the morning of the 11t

The new new money

It's official: The government in Beijing has announced that the Yuan can now be used in international trade. Their mouthpiece for this occasion was the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a private entity, which made the announcement on their behalf. By the end of this year, it is expected that fully 50% of all transactions with Hong Kong will be denominated in the Yuan. In turn, Hong Kong re-exports 90% of its Chinese imports. Importer #1 is the European Union; importer #2 is the United St

Calling American Swine

A lot of people are panicked by the swine flu (H1N1) that has recently emerged in Mexico and has since spread across the American continent and far beyond. Panicking is a perfectly normal human response to frightening new things, one which we humans share with our relatives the apes and the monkeys. And, just like them, once we are done panicking, we try to find out what it was that had us panicked.

Swine flu seems like a flu like any, spread through coughing and sneezing and (my personal favorit

Change You Can Suspend Disbelief In

This is a guest post by Publius III. I am happy to see that guest posts are becoming a venerable institution here at ClubOrlov. Long live Samizdat!

Comprehensive tax relief is America's surest route to effective economic stimulus and genuine recovery. Elimination of all US income taxes would offer irresistible incentives to every American to go out and shop, swiftly restoring hope, confidence, and economic stability. For the US government, this policy shift would produce greater benefits at lower

VOANews: Двое в лодке не считая кошки

Eye- and ear- candy for my Russian readers: Svetlana Prudovskaya and Eva Boldina of Voice of America Russian Section spent a day with us in Boston, and the result is this interview.

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Burning our Bridges to the XXI Century

The future does not resemble the past – or does it? When the lights go out, people burn candles and oil lamps, just like they used to before the electric grid came into existence. No longer accustomed to working with open flame, they tend to set things on fire, and for a while, until they regain this experience or until natural selection whittles away the truly incompetent, the neighborhood is a constant blaze.

When we find out that the supermarket is out of food and that the cupboard is bare, we

Bullets from the Drug War

The US has lost the "War on Drugs"
The losing side is usually not the one to decide when a fight is over or how it ends
Unlike other recent defeats, this lost war is a defeat followed by an invasion
Mexico is the natural staging area for the invasion (inconvenient though it is for the Mexicans)New franchises are being set up to service the North American drug market (which is the biggest in the world)
The CIA has to eat, and all they know how to do competently is run guns and drugs and control thugs

Welcome to Fuffland!

In the unfolding global financial collapse, it is not just our accounts and balance sheets that come up short, but our language as well. What do you call a bunch of liar loans packaged into toxic assets and placed on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve as collateral for rescue loans? J,K. Galbraith has proposed the term “Bezzle,” taking it to mean the eternal ebb and flow of questionable transactions within an economic cycle. Rational actors cut corners during easy times when they know no-o