What a great place to live and work Cambridge is! The
\n weather sucks, parking is a nightmare and the primary tool of municipal
\n fundraising, and the rents are through the roof. Yet we keep coming back,
\n for reasons like the following.<\/p>\n
Last week the Dowbrigade attended a No luck so far, so on this frigid President’s day we are resolved to go On Tuesday, we dropped into the JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard’s Kennedy School The Dowbrigade has known Ken since we were Middle Schoolers and needed We arrived at the Kennedy School a bit early and staked out a seat in the Silly Dowbrigade! Recently introduced to the world of wireless interconnectivity, There was passing mention of the brouhaha which apparently landed him back Ken stepped This is fortunately rare in the world of academia, but appearantly less so in the upper As he developed his thesis it was clear that he had identified as one of the primary As Ken asks in his article "This His point is that because interest rates are so low in the developed world, His main point was that the post-1994 period of revolving third world debt "Investors ought to realize that last year’s 55 percent average return Ken’s solutions? Basically, more discipline. Discipline on the part Perhaps his most surprising pronouncement to the Dowbrigade personally He called the present free-lending atmosphere a recipe for disaster, After that eye-opening glimpse into the high-flying world of international The very next night we ventured into a very different world-view, just a What a job! He gets to gallivant around the globe, saving endangered He began with a brief but panoramic tour of some of the diverse cultures Obviously impossible to do in words, but we got the impression that the Deforestation and development is destroying the habitats not only of Like Wade Davis, the Dowbrigade believe that humanities inheritance is Wade ended with a story which reinforced the concept of technological In Canada, where Wade is from, there were until relatively recently, Most of the Indians were more than willing to accept the offer of free His family was determined to move him to the new village along with them, Behind a protective wall of ice he squatted and took a sizable shit. The old man then went to his beloved sled dogs. He called to his favorite, Quickly, he skinned the dead animal with his shit-knife and wrapped his Apocryphal or not, it really makes one think, no? For those of us for And so, in the end, our own ideological conundrum came down to this; We are unable to answer in the affirmative. For a while now our main Wade talked about how one of the demographic results of globalization For someone who prides himself on his ability to simultaneously hold <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What a great place to live and work Cambridge is! The weather sucks, parking is a nightmare and the primary tool of municipal fundraising, and the rents are through the roof. Yet we keep coming back, for reasons like the … Continue reading
\n couple of amazing Lectures<\/a>, which are
\n regular events on the Cambridge cultural calendar, like tractor pulls or
\n baked-bean potlucks in other parts of the nation. We have refrained from
\n blogging them up to this point as we have been searching for a hook, a
\n common thread, a way to integrate them both into an all-encompassing worldview
\n which reflects the diversity of intellectual endeavor in the People’s Republic
\n of Cambridge.<\/p>\n
\n ahead anyway, hoping that some uniting principal will emerge as we write.
\n If not, our failure may have to be the story itself.<\/p>\n
\n of Government to see old friend and high school running mate
\n Ken Rogoff <\/a>talk about his three years as Chief Economist and Director of
\n Research for the International Monetary Fund. <\/p>\n
\n our Moms to deliver us to each other’s houses for "Play Dates" that included
\n stamp collecting and model building, but we had not spoken to him since
\n he moved to Washington to arbitrate the lives of billions of people in
\n the developing world.<\/p>\n
\n second row. We were disappointed to learn that our Airport card could pick
\n up nothing but the overpowering signal of the JFK School wireless service, which
\n of course told us in no uncertain terms that we were not authorized to
\n access it. <\/p>\n
\n we had naively assumed that because we were authorized to access the Harvard
\n Law School wireless service, our laptop would function all over campus.
\n Ha! After 32 years at Harvard we should have assumed that its academic
\n Balkanization extended into the wireless world. We suspect that even Harvard
\n President Larry Summers lacks super-user privileges which would allow him
\n universal access to all nodes Harvardian.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/rogoff2.jpg\")
Ken’s topic was "International Debt Crisis – the Next Generation" (note
\n the geeky Star Trek reference). Promptly at 6 he strode to the podium dressed
\n in natty academic uniform; brass-buttoned blazer, grey flannel slacks and
\n a valiant vestige of the sixties, a semi-psychedelic neck tie. He was introduced
\n by some Kennedy School dean, who remarked on Ken’s three successive careers;
\n as the youngest American chess International Master, a professor at Princeton
\n and Harvard, and most recently as the tsar of third-world lending at the IMF.<\/p>\n
\n at Harvard after three tumultuous years at the IMF. About two years ago, when
\n the IMF’s lending policies were viciously attacked by eminent American
\n economist Joseph Stiglitz,<\/p>\n
\n up to bat<\/a> to defend the agency. Although most of the economic
\n dictums and details which were being bandied about quite frankly flew way
\n over the Dowbrigade’s head, our ear is finely atuned to the minutiae of
\n academic discourse, and it was clear in this case that the attacks and
\n counter-attacks were becoming increasingly personal. <\/p>\n
\n reaches of economic policymaking and evolving globalization, and so we
\n were less than completely surprised to learn that Ken was returning to
\n Harvard. This evening, he started his presentation by introducing his conclusion – that
\n the revolving debt crises of the 80’s and 90’s – Mexico, Brazil, Argentina,
\n Thailand, Turkey, Russia, etc. – have in no way been resolved, and that
\n the current cascade of investment capital into developing markets completely
\n ignores the certainty that another round of defaults is just around the
\n corner.<\/p>\n
\n risk factors for international economic stabilization at this time – the monstrous
\n budget and trade deficits being run up by the Bush administration. It is
\n increasingly likely, he said, that the eventual outcome of the US stimulating
\n its economy by spending more than it collects and financing the rest will
\n be another global recession. He noted however (and here he smiled a thin,
\n bloodless smile), "A recession is to an economist what a plague is to an
\n undertaker."<\/p>\n
\n Time its Not Different<\/a>" in this week’s Newsweek International,
\n "Has everybody forgotten about Mexico (1994); Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia
\n and others
\n (1997); Russia (1998); Brazil (1999); Argentina (2001); Turkey (2001),
\n and Brazil (2002)? They shouldn’t".<\/p>\n
\n international investors are once again pouring capital into developing
\n markets ill-equipped to maintain the discipline and sound economic management
\n necessary to guarantee a continued return on investment. As an example he mentioned Brazil,
\n which in August 2002, less than two years ago,
\n was on the border of default and only escaped thanks to a $45 billion loan
\n from the IMF. At the time, they had to pay a whopping 24% above US treasuries
\n prime rate to find financing on the international market. Today Brazil is
\n paying only 4% above prime, not that much more than the spread many individuals
\n pay on their mortgages. As Ken notes, it is a lot easier for the local
\n bank to seize your house or car than it is for Citibank to get to a deadbeat
\n sovereign debtor.<\/p>\n
\n defaults was not an aberration. Argentina has defaulted five times since
\n its birth in the 1820s, Brazil seven times, Mexico eight times, Turkey
\n seven, Venezuela nine, etc. While it is impossible to predict exactly where
\n the next collapse is coming, it is inevitable, and the investors pouring new
\n money into these endangered economies are either in denial or playing a
\n dangerous game of musical chairs with their money.<\/p>\n
\n on emerging-market debt was an aberration. Developing-country leaders need
\n to realize that borrowing is like taking steroids: it gives countries a
\n short-term performance boost but leads to insidious long-term problems."<\/p>\n
\n of developing countries to avoid debt financing that solves their
\n immediate problems
\n but creates unsupportable debt loads. Discipline on the part of international
\n lenders to realize that these economies still represent considerable
\n risk and raise interest rates accordingly. Discipline on the part of the US government in controling their own deficit spending. And discipline in the
\n international
\n lending community to make it more difficult for foreign creditors to
\n enforce claims in rich-country courts and make it harder for developing
\n countries
\n to borrow.<\/p>\n
\n was that any and all of the developing countries in debt crisis could
\n pay their debt, if they only had the political will to do so. He made is sound so simple.<\/p>\n
\n and ended on this sobering note, "Debt crises are as old as international
\n lending,
\n and call me crazy, but I don’t think we are going to have to wait too
\n long for the next one."<\/p>\n
\n finance we didn’t feel much like sticking around to wool-gather about
\n high school escapades, so after a brief exchange of business cards and
\n a loose
\n plan to get together soon to play tennis, we left.<\/p>\n
\n few blocks away, at the First Parrish Church on Church Street in Harvard
\n Sq.
\n to hear old classmate Wade Davis<\/a> speak about "Vanishing Cultures – Mankind’s
\n Dwindling Heritage".<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/wadedavis.jpg\")
Wade and the Dowbrigade were at the core of Harvard’s program in Cultural
\n Anthropology back in the 1970’s. Both of us were interested in Ethnobotany,
\n which is basically the academic study of getting high on weird plants.
\n Although the Dowbrigade got sidetracked on a research expedition to the
\n Peruvian Amazon and ended up teaching English in the Peruvian National
\n University for 10 years, Wade went on to become the premier ethnobotanist
\n of our generation and how has one of the All-time Greatest Job Titles
\n in the history of jobs. He is, according to his resume and business card,
\n the Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic!<\/p>\n
\n species of humans and animals, writing about and photographing the weird things
\n he sees and hears. Over the years Wade has developed a dynamic and hypnotic
\n speaking style, which is somewhat surprising considering that back in
\n college we attributed
\n his quiet demeanor to near-constant intoxication by stupefying substances.
\n His lecture was pure poetry, as he painted word pictures in the air with
\n a cadence
\n and clarity which bespoke practice and conviction.<\/p>\n
\n he has visited, trying to give the audience an idea of the incredible
\n variety of flavors of the human experience that exist on the planet today.
\n He was
\n attempting a task so daunting as to be almost impossible; to express
\n in words what it is like to live in a different world, to experience
\n life
\n from a different perspective, and to move back and forth between alternate
\n realities like some people switch from the Red Line to the Green.<\/p>\n
\n majority of the packed house of perhaps 200 had enough first-hand experience
\n with other cultural worldviews to appreciate the truth of which he spoke.
\n After impressing us with the wonder of human variety and his encyclopedic
\n knowledge of some of the nooks and crannies of life on earth, he started
\n dropping bombshells on our sense of wonder.<\/p>\n
\n thousand of animal and plant species, but of a significant percentage
\n of existing
\n human cultures in the world. Within our lifetimes, over half of all human
\n cultures and languages will disappear. Every two weeks an elder dies
\n somewhere on the planet who represents the last speaker of a unique human
\n language.
\n It takes thousands of years for a language to evolve. These languages
\n will never be heard again.<\/p>\n
\n irreversibly impoverished every time the variety of human experience
\n is reduced in this way. To us, the human experience on this planet is
\n like
\n an intense and beautiful tapestry composed of thousands of distinct and
\n stellar threads of culture and language, and when those threads are cut
\n or left to dangle the coherence and completeness of the tapestry can
\n be seen to fray and weaken. If there is a way for the human race out
\n of this
\n mess we have created, each time the diversity of the human experience
\n is reduced by cultural extinction, the solution becomes that much more
\n difficult
\n to imagine. If present trends continue, we will eventually find ourselves
\n trapped in a monoculture with no way back.<\/p>\n
\n relativity and gave pause to the Dowbrigade, who like so many today looks
\n to technology
\n as a source of solutions and a fountain of hope. Back in the 70’s, when
\n we were students of Cultural Anthropology, the concept of "Appropriate
\n Technology" was in vogue. Wade’s story went like this.<\/p>\n
\n groups of Aleuts in the northern territories who lived lives to a large
\n extent
\n identical to their ancestors. They hunted and fished, built their shelters
\n from ice, and not only survived but thrived in one of the most hostile
\n environments on the planet. In the early 1950’s, not coincidentally in
\n conjunction to open up the vast Canadian oil and gas fields, the government
\n embarked
\n on a program to collect the native Aleuts and gather them into fixed
\n villages where they could benefit from health, education and economic
\n infrastructure
\n – basically all the benefits of modern society.<\/p>\n
\n housing, healthcare and education, but some of the old-timers resisted,
\n preferring to preserve the ancient ways. One old man in particular loved
\n his rough life on the ice and tundra, the companionship of his sled dogs,
\n and the divine illumination he found in the artic emptiness and nowhere
\n else.<\/p>\n
\n and were convinced he had acquiesced as his protests diminished with
\n time as the relocation date moved closer. In order to keep him from striking
\n out on his own, they confiscated all of his tools and resources; his
\n knife,
\n sled, boots, snowshoes, etc., leaving him with just the furs on his back.
\n But one night just a few days before the final departure, under cover
\n of darkness and into a gathering blizzard, the old man slipped from the
\n final
\n family igloo.<\/p>\n
\n Carefully, he reached down and retrieved it, and as the Arctic cold solidified
\n it he carefully molded it into a shit-knife. After the basic form was
\n set, he used his saliva to create a hard, sharp edge.<\/p>\n
\n and while murmuring reassuring endearments to the animal, slit its throat
\n and gutted it on the spot.<\/p>\n
\n freezing feet in the warm dog skin. Then he constructed a crude but functional
\n one man sled from the dog? ribs, and cords and straps form its ligaments.
\n Calling over another dog, he strapped up his home-made sled and disappeared
\n into the raging storm.<\/p>\n
\n whom "roughing it" means getting by without broadband on vacation, the
\n knowledge,
\n ingenuity and determination of that old Eskimo are things we will never
\n be privileged to experience. To the Dowbrigade the lesson to be learned
\n is that the crucial factor in the value of our experience is not in what
\n technology is available to us, but rather how we use it, and to what
\n ends.<\/p>\n
\n Can we envision a world in which the personal visions of Ken and Wade
\n can constructively
\n coexist? Q world where macro-economic growth can continue in a fashion
\n equitable to both investors and investees, while protecting and preserving
\n the human cultural inheritance we received from our ancestors and are
\n charged with leaving for our descendents.<\/p>\n
\n doubts about the transcendental potential of capitalism has lain in the
\n cyclical
\n nature of its spasmodic starts and stops. While these mathematically
\n delineable variations are grist for the publications of economists and
\n , they take
\n a devastating human toll of on both the microeconomic (workers struggling
\n to stay afloat without a paycheck) and macroeconomic (nations in periodic
\n bankruptcy stifling the aspirations of millions) levels.<\/p>\n
\n has been massive internal migrations to the major cities in impoverished
\n third-world
\n countries. This makes it easier for those people to participate in the
\n global economy, to access modern education, medicine and manufacturing
\n jobs (if they exist), but at a tremendous cost. Declining agricultural
\n production, abandoned hinterland and, most tragically, truncated cultural
\n traditions and forgotten repositories of human knowledge.<\/p>\n
\n contradictory ideas in his mind, this inability to integrate Wade’s and
\n Ken’s worldviews
\n is deeply disturbing. Lacking a way to encapsulate them in an integrated
\n whole, sanity demands that we choose one or the other. Stay tuned……<\/p>\n<\/p>\n