Angelo Musco’s ‘Tehom’ at Carrie Secrist Gallery

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The Carrie Secrist Gallery is pleased to announce our next exhibition, Tehom, a solo show by Italian artist Angelo Musco. Two years in production, the show includes Musco’s photo installation Hadal, which was shown in the 53rd Venice Biennale last summer.The title piece, Tehom, an underwater world populated with tens of thousands of nude bodies, will cover the main wall of the gallery stretching 12 x 48 feet wide. The dialogue between classic art forms and contemporary expressions is one of the main themes of Musco’s photographic work. Using mosaic type panels and photo pieces allows the artist to make the entire gallery a unique underwater world experience.

WHO: Angelo Musco
WHAT: Tehom
WHEN: May 1 – July 10, 2010
WHERE: Carrie Secrist Gallery, 835 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago IL 60607, USA

    Original article found here

    The Techno-Sponge

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    After years of thinking about this, I have come up with a term that can describe the thoughts I have had about the new, 'good' type of deflation that is evading the notice of almost all of the top economists in the world today.  This changes many of the most fundamental assumptions about economics, even as most economic thought is far behind the curve. 


    First, let us review some events that transpired over the last 2 years.  To stave off the prospect of a deflationary spiral that could lead to a depression, the major governments of the world followed 20th-century textbook economics, and injected colossal amounts of liquidity into the financial system.  In the US, not only was the Fed Funds rate lowered to nearly zero (for now 18 months and counting), but an additional $1 Trillion was injected in. 


    However, now that a depression has been averted, and the recession has ended, we were supposed to experience inflation even amidst high unemployment, just like we did in the 1970s.  But alas, there is still no inflation, despite a yield curve with more than 3% steepness, and a near-0% FF rate for so long.  How could this be?  What is absorbing all the liquidity?   


    In The Impact of Computing, I discussed how 1.5% of World GDP today comprises of products where the same functionality can be purchased for a price that halves every 18 months.  'Moore's Law' applies to semiconductors, but storage, software, and some biotech are also on a similar exponential curve.  This force makes productivity gains higher, and inflation lower, than traditional 20th century economics would anticipate.  Furthermore, the second derivative is also increasing - the rate of productivity gains itself is accelerating.  1.5% of World GDP may be small, but what about when this percentage grows to 3% of World GDP?  5%?  We may only be a decade away from this, and the impact of this technological deflation will be more obvious. 


    Most high-tech companies have a business model that incorporates a sort of 'bizarro force' that is completely the opposite of what old-economy companies operate under : The price of the products sold by a high-tech company decreases over time.  Any other company will manage inventory, pricing, and forecasts under an assumption of inflationary price increases, but a technology company exists under the reality that all inventory depreciates very quickly (at over 10% per quarter in many cases), and that price drops will shrink revenues unless unit sales rise enough to offset it (and assuming that enough unit inventory was even produced).  This results in the constant pressure to create new and improved products every few months.  Yet, high-tech companies have built hugely profitable businesses around these peculiar challenges, and at least 8 such companies have market capitalizations over $100 Billion.  6 of those 8 are headquartered in Silicon Valley. 


    Now, here is the point to ponder : We have never had a significant technology sector while also facing the fears (warranted or otherwise) of high inflation.  When high inflation vanished in 1982, the technology sector was too tiny to be considered a significant contributor to macroeconomic statistics.  In an environment of high inflation combined with a large technology industry, however, major consumer retail pricepoints, such as $99.99 or $199.99, become more affordable.  The same also applies to enterprise-class customers.  Thus, demand creeps upwards even as cost to produce the products goes down on the same Impact of Computing curve.  This allows a technology company the ability to postpone price drops and expand margins, or to sell more volume at the same nominal dollar price.  Hence, higher inflation causes the revenues and/or margins of technology companies to rise, which means their earnings-per-share certainly rises.


    So what we are seeing is the gigantic amount of liquidity created by the Federal Reserve is instead cycling through technology companies and increasing their earnings.  The products they sell, in turn, increase productivity and promptly push inflation back down.  Every uptick in inflation merely guarantees its own pushback, and the 1.5% of GDP that mops up all the liquidity and creates this form of 'good' deflation can be termed as the 'Techno-Sponge'.  So how much liquidity can it absorb before saturation? 


    At this point, if the US prints another $1 Trillion, that will still merely halt deflation, and there will be no hint of inflation at all.  It would take a full $2 Trillion to saturate the techno-sponge, and push consumer inflation to even the less-than-terrifying level of 4% while also generating substantial jumps in productivity and tech company earnings.  In fact, the demographics of the US, with baby boomers reaching their geriatric years, are highly deflationary (and this is the bad type of deflation), so the US would have to print another $1 Trillion every year for the next 10 years just to offset demographic deflation, and keep the techno-sponge saturated. 


    A techno-sponge that is 1.5% of GDP might be keeping CPI inflation at under 2%, but when the techno-sponge is 3% of GDP, even trillions of dollars of liquidity won't halt deflation.  Deflation may become normal, even as living standards and productivity rise at ever-increasing rates.  The people who will suffer are holders of debt, particularly mortgage debt.  Inflating away debt will no longer be a tool available to rescue people (and governments) from their errors.  The biggest beneficiaries will be technology companies, and those who are tied to them. 


    But to keep prosperity rising, productivity has to rise at the maximum possible rate.  This requires the techno-sponge to be kept full at all times - the 'new normal'.  Thus, the printing press has to start on the first $1 Trillion now. 


    Related :


    The Impact of Computing


    Timing the Singularity

    Waging War on Behalf of the Dolphins

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    “We’re not just trying to kill everything in the Gulf of Mexico, but everything that flies over it as well”.

    Those are the words of the videographer, “Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen”, the man who made this video.  He is associated with the Waterkeeper Alliance.  Please spread this video  around and make sure people see it. Even the most hardened oil fanatics might be stunned at the damage to everything this oil leak — still a gusher — is doing to the wildlife, the air, the marshes, the water.  This is the biggest crime, or act of war, ever done to this country by anyone.

    This video shows dolphins struggling and wildlife deaths towards the end — hundreds of dolphins and at least one whale, that are dying as they swim in the oil in the Gulf.  Imagine their panic when they realize the sky is burning and the water, their habitat, has been totally poisoned.  There is no where they can escape to.   It’s just heartbreaking to imagine what they must be going through.  Dolphins  and whales are very intelligent animals and they are suffering and dying for our oil addiction.  This is BP, murdering dolphins, whales, pelicans and sharks and everything else in the Gulf that used to live and thrive there.  They have used so much dispersant to break up the oil to cover their own butts it’s not even clear whether most of the oil can ever be collected.  It must be harder and harder for even the cheerleaders of oil to justify the use of it,  given how dangerous getting it has become.

    John Wathen says, “There has to be something better than putting all of this toxic smoke into the atmosphere”.  He’s right.  Why are they burning it, and why aren’t there ships collecting it to dispose of it?  Because they want to sell it, and the price of oil is too low to make it worth BP’s while to actually collect it.  Besides, if they did collect it, refine it and sell it, it would end up in the atmosphere anyway.  That’s the life cycle of oil, polluting from the beginning to the end.

    In my opinion, this oil “accident” and its aftermath is no less than an act of hostility, an act of war on the part of British Petroleum,  than if they had bombed Louisiana outright.

    It’s time for retaliation on the part of the United States.  We should seize their corporation, and seize all their assets before they can hide any more of them.  Seize their equipment, every last boat and skimmer, and force their engineers and rig workers to stop the leak and fix this problem. That would be so much more justified than the war in Iraq ever was.

    Whoever posted the link for this video wrote:

    This was the most emotionally disturbing video I have ever done!
    A flight over the BP Slick Source where I saw at least 100 Dolphins in the oil, some dying. [...]

    Minister rejects Jamie Oliver approach to health – The Associated Press

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