Treadmill Paradise

This fresh off the wire:
"At one farm in Northern Ireland, cows are giving up green grass in favor of green power. In order to decrease his reliance on fossil fuels for electricity, farmer William Taylor created the Livestock Power Mill, a treadmill that generates power as cows walk on it. It may seem like a kooky idea, but Taylor could really be onto something: According to his calculations, if the world’s 1.3 billion cattle used treadmills for eight hours a day, they could produce six percent of the world’s power."

The mind boggles. Yet again.

For example, there are an estimated 119 million horses in the world. What if they used treadmills for eight hours a day? That would be 0.5 percent of the world's power give or take. And there are an estimated 200 million cats. That would be roughly 0.04 percent. An estimated 2.5 billion dogs would be 0.1 percent. So, starting with Taylor's calculations, domesticated animals could contribute to seven percent of the world's power.

Then, of course, there are human beings. There are an estimated 6.8 billion people in the world. Human beings alone would be more than three percent of the world's power.

People 6.8 billion
Dogs - 2.5 billion
Cows - 1.3 billion
Cats - 200 million
Horses - 119 million

Now, admittedly, these calculations are rough, but - roughly - if we put all the world's people, all the world's cats and dogs, all the world's cows and horses on treadmills we would cut our energy consumption by 10%! Surely that would save us a Gulf of Mexico oil spill or two.

And, of course, that's not all.

What aren't the people of the world doing if they're on treadmills eight hours a day? Well, for one thing, they're not driving, are they? Driving accounts for roughly 30% of the world's energy use. Now, it's true that if 8 hours a day are taken up on the treadmill, 8 hours a day on sleeping and let's say 3 hours a day eating, that still leaves 5 hours a day, but surely, if present day trends are any indication, most if not all of that 5 hours a day would be spent on some sort of sitting and watching exercise, which means that the 10% drop in energy use would be supplemented by an even bigger 28 or 29% thanks to the precipitous drop in driving. In fact, to conserve mental energy, let's just round that out to 30% for a grand total of 40%. I can just see the Gulf of Mexico turning into its former under-polluted self.

And what else would a world of humans on 8 hour a day treadmills entail?

Give up? Well, less shopping. In fact, a lot less shopping. People, after their 8 hours are up, will be lucky to make it home without collapsing in one or another gutter. The LAST thing they'll be thinking about is buying anything that isn't food or water. So all that energy that is used up digging up raw materials for consumer goods, all that energy used to transport those raw materials, all that energy used to transform those raw materials into products, all that energy used to transport those products to the showroom floors and shelves - it will no longer be necessary.

And what else would a world of humans on 8 hour a day treadmills entail?

Well, fewer babies. In fact, a lot fewer babies. At the risk of repeating myself, after their 8 hours a day are up, the LAST thing - well, maybe the next to LAST thing - they'll be thinking about is making another baby. The phrase "I'm too tired" will become a cliche. And what will that mean? A precipitous drop not only in driving but in the number of people even dreaming of driving. Or consuming any form of energy, for that matter.

In fact...

Remember that 10% of the world's power that all the world's humans, cats and dogs, cows and horses can produce just by using a treadmill for 8 hours each day? Well, that may actually be all the power that today's human beings - and cats and dogs, and cows and horses, of course - may need.

In other words, we will have created for ourselves a treadmill paradise. No more peak oil problems; most of the rest of our non-renewable resources can be left in the ground. No more financial system problems; who's going to need to go into debt once their treadmills are bought and paid for? No more global warming problems; how many hydrocarbons are being pumped into the air by walking on a treadmill or by walking home to collapse in bed? Not only will we have ourselves a treadmill paradise; we will have ourselves a sustainable treadmill paradise.

And all because of farmer William Taylor of Northern Ireland.

Are Enron, WorldCom, Madoff, Goldman Sachs and McAllen, Texas Apps on Our Cellphones?

Are Enron, WorldCom, Madoff and Goldman Sachs apps on our cellphones? The answer might surprise you.

Remember Enron? Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for 6 consecutive years, from 1996 to 2001. The 7th consecutive year was not to be, because before "America's Most Innovative Company" had a chance at another year, it was revealed that its financial rise was due in large part to institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned fraud. Kenneth Lay, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Enron, was touted as a possible Secretary of the Treasury in the Bush administration, but, again unfortunately, before he had a chance to be confirmed he was found guilty of 6 counts of conspiracy and fraud. Fortunately, he died. Jeffrey Skilling, the Chief Operating Officer of Enron, was found guilty of 19 counts of conspiracy, insider trading, making false statements to auditors and fraud. Unfortunately, he lived and went to prison.

Then there was WorldCom. Unfortunately, WorldCom was not named "America's Most Innovative Company" - that spot had already been taken - but its Chief Executive Officer, Bernie Ebbers, was inducted into the Mississippi Business Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, he was subsequently found guilty of fraud, conspiracy and filing false documents; Scott Sullivan, WorldCom's Chief Financial Officer, was found guilty of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and filing false statements; David Myers, WorldCom's Controller, was found guilty of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and filing false statements; Buford Yates, WorldCom's Accounting Director, was found guilty of conspiracy and fraud charges; and Betty Vinson and Troy Noramnd, accounting managers, were found guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud. Remember them?

So what, you ask? Well, consider this: 3G cellphones started in the 2000s; the Enron and WorldCom scandals broke in the same decade. Do you think that was mere coincidence? More recently, but in the same decade, Bernie Madoff was found guilty of 11 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, making false statements, perjury, theft from an employee benefit plan, and making false filings with the SEC. And this week Goldman Sachs was indicted on one count of fraud. In other words, just as fraud has exploded, so has the popularity of cellphones.

And least anyone fantasize that Enron, WorldCom, Madoff and Goldman Sachs were just "one off" apps, let me quote William Black, the head of prosecution during the S&L crisis. (Remember the S&L crisis? Which was coincident with 2G cellphones?) Black says the recent financial crisis was caused by massive fraud.

Quote: "Let’s start with the repos. We have known since Enron in 2001 that this is a common scam, in which every major bank that was approached by Enron agreed to help them deceive creditors and investors by doing these kind of transactions. And so what happened? There was a proposal in 2004 to stop it. And the regulatory heads — there was an inter-agency effort — killed it. They came out with something pathetic in 2006, and stalled its implication until 2007, but it’s meaningless. We have known for decades that these are frauds. We have known for a decade how to stop them. All of the major regulatory agencies were complicit in that statement, in destroying it. We have a self-fulfilling policy of regulatory failure. We have the Fed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, finding that this is three card monty. Well what would you do, as a regulator, if you knew that one of the largest enterprises in the world, when the nation is on the brink of economic collapse, is engaged in fraud, three card monty? Would you continue business as usual? That’s what was done." Unquote.

If you want another, non-financial-crisis example of the fraud, read Atul Gawande's article in The New Yorker, The Cost Conundrum. It profiles McAllen, Texas, which is a border town in Hidalgo County. It has two claims to fame:
1.) It has the lowest household income in the country, and
2.) It has the most expensive health care in the country, except for Miami.

Why, you may ask. It turns out the reason is as simple as the reason for Enron, WorldCom, Madoff and Goldman Sachs. Fraud. Most doctors in McAllen, Texas, according to The New Yorker article, are out to game the system. They are not all that interested in medicine, even less in their patients; they are interested in profit. And they order many more tests and procedures than are necessary to give themselves the profit to which they have become accustomed.

So take your pick: Enron, WorldCom, Madoff, Goldman Sachs, the health care system in America, no doubt many other examples of gaming the system. Yes, you may be outraged. Outrage away! Write your politicians! Storm the Federal Reserve! It won't do you one bit of good, it turns out. (Much to my own surprise.) Why? Again, the answer turns out to be incredibly simple.

IT'S OUR CELLPHONES!

Yes, that's right, our cellphones. (Well, your cellphones, to be exact. I don't have one.) A recent study out of M.I.T. shows that people's moral judgment is adversely affected by the use of cellphones. That's because the part of our brain that deals with moral judgments turns out to be right behind our ear.

In other words, the solution to all this massive fraud, which started in the 1980s with Reagan and Thatcher and 1G cellphones, and which has been gathering strength until this very day with Obama and Harper and 3G cellphones, is:

JUST BAN THE BLOODY CELLPHONES!

Or, to paraphrase the Clinton campaign's James Carville:

IT'S THE BLOODY CELLPHONES, STUPID!