The term “robber baron” was coined to describe medieval German nobles who extracted tolls, tariffs, and tithes from passing traffic on the river Rhine. You can still see their castles, built close to the banks, looming over the river. It was later used to describe rapacious industrialists who lined their pockets without adding much value to the detriment of the common good. We have them today, too.

It’s being reported that Netflix has agreed to pay Comcast for access to its network:

Netflix Inc. has agreed to pay Comcast Corp. to ensure Netflix movies and television shows stream smoothly to Comcast customers, a landmark pact that could set a precedent for Netflix’s dealings with other broadband providers, people familiar with the matter said.

In exchange for payment, Netflix will get direct access to Comcast’s broadband network.

The deal comes just 10 days after Comcast agreed to buy Time Warner Cable Inc. The acquisition, if approved, would establish Comcast as by far the dominant provider of broadband in the U.S., serving 32 million households before any divestitures it might make. It also comes amid growing signs that congestion deep in the Internet is causing interruptions for customers trying to stream Netflix movies and TV shows.

or, said another way, the robber baron is now extracting tolls from passing traders. That’s certainly a better outcome than Comcast’s just silently strangling Netflix and, until and unless Congress acts to counteract the Court’s recent rulings or the FCC figures out a way to re-write its regulations to fit within its Congressionally-delegated powers it’s probably the wave of the future.

Comcast didn’t develop the Internet and if it had tried on its own it would have flopped, as so many proprietary networks did. It doesn’t own the Internet but it’s profiting mightily from it. Its power should be limited to the “last mile” and all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally, consistent with the law of common carriers.

Just a little side note about the Slavic languages. The Slavic languages, which include Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Czech, and Slovak, just to name a few are divided into three subgroups: the East Slavic languages (e.g. Russian), the West Slavic languages (e.g. Czech), and the South Slavic languages (e.g. Serbo-Croatian).

A millennium ago there was probably only one Slavic language. The story you generally hear is that the Tatar invasion isolated the Slavs from one another, allowing their languages to diverge.

Distinguishing between language and dialect is a fractious subject, governed as much by politics and tradition as linguistics and, since national boundaries have changed frequently, a subject for debate. The differences between Serbian and Croatian is mostly that Serbian is written in Cyrillic and Croatian is written in Roman letters and they have slightly different borrow words. Bosnian adds more Turkish and Arabic borrow words.

In general, the Slavic languages are pretty close to one another—closer than the Romance languages are to each other. One wisecrack I’ve heard that I liked was that the speakers of the various Slavic languages understand one another they just pretend not to.

In a comment on the situation in Ukraine I said:

The EU is repeating the mistakes it made in Yugoslavia and it’s getting the same results.

Apparantly, that’s not limited to the EU. David Goldman, AKA “Spengler”, calls for partition of Ukraine:

I’ve argued for years that partition is the best solution for Ukraine, which never was a country but an almalgam of provinces left over from failed empires–Russian, Austrian, Lithuanian, Ottoman–cobbled together into a Soviet “republic” and cast adrift after the collapse of Communism. Lviv (Lemberg) was a German-speaking city, part of Silesia; before World War II a quarter of its people were Jews. Jews were two-fifths of the population of Odessa.

A fifth of the population, mainly in the East, are ethnic Russians; a tenth, mainly in the West, are Uniate Catholics, who have a special place in Catholic policy since the papacy of John Paul II. Ukrainian nationality is as dubious as Byelorussian nationality: neither of them had a dictionary of their language until 1918.

The Ukrainians would probably dispute his assertion. The Princedom of Kiev was a major power from the 9th century through the 14th century. However, does a country not protected from its neighbors by natural boundaries, constisting of multiple ethnicities, some in the same ethnicity speaking different languages, some Orthodox, some Catholic ring any bells?

He concludes:

Russia never will permit the integration of Ukraine into NATO; were it to come to that, Russia would use force, and the West would stand by cursing. But Russia will settle for half a loaf, namely a Russian-allied Eastern Ukraine. Whatever we do, Ukraine will continue its slow, sad slide into oblivion. The diplomats have the dour duty of managing this decline with the minimum of friction.

The first sentence is quite correct. I’m skeptical of the second sentence but, unfortunately, Mr. Goldman produces no evidence in support of his opinion.

I think that quite to the contrary, Russia will not allow a former Soviet republic to join NATO or the EU except under the circumstance of Russia itself joining the EU. As evidence just take a glance at any Russian language newspaper. They’re full of saber-rattling and assertions that Putin is only waiting for an invitation to send Russian troops in to take control of the situation. The only part of that I doubt is that he’s waiting for an invitation.

The entire situation is being painted very differently in the Russian press than it is here or in Europe. Here there’s a major emphasis on human rights. In the Russian press the emphasis is on stability with a side emphasis on the Nazi past of Ukrainian rightwing nationalists. They think the EU’s views are entirely predicated on gas and oil and I think they’re right.

The following headline at The Week caught my eye:

“How do you weaponize a rabbit?”

Now, anyone who knows much about rabbits—I mean actual rabbits rather than their popular image—knows that’s a silly question. They already come pre-weaponized.

The article itself is about using rabbits as a delivery system for tularemia as a weapon of war and is mildly interesting.

I don’t know if you find the graph above as concerning as I do. It illustrates the growth of U. S. bank assets and Chinese bank assets from 2008 to the present. Here’s a slightly longer timeframe to put the increase in U. S. bank assets over time into a little bit better perspective:

ZeroHedge quotes the Bank of America:

We posit that this large rise was in part driven by the carry trade offered up by QE – China banks and corporates issued substantial forex-denominated bonds, and borrowed straight loans from international banks. We recognize the caveat that correlation does not imply causation. The USD655bn rise in China debt issuance is highly correlated to the Fed’s balance sheet since late-2008. As Chart 11 shows, the rise in China debt issuance of USD 655bn has (along with FDI and the C/A surplus), boosted international reserves by USD1,773bn since late-2008. Also, as Chart 11 shows, the USD1,773bn rise in China international reserves mirrors the rise of USD2,585bn in the EM monetary base. Lastly, the rise of China’s monetary base of USD2,585bn correlates well with the USD10.9tr rise in China’s broad money expansion.

Considering the very large proportion of non-productive loans believed to be on the books and the notorious opacity of Chinese banks it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.

Every once in a while somebody proposes splitting one state or another into two or more states but it’s nearly always a fantasy—it will never go anywhere. A smarty-pants Silicon Valley venture capitalist has come up with a plan to split California into six states, pictured above, and there’s actually an outside chance it could happen:

Draper’s plan is controversial, but he’s got permission from Secretary of State Debra Bowen to start collecting petition signatures to qualify for a ballot. A total of 807, 615 registered voters need to sign Draper’s Six Californias plan in 150 days before it can be put on the next state election.

Article IV Section 3 of the U. S. Constitution prohibits states being carved out of other states other than under limited conditions:

New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

California’s initiative system (they call them referendums but they’re initiatives) is quite robust and I strongly suspect that a well-written initiative could pass and would force the state’s legislature to approve the division. Whether the Congress would approve such an act is anybody’s guess.

However, let’s ignore whether it will happen for a second and consider the implications of its happening for a bit.

I think that dividing the state along the lines shown above would be good for “Jefferson”, “North California”, “Silicon Valley”, and, possibly, “West California” and a disaster for “Central California” and “South California”. The new state of “Silicon Valley” would have the highest per capita income of any state; “Central California” would have the lowest. “South California” would be starved for water. The bulk of its water comes from three sources: the Colorado River via the Colorado River Aqueduct, the State Water Project, and the Owens Valley. “South California” would have control of none of these.

Politically, by my reckoning the division would probably increase the Democrats’ margin in the Senate by two—”Jefferson” and “Central California” would probably elect Republicans, while the other four new states would elect Democrats. I don’t know what effect the new map would have on the House—it might well result in no change at all.

If the constitutions of the new states followed California’s, I’m skeptical that the new division would be stable. Once it had been shown to be possible I think the temptation to further divide the new states would be irresistible.

Somewhat to my surprise I find myself largely in agreement with Charles Krauthammer on climate change. He writes:

I repeat: I’m not a global warming believer. I’m not a global warming denier. I’ve long believed that it cannot be good for humanity to be spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. I also believe that those scientists who pretend to know exactly what this will cause in 20, 30 or 50 years are white-coated propagandists.

As I said yesterday I would have a lot more confidence in the claims of the advocates if there weren’t so many snake oil schemes. As the old rabbinic saying goes, “If a woman comes from a far country and tells you she’s divorced, believe her.”

The balance of his column is about the fatuousness of “settled science”.

I find the developments in Venezuela interesting and, likely, significant. Sadly, I don’t have the knowledge or background to comment on the situation with any real confidence. Am I breaking the code of the blogosphere?

Esquire has an article on Rahm Emanuel. Overall, it’s favorable. Remarkably so, under the circumstances.

I think it’s about even money that the mayor will not seek re-election in 2015. Will he really have time to be the mayor of Chicago in 2015 and 2016? I think there will be pressing needs for his talents elsewhere.