I am an old fart, in body if not in mind. I don't much care what happens to me, I have had a great run in my life. I have lived through the most amazing time in American / World history that will ever be, I think.
I was born right after America with a little (lots) of help from the Russian won the great war against Hitler. I witnessed the greatest creation of wealth and prosperity the world has ever witnessed. I witnessed an effort to eliminate prejudice against blacks, gays, women, fat people, etc. An absolutely amazing period in American, and World, History. Perhaps not since Jesus have people had more hope than we had in the sixties.
In art, we had John Lennon who imagined a world without heaven or hell when it was not popular to do so. Simple men like Mohammid Ali stood against the government and the killing of people our rulers had decided were evil. Martin Luther King spoke of the promise land, but like Moses, never got to see it. Kennedy asked the people to not ask what the country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. I am afraid the last remarkable thing we will do is to elect Obama. It is our last gasp, perhaps.
Where did we lose our way. It is actually quite simple. We gave up the religion of the Bible and put consumerism in its place. I do not support either religion, but the masses do. Perhaps another religion that competed with consumerism is a complete faith in science to solve all our problems. But, problems of humanity are not external, they are internal, inside the soul, and I use that word with caution. The world as we see it is a reflection of what goes on inside our minds, our souls. Our thoughts and attitudes ooze from our body and color the world as we see it.
Our economic and social well being derives from who we are as a people, and that derives from who we are as individuals. Loving your neighbor is important to insuring our survival as a people and as a way of life. And, unfortunately, consumerism does not teach such basic truths. The old religion, that I desserted 32 years ago, at least gets this right. However, the followers of this religon mostly do not apply this principle, so either way, society is doomed.
Now my kids, what kind of world do they inherit. First, a world that believes in nothing. Second, they live in a country that is a military superpower but a declining economic superpower. The superpower part came from a people that dared to dream and believe in a just world. My children do not give such things much thought and my children are much above the average. They are great kids. All of them smart, all of them trying to do what is best and right, which is more than you can say for most. But, they are lost in the quagmire of American life. The strength of a people come from their beliefs, and sadly our beliefs center around out doing the Jone's. There are many wonder exceptions around me, but exceptions must become the norm to change the tide.
Our future at the moment depends more on the Chinese than on us. Its an economic reality. If you don't know what I am talking about, start reading, figure it out. The Chinese culture is very old with a lot of wisdom embedded in it. The current leaders, communists, do not yet reflect the whole of China. The people of China understand many things they understand about life that we do not understand. So, them holding the future, or the next hundred years is not necessarily a bad thing for humanity. It is hard on the white, Anglo-saxon, protestant mentality, but not necessarily bad for the human race. They have a lot to teach us about families, community live, devotion, cooperation, and the good of the whole.
In all, the transition will be tough on my kids. But, hopefully, they will adapt, accept the new world order and not be stuck with the attitude that we are the greatest. Not even Mohammid Ali believes in being the greatest in the broader scope of humanity; his humility in later years testifies to this. In the end, it depends on values, on morals and the courage that comes with living one's life based on principles. For my kids, I am optimistic that I have helped to give them a set of values that will lead them into this new world. I am not as optimistic about most of America and their children. Perhaps this is egotistical, and maybe it is, but I have been fortunate to have children that embody the person(s) I would like to be, perhaps better than I do myself. Today, Michael Jackson and Fara Facet died. Michael J didn't seem to me to have a very good life based on what I think I know about him, but who knows. Fara seemed to be a pretty cool lady.
Do you believe everyone on our planet is our brother? If so, how do we make laws and policies that help our brother? How do we need to change our thinking to lift the boats of all brothers?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Socialism for America
There is a lot of fear these days that we are turning socialist, or even worse. With the government taking over the banks, owning part of the auto makers, and now jumping into modifying medicine, people fear this is the first step in the government taking over the private sector, i.e., socialism.
Well, I would say to those people you have not been paying attention for the last twenty years. There are three big sources of power in the U.S., the two political parties and big business. The lobbyists are the go-betweens, the grease that makes the machine work. This was called, the balance of power. No, the people, the electorate didn't really matter, still don't. Only 20% of the electorate vote any way, they don't care and they gave up power a long time ago.
The balance of power has gone amuck since the republicans under their fearless leader shot their wad on Iraq (I almost slipped and said Vietnam, being from that era of time). All their political capital was used up with the illusion that we, the U.S., still controls the world. We don't and we control less with every day that passes. The world is being remade as we speak, primarily by the Chinese, but many others like the Indians or the Middle East are not far behind. They have the money, we have the debt. While we worry about petty things like illegal immigrants, with a country we should be in bed with to improve our competitive position with China et al, we haggle over immigrants and continue to fight a war on drugs that has not worked for fifty years.
So now, we are left with just the democrats and big business. We probably have sixteen years of democrats to look forward to, eight with Obama, eight with Hillary. Sixteen years is probably enough time to recover from Iraq since eventually the electorate will forget how it all got started, and/or they will remember the democrats were more midgets and funded the effort.
But, what we all forget is that MONEY controls the world. MONEY and power are very close cousins. So, who controls the money, China. China controls the money that the democrats need to continue their illusion of being in control of life in America. If you are familiar with fishing, I would say that China is about ready to set the hook. When a big mouth bass picks up your plastic worm on the bottom of the lake, he sucks it in and starts to swim away with it. If you jerk too soon, you pull the end of the worm out of his mouth. If you wait too long, he feels the hardness of the hook embedded in the worm and spits it out. But, if jerk hard at just the right point in time, then the hook pulls through the plastic worm and embeds itself into the jaw of the big mouth bass.
When should the Chinese jerk the line and set the hook. I would say right after we have sucked in the big juicy worm of health care. Let us put one more bag goodies on our shoulders that we cannot afford, and then ask the Chinese to fund it by buying our bonds, bonds that we can not possibly repay already. In this case, setting the hook just requires them to purchase the debt of Europe for a few months instead of U.S. debt and/or move more of their cash into their own domestic economy, which is harder than it sounds while trying to remain in control of all major decisions. Market chaos could be China's friend, but they are not likely to embrace it too hard or too soon. In short, we might get lucky and they may not set the hook.
Turning to socialism, nah. We already have a system. I struggle for words to describe it, but lobby-ism, nepotism, oligopoly, etc. are all close cousins. We don't even have any serious journalism challenging the system, and even if we did, the electorate doesn't read anymore, even the ones that vote. We get our thirty minutes of news, superficial, negative and self-focused with the illusion that only what happens in the U.S. matters. The news is only one step ahead of our obsession with reality, or more properly phrased, nonreality shows. The public is there ready to reprogrammed as required by skills first learned and developed by the marketing people that sold us commercialism, but now used to sell us Presidents and weapons of mass destruction, whatever it is required for us to believe.
So where does it all lead. Its simple, are children are going to be indebt to the Chinese. The Chinese communist party to be more exact. We have been in the feed yards for twenty years. We are now fat and ripe, our children have been delivered like veal to the fat business man, and there is really no way out. I suppose we could all bolt and charge the fence, but I suspect that we could go more like lambs to the slaughter than our forefathers that dumped tea into the ocean. Hopefully we are at the bottom of the cycle and it is not all doom and gloom like I painted here, but at the moment where we are headed looks like a continuation of where we have been going for twenty years. And yes, all things are self correcting and eventually the pendulum will swing the other way. After all, even the dark ages only lasted a few hundred years.
Well, I would say to those people you have not been paying attention for the last twenty years. There are three big sources of power in the U.S., the two political parties and big business. The lobbyists are the go-betweens, the grease that makes the machine work. This was called, the balance of power. No, the people, the electorate didn't really matter, still don't. Only 20% of the electorate vote any way, they don't care and they gave up power a long time ago.
The balance of power has gone amuck since the republicans under their fearless leader shot their wad on Iraq (I almost slipped and said Vietnam, being from that era of time). All their political capital was used up with the illusion that we, the U.S., still controls the world. We don't and we control less with every day that passes. The world is being remade as we speak, primarily by the Chinese, but many others like the Indians or the Middle East are not far behind. They have the money, we have the debt. While we worry about petty things like illegal immigrants, with a country we should be in bed with to improve our competitive position with China et al, we haggle over immigrants and continue to fight a war on drugs that has not worked for fifty years.
So now, we are left with just the democrats and big business. We probably have sixteen years of democrats to look forward to, eight with Obama, eight with Hillary. Sixteen years is probably enough time to recover from Iraq since eventually the electorate will forget how it all got started, and/or they will remember the democrats were more midgets and funded the effort.
But, what we all forget is that MONEY controls the world. MONEY and power are very close cousins. So, who controls the money, China. China controls the money that the democrats need to continue their illusion of being in control of life in America. If you are familiar with fishing, I would say that China is about ready to set the hook. When a big mouth bass picks up your plastic worm on the bottom of the lake, he sucks it in and starts to swim away with it. If you jerk too soon, you pull the end of the worm out of his mouth. If you wait too long, he feels the hardness of the hook embedded in the worm and spits it out. But, if jerk hard at just the right point in time, then the hook pulls through the plastic worm and embeds itself into the jaw of the big mouth bass.
When should the Chinese jerk the line and set the hook. I would say right after we have sucked in the big juicy worm of health care. Let us put one more bag goodies on our shoulders that we cannot afford, and then ask the Chinese to fund it by buying our bonds, bonds that we can not possibly repay already. In this case, setting the hook just requires them to purchase the debt of Europe for a few months instead of U.S. debt and/or move more of their cash into their own domestic economy, which is harder than it sounds while trying to remain in control of all major decisions. Market chaos could be China's friend, but they are not likely to embrace it too hard or too soon. In short, we might get lucky and they may not set the hook.
Turning to socialism, nah. We already have a system. I struggle for words to describe it, but lobby-ism, nepotism, oligopoly, etc. are all close cousins. We don't even have any serious journalism challenging the system, and even if we did, the electorate doesn't read anymore, even the ones that vote. We get our thirty minutes of news, superficial, negative and self-focused with the illusion that only what happens in the U.S. matters. The news is only one step ahead of our obsession with reality, or more properly phrased, nonreality shows. The public is there ready to reprogrammed as required by skills first learned and developed by the marketing people that sold us commercialism, but now used to sell us Presidents and weapons of mass destruction, whatever it is required for us to believe.
So where does it all lead. Its simple, are children are going to be indebt to the Chinese. The Chinese communist party to be more exact. We have been in the feed yards for twenty years. We are now fat and ripe, our children have been delivered like veal to the fat business man, and there is really no way out. I suppose we could all bolt and charge the fence, but I suspect that we could go more like lambs to the slaughter than our forefathers that dumped tea into the ocean. Hopefully we are at the bottom of the cycle and it is not all doom and gloom like I painted here, but at the moment where we are headed looks like a continuation of where we have been going for twenty years. And yes, all things are self correcting and eventually the pendulum will swing the other way. After all, even the dark ages only lasted a few hundred years.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Escaping Capitalism
Capitalism is not a religion, or science, or even a set of rules. But, it is a reality. Capitalism governs the flow of money between makers, consumers, governments, countries, etc. as elequountly as the laws of nature control rain, and water moving between rivers, streams, oceans, the sky and even underground streams. If you disrupt the flow of a steam, say with a damn, the water builds up and for awhile you can deny water access to the river and even the ocean. But, it is all temporary.
By the first level of the laws of capitalism, a lot of banks should have failed. They performed poorly and under free market principles they should have been allowed to fail. But, we decided that we could throw a damn in the river and prevent the natural course of things. Yes, and we have prevented the banks from failing, even though they did a crumpy job at managing risk. In fact, we have reinforced bad behavior. Our children have spat on the floor and have been reward with money from the government. They can do nothing to deserve failure, we will prope them up and guarantee they can fail. The cost, trillions of dollars, for this "no lesson learned" lesson.
How exactly will this play out. I don't know. I know we were afraid to let it play out. We did not trust the basic principals behind capitalism. We decided we could stop the natural order of things, stop those that have been stupid from failing. But, all we have done is dealing with the problem. We think we can write new regulations to keep the same problems from happening again. But, these are secondary laws, much less than the primary laws that says when you take excessive risk and fail you die. Our new regulations will try to make taking excessive risk illegal, but our actions say if you do, we will take care of you, we will hock the American people to take care of you.
An alternative would have been to kick the owners of the bank out, sell their assets to other banks, and insure the accounts of those that used the bank. In other words, take care of those that were harmed and punish those that were stupid and took excessive risks. I suspect those at the top of the banks were really good buddies with a lot of the government officals, in short, they were all part of the good old boy's club.
How will it all come out. I don't know. What I think will happen is the value of our dollar will fall, we will suffer inflation similar to 1974, and we will repeat the same mistakes somewhere in the future, because we avoided the lessons that capitalism was trying to teach us.
By the first level of the laws of capitalism, a lot of banks should have failed. They performed poorly and under free market principles they should have been allowed to fail. But, we decided that we could throw a damn in the river and prevent the natural course of things. Yes, and we have prevented the banks from failing, even though they did a crumpy job at managing risk. In fact, we have reinforced bad behavior. Our children have spat on the floor and have been reward with money from the government. They can do nothing to deserve failure, we will prope them up and guarantee they can fail. The cost, trillions of dollars, for this "no lesson learned" lesson.
How exactly will this play out. I don't know. I know we were afraid to let it play out. We did not trust the basic principals behind capitalism. We decided we could stop the natural order of things, stop those that have been stupid from failing. But, all we have done is dealing with the problem. We think we can write new regulations to keep the same problems from happening again. But, these are secondary laws, much less than the primary laws that says when you take excessive risk and fail you die. Our new regulations will try to make taking excessive risk illegal, but our actions say if you do, we will take care of you, we will hock the American people to take care of you.
An alternative would have been to kick the owners of the bank out, sell their assets to other banks, and insure the accounts of those that used the bank. In other words, take care of those that were harmed and punish those that were stupid and took excessive risks. I suspect those at the top of the banks were really good buddies with a lot of the government officals, in short, they were all part of the good old boy's club.
How will it all come out. I don't know. What I think will happen is the value of our dollar will fall, we will suffer inflation similar to 1974, and we will repeat the same mistakes somewhere in the future, because we avoided the lessons that capitalism was trying to teach us.
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