Sometimes I think Orwell's 1984 really happened and we somehow spaced it out. That would help explain how so much of our language means something far removed from the meaning it had when it was entered into the dictionary; and how most of us have developed a fantasy world that we perceive as reality. The greatest rift between perception and reality is the issue at or near the top of every public poll about citizen concerns- the economy. Very much like the Israelites waiting in avid anticipation at the foot of Mount Sinai for Moses to descend from the mountain bearing the Ten Commandments (2nd. Edition*) we gather around our television sets every day and wait for the pronouncement revealing the state of the economy. If it forges ahead we are happy, if it falters we are anxious.
* Moses had thrown a temper tantrum and broke the first set, but those details detract from my metaphor, so therefore did not happen.
The sad cruelty of this ritual is that the economic news we are watching is about as relevant to our personal economic status as is Santa Claus, or that old standby, the price of eggs in China.
There has never been a definitive, universally accepted theory of economics, but historically most theories have included a way of describing a given population's resources and how those resources affect the general welfare of the population. No more. One step that contributed to the growing irrelevance of economic reports to the general public is that economists were oblivious to the lessons to be learned from Lorenz' research in predicting the weather. Recall that while attempting to make a computer model to predict the weather Lorenz had made some tiny change to the input data by not carrying out certain results to the exact number of decimal points as he had in the original projection, and the test results were vastly different from those expected. Chaos theory subsequently developed from the knowledge that what would appear to be an inconsequential change in originating conditions could result in a dramatically unexpected result making long term predictability impossible. No matter how long a given set of interactions had been producing the same result, even the most minute shift in an originating condition had the potential to make the set entirely unpredictable.
Rather than devise early warning systems to detect and publicize when any sector of our financial activities begins to show unstable activity, the bottom line response of the economics experts was to develop ways of not counting recalcitrant elements of economic activity, primarily by developing incredibly complex processes that had the effect of neutralizing some elements while appearing to include them. In other words they increased the reliability of their economic projections by reducing the population to which the projections would be useful. In practical terms they redefined the meaning of the term economy to be weighted heavily toward elements that favored corporate wealth, while those elements that impact primarily the middle and lower class in terms of wealth are effectively not counted when issuing economic reports. I haven't heard the term in a long time but the accelerated growth of corporate wealth was supposed to "trickle down", so we would all benefit. This deception is disguised by one of the most successful publicity gimmicks in modern times. With the sound turned off who does not know immediately what is happening when the television cameras focus on a group of smiling people standing on a balcony, and when one of them whacks the dias with a wooden hammer they all applaud. How reassuring that sight is to millions of watchers who foolishly believe those folks are their friends. The stock market is viewed as a financial perpetual motion machine---- regardless of its erratic movement, it will keep forging ahead forever.
Over and over and over our leaders lull us to sleep with the money mantra- The economy is growing, we are creating jobs. There is no way a household with maxed out credit cards, producing less income from work than it takes them to live, and making up that shortfall by dipping into savings and eventually by spending the equity in their house could be considered a financially stable household. Yet that precise condition is duplicated at the national level and we are all supposed to be happy and content because the DOW reached 12,000. Huh? At the macro level more and more of our income producing capabilities are moving to other countries. We don't really even own our country anymore. World economics and America's role in them is a big guys game, we can't play, we can only watch.
Truncated Analysis. Switch to previews and come back here later.
The American economy is a myth. When the media reports about the economy they are describing a monetary system that is designed, measured and reported for the benefit of a very narrow slice of our citizenry---- the very rich and corporations. The total of middle class investments in various sectors of our economy supplies most of the money that drives the economy, but very little of that wealth actually results in a corresponding impact on the everyday lives of middle America. One sometimes hears that the principal motivator of the economy is greed, but that is true only for the upper echelons of the financial world, the primary motivator for the bulk of American citizens is fear; fear of being left out of the onward and upward growth of wealth that we are conned into believing exists. The idea that the American economy exists for the benefit of Americans is a lie. If you want to know the true state of our economy look around you and count your money.
To be continued...
Previews of Coming Contemplations -
Mid Term Elections:
I think the best chance we have to save our broken democracy is if the Democrats win a clear majority in both the House and Senate. Not because I think they will repair the damage done by a political party so determined to keep a strangle hold on power that they have abandoned their constitutionally dictated duties, but because it will give the American people the opportunity to see that the problems that are destroying our democracy are not the result of the people in office, but of a doddering process bloated beyond repair.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government
Compare:
1776
June 7 Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, receives Richard Henry Lee's resolution urging Congress to declare independence.
June 11 Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston appointed to a committee to draft a declaration of independence.
June 12-27 Jefferson, at the request of the committee, drafts a declaration,
June 28 A fair copy of the committee draft of the Declaration of Independence is read in Congress.
July 1-4 Congress debates and revises the Declaration of Independence.
July 2 Congress declares independence.
July 4 Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence in the morning of a bright, sunny, but cool Philadelphia day.
War on Terror
Two things the war on terror has in common with the war on drugs are that it is not a real war and it can never be won. Sometimes I think things that I am reluctant to say, not out of doubt, but just that on occasion the legendary cold hard truth leaves one with a queasiness; embarrassment at seeing something so distasteful.
We are going to lose our war with Islam, and the quicker we try to make peace with them the better off we will be. We will lose for the same reason Russia lost the cold war with us---- they can outspend us. Most Americans, say the polls, are Christian, and believe there is only one true God and only one son of God, Jesus. So therefore what Islam believes is false, it has to be. Knowing that what they believe is false we misjudge the depth of their faith, and discount the value of their greatest weapon---- veteran's benefits. Sounds like a sick joke but it is not. They believe that if they become a suicide bomber they will go to heaven and be greatly rewarded. Their potential martyr recruit pool is 1.5 billion people. Not only do we have a much smaller potential troop pool but the reasons for becoming a veteran are becoming less and less attractive. In addition, it is almost a sure thing that every suicide bomber will kill at least several of us, while it will take many of our troops to kill just one of them. We can't win, we can't even slow the fighting down until we learn to take their faith seriously.
Terrorist Demographics and Societal Change:
Of course I am not quite sure where this next part will take me, but I am fairly certain I can start out with a couple of assumptions that will prove to be useful.
1. Our government has failed miserably to understand what we so naively call terrorism. The concept is much more complex than just some fanatical, cowardly element targeting innocent civilians in order to create fear, and why terrorism can never hope to be a cure, only a sympton.
2. The injustices that compelled our colonial ancestors to etablish a new government are here again, but the options we have in today's world are very different from the ones that existed in the 1770's, or in the 1960's.
3. Now what?
* Moses had thrown a temper tantrum and broke the first set, but those details detract from my metaphor, so therefore did not happen.
The sad cruelty of this ritual is that the economic news we are watching is about as relevant to our personal economic status as is Santa Claus, or that old standby, the price of eggs in China.
There has never been a definitive, universally accepted theory of economics, but historically most theories have included a way of describing a given population's resources and how those resources affect the general welfare of the population. No more. One step that contributed to the growing irrelevance of economic reports to the general public is that economists were oblivious to the lessons to be learned from Lorenz' research in predicting the weather. Recall that while attempting to make a computer model to predict the weather Lorenz had made some tiny change to the input data by not carrying out certain results to the exact number of decimal points as he had in the original projection, and the test results were vastly different from those expected. Chaos theory subsequently developed from the knowledge that what would appear to be an inconsequential change in originating conditions could result in a dramatically unexpected result making long term predictability impossible. No matter how long a given set of interactions had been producing the same result, even the most minute shift in an originating condition had the potential to make the set entirely unpredictable.
Rather than devise early warning systems to detect and publicize when any sector of our financial activities begins to show unstable activity, the bottom line response of the economics experts was to develop ways of not counting recalcitrant elements of economic activity, primarily by developing incredibly complex processes that had the effect of neutralizing some elements while appearing to include them. In other words they increased the reliability of their economic projections by reducing the population to which the projections would be useful. In practical terms they redefined the meaning of the term economy to be weighted heavily toward elements that favored corporate wealth, while those elements that impact primarily the middle and lower class in terms of wealth are effectively not counted when issuing economic reports. I haven't heard the term in a long time but the accelerated growth of corporate wealth was supposed to "trickle down", so we would all benefit. This deception is disguised by one of the most successful publicity gimmicks in modern times. With the sound turned off who does not know immediately what is happening when the television cameras focus on a group of smiling people standing on a balcony, and when one of them whacks the dias with a wooden hammer they all applaud. How reassuring that sight is to millions of watchers who foolishly believe those folks are their friends. The stock market is viewed as a financial perpetual motion machine---- regardless of its erratic movement, it will keep forging ahead forever.
Over and over and over our leaders lull us to sleep with the money mantra- The economy is growing, we are creating jobs. There is no way a household with maxed out credit cards, producing less income from work than it takes them to live, and making up that shortfall by dipping into savings and eventually by spending the equity in their house could be considered a financially stable household. Yet that precise condition is duplicated at the national level and we are all supposed to be happy and content because the DOW reached 12,000. Huh? At the macro level more and more of our income producing capabilities are moving to other countries. We don't really even own our country anymore. World economics and America's role in them is a big guys game, we can't play, we can only watch.
Truncated Analysis. Switch to previews and come back here later.
The American economy is a myth. When the media reports about the economy they are describing a monetary system that is designed, measured and reported for the benefit of a very narrow slice of our citizenry---- the very rich and corporations. The total of middle class investments in various sectors of our economy supplies most of the money that drives the economy, but very little of that wealth actually results in a corresponding impact on the everyday lives of middle America. One sometimes hears that the principal motivator of the economy is greed, but that is true only for the upper echelons of the financial world, the primary motivator for the bulk of American citizens is fear; fear of being left out of the onward and upward growth of wealth that we are conned into believing exists. The idea that the American economy exists for the benefit of Americans is a lie. If you want to know the true state of our economy look around you and count your money.
To be continued...
Previews of Coming Contemplations -
Mid Term Elections:
I think the best chance we have to save our broken democracy is if the Democrats win a clear majority in both the House and Senate. Not because I think they will repair the damage done by a political party so determined to keep a strangle hold on power that they have abandoned their constitutionally dictated duties, but because it will give the American people the opportunity to see that the problems that are destroying our democracy are not the result of the people in office, but of a doddering process bloated beyond repair.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government
Compare:
1776
June 7 Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, receives Richard Henry Lee's resolution urging Congress to declare independence.
June 11 Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston appointed to a committee to draft a declaration of independence.
June 12-27 Jefferson, at the request of the committee, drafts a declaration,
June 28 A fair copy of the committee draft of the Declaration of Independence is read in Congress.
July 1-4 Congress debates and revises the Declaration of Independence.
July 2 Congress declares independence.
July 4 Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence in the morning of a bright, sunny, but cool Philadelphia day.
War on Terror
Two things the war on terror has in common with the war on drugs are that it is not a real war and it can never be won. Sometimes I think things that I am reluctant to say, not out of doubt, but just that on occasion the legendary cold hard truth leaves one with a queasiness; embarrassment at seeing something so distasteful.
We are going to lose our war with Islam, and the quicker we try to make peace with them the better off we will be. We will lose for the same reason Russia lost the cold war with us---- they can outspend us. Most Americans, say the polls, are Christian, and believe there is only one true God and only one son of God, Jesus. So therefore what Islam believes is false, it has to be. Knowing that what they believe is false we misjudge the depth of their faith, and discount the value of their greatest weapon---- veteran's benefits. Sounds like a sick joke but it is not. They believe that if they become a suicide bomber they will go to heaven and be greatly rewarded. Their potential martyr recruit pool is 1.5 billion people. Not only do we have a much smaller potential troop pool but the reasons for becoming a veteran are becoming less and less attractive. In addition, it is almost a sure thing that every suicide bomber will kill at least several of us, while it will take many of our troops to kill just one of them. We can't win, we can't even slow the fighting down until we learn to take their faith seriously.
Terrorist Demographics and Societal Change:
Of course I am not quite sure where this next part will take me, but I am fairly certain I can start out with a couple of assumptions that will prove to be useful.
1. Our government has failed miserably to understand what we so naively call terrorism. The concept is much more complex than just some fanatical, cowardly element targeting innocent civilians in order to create fear, and why terrorism can never hope to be a cure, only a sympton.
2. The injustices that compelled our colonial ancestors to etablish a new government are here again, but the options we have in today's world are very different from the ones that existed in the 1770's, or in the 1960's.
3. Now what?
Money Mantra and etc.
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