Equity

~ Economics for losers.

The average temperature in Albuquerque today will be 19 degrees Fahrenheit.  This means (obviously) that I will not be “on the roof”, in part because there is ice up there and maybe it (too) will be snowing.  In a nutshell, in my case, “employment is down”.

I don’t get paid for my roof work.  Sure, it benefits me, but it also benefits others.  Others stay warm and dry because of a better roof, the innovations may catch on in the community, the improved aesthetics create the beauty (in the world) that everybody really wants.

I don’t work on my roof because of capitalism or greed or selfishness.  I work on the roof because the work probably harms no one, endangers no one, exploits no one and also improves both my life and the lives of others.  Occasionally I hire a helping hand (day labor), but the wages I pay will probably not result in the increased payment of taxes - the hours are too short and the pay (that I pay) is not enough to really matter.

I pay $14 per hour for someone else to do what my hands (given my arthritis) can no longer do and what my muscles and my back can no longer lift in dead weight.  This amount is 42 to 70 times the amount that Walt Disney (Inc.) or Apple or Gucci shoes pays to create the toys and consumer goods that will create the Holiday shopping that creates America.  Most everything that everyone consumes is “made” by people getting paid between $2 and $5 per day for working shifts of 10 to 12 continuous hours.  Bottom line, these work-a-day wages ARE the capitalist system, is CAPITALISM.

America has become accustomed to living the “good life” off the backs of slave labor.  The lives of most (actual) slaves and serfs and indentured servants of the past were actually better than most of the factory laborers and farm laborers in the world today.  They had more to eat, better clothes to wear, and better air to breathe and more beauty in their daily life.  They were allowed more time to be with their family and children.  They had more nighttime hours to sleep.

The continuous planting of cotton might have done the soil harm, but no pesticides were used and no chemical carcinogenic based fertilizers.  Cotton farming, without contour plowing, was a blessed event compared to the chemical based consumer goods and factory processes that make I-Phones, computers, cell phones and modern plastic (toys and cars) possible.  Celebrating capitalism and the capitalistic consumer system is like celebrating a level of death and destruction that make the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria seem like an “affirmation of innocence and life” if it were not for the simple fact that the object of these wars is “more democracy” so that more people can join the coalition of willing slave-labor slaves.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think that the image that Walt Disney had for the world was tens of thousands of slave-laborers working to make toys in his image out of rooms allowing less than 18 square feet of personal space per person 358 days per year.   How many people think about all this when they see the Disney mall shops or buy new Mouse Ears for their kids or take them off to see Captain Nemo?  I-Pad users and cell phone devotees are not so different.  They live their lives in destructive denial.

Once, (according to Americans and the popular propaganda) the dream of the world was that America would “step in” and “step up” and make the world free and the life of every individual better.  That veneer has now worn off.  The U.S. has made the Egyptian military leaders rich (as an example) and the military (leaders) now own most of the Egyptian factories and industry and $2 - $3 per day is all they pay.  “Democracy and America” has worked for them and created 400 thread count sheets, but has not improved the life of the average Egyptian very much.  Life was much better under Nassar.

There is an honesty in owning a 1957 Chevy or a 1940’s Philco tube-type radio.  The truth is that fair wages were paid to create these products, people like Michael Moore’s father (his mother worked for free in the family home) were the craftsmen, creating objects of both durability and beauty.  In the 1950’s most of America’s factories offered tours.  You could see the conditions under which people worked, talk to the workers and learn their names, know of their wages and benefits and where the houses were in which they lived.

There SHOULD be a bar code on EVERY product that identifies exactly WHERE the item was made and a second barcode that identifies each worker and the members of the team on each shift of workers.  An independent website could then identify wages, working conditions, hours and have pictures of family and family life like Life magazine once did (for American workers).  Freedom is “the RIGHT to know”.  And freedom is the right to care about the human beings that are your earthly sisters and brothers.  FREEDOM is the right to NOT BUY products that are made by corporations and corporate communists and corporate fascists that could care less about human dignity and a decent way of life.

How much are the workers paid to make that “green” fluorescent bulb?  Where is the mercury for it mined?  Under what conditions?  If YOU knew you would know that it is mostly blood money that drives the green machine, and much of the “red and green” of Christmas is just the flow of blood and cash and profits for banks that benefit from businesses that are incapable of getting legitimate investment capital (to operate) because no real human being (except bankers) is such a cold and hard-hearted Scrooge as to finance a business plan as destructive to the human spirit as those that create most of what America holds dear.

And THAT dear reader is the way it is, and just the way it is, and THAT is why the whole colossal and monstrous mess must be at an end (and soon) or there will be NO HOPE for anyone because all the downtrodden consumers in America are NOT victims, they are only losers that live off the slavery and servitude of others.  No wonder nobody does anything anymore than give lip-service to freedom, the (new) cult of America is that freedom should be reserved for just the fortunate few and without a doubt America will reap what it sows.

Jesus was born with nothing, no IRA, no trust fund; not even a Christmas tree, a menorah, or a votive candle to celebrate his birth.  He did not “get ahead” by slaving away for some corporation, starting one, or even investing in one either.  His father had a family business and worked too for others, as did Jesus in his time.  Everyone was treated fair, or fairly, or at least was seen to have a future if that was what they wanted if they would just give up the “want”.

So yes, once again the holiday is coming and Christmas is coming too.  I hope you are still clear about the message, buy only what you need, and buy it from caring people and not corporations and not from the dead people otherwise known as the 1% ultra rich.   Occupy Wall Street might be a little “off message” for awhile and “the web” is looking a little less attractive every day.  Really, where was this Apple made and the silicon in it mined and are the workers in those places as happy about the modern technology as I once thought I was?

Capitalism has outlived its usefulness (if it ever had any).  Isn’t it time for something NEW and a whole lot better; maybe something WONDERFUL this time?

2011.12.05 - 19:15.

The 99% solution

~ Being half-right doesn’t make it wrong.

We are being bombed-barded by images of the typical Black Friday shopper, consumers fighting over toasters and I-pads and World of War (craft) video games thinly disguised as Army Training Field Manuals.  Needless to say, these people are the real 99%, and if they are not the real 99% they are the real leaders of the 99%, the early adapters, the spear-point people of the coming age.

The problem with democracy is the propensity of the ideology to make people think in terms of numbers, of majorities, of mass movements and of the masses and in the idea that the mass of people are “right” just because they are “the mass” and isn’t “one person - one vote” the key to the utopia in us all.

Such nonsense makes a mockery of even the idea of individual moral responsibility, much less the actual living of a moral life.  In a democracy the statement “everyone is doing it” is instant justification for virtually any act, if in fact the “everyone” statement is true.  Wall Street (the street) would not be possible without the underlying belief in democracy, because how else could the morality of man be so easily corrupted and the corruption be so easily accepted?

It is simple for a slave to identify a tyrant.  A serf or an indentured servant can easily point the finger at a King or Prince or a tyrannical land-holder and say “they” control my life - “I am not free”.  Only democracy can achieve a free-will consent to tyrants and tyranny, only democracy can create a victim that blames the victim (and other victims) for the new slavery that exists.  Further, only democracy can offer the false-hope that through a reinvigorated democracy can there be achieved a real change that can free the masses permanently deluded and perpetually enslaved by a collective lifting of the bootstraps in defiance of gravity and even the most basic science.

It has taken just 235 years for this experiment in greed to successfully seize the wealth of nations, of all nations perhaps.  The idea that started in America, on land “stolen fair and square“, has now engulfed the world and the world of finance and consolidated the wealth of 90% of the world’s people in the hands of just 1% of the people and done so with 99% of the people left believing in the system (democracy) that created this god-forsaking mess.

Of course there have been the detractors along the way, honest and independent souls that have favored reason over majority, morality over the masses, individuality over a common education.   The conspiracy worked because we all feel that we are the common man, that everyone else is like us, that the majority of people are not so different and that there is strength in numbers and little strength in the power of just one honest person acting out and living out his life as God with man sees fit.

We (some, a few) lament (now) the “failed institutions” that have corrupted our times and our society, undermined our faith in each other and the decency of each person when stripped of the institutional dogmas that divide and conquer and deliver power to the pundits and the select few that do not have our best interests in their stake.  We forget that it is “they” who created these institutions just to reap the results that they now sow.

The tyranny of the media that protects and serves Wall Street and makes mindless consumers of us all is just the natural outcome of a “free press” that so many found so good and so many have believed in, except for those that must suffer the poison now flowing from that pen.  True freedom requires restraint, not license; responsibility, not profitability.  The failure of the free press was birthed in its belief in the democracy that created it and the resultant effort to create majorities and mass movements instead of isolated pillars (of individuals) holding steadfast to an unvarnished truth.

From freedom of assembly, to the militarism inherent in the “right to bear arms”, to the “pursuit of happiness” and the right to property there is created the model for consolidation, exploitation and endless war.  Even the right for a temporal government to control all activity and life “with the consent of the governed” is a model for tyranny when looked at with wisdom and with the awareness that public “opinion and values” can be easily controlled when all the institutions of government, and allowed by government, are brought to bear to manipulate the common weal.

It is not an entirely new idea that democracy is an invention by the rich and by a select elect to maintain and increase personal wealth and power.  The idea of democracy is not to share it, not to distribute it, not to make participants economically equal or to even provide them with the necessities of life.  It is the moral person that offers food to a person hungry in a famine, democracy can’t and won’t do it and it never has.

A true elector, a true leader in any system is one who authentically has the best interests of the whole in mind.  Such awareness takes experience, originality and sincerity - it is never based on self-interest, selfishness or greed.  There is no right of an idiot to waste the time of authentic counsel.  The electors alone must discuss matters and decide.  An elector that listens to idiots (lobbyists for example) should be removed from the council, by the council.  The concept of Congressional privilege and immunity is tyrannical in and of itself.

Leaders must always be chosen based on their honesty, fairness and virtue.  Experience alone is not what matters, but a deep and diverse experience is recommended.  A leader must live an open life where everything is (and always was) open to public scrutiny.  The discovery of secrets and a “secret life” should remove one from the possibility of public office or public trust.  Decisions should always be local in adherence to local practices and norms. The freedom to leave or immigrate must not be abridged.  A widespread public order must evolve slowly, it can never be (lastingly) imposed.

So we are caught up in a debate between jargon (”democracy”) and ideas, ideals and values.  We KNOW that democracy can never change, it is the voice of the masses and the average person can never be uplifted unless he or she has an exposure to leaders who were uplifted, truth-seeking and righteous long before.

The task of change at this late hour is too great; we must start over.  Those that work to illustrate and illuminate the excesses and failures of the failed system are half-right in the effort and time that they expend.  We all need teachers now and real teachers are better than the ones we’ve had.

Change needs no majority.  Change starts where YOU are now, it is your actions and activities and not those of others that matter and matter most.  Entering heaven is not based on a popularity contest, and it is no different about being a good person here on earth.  May you have the strength of being content with being your own person and a force for good.

2011.11.27 - 19.24.

3 oz. of pure black

~ Thoughts on the price of a shade of grey.

The good news about the latest dearth of posts and postings is that the roof (project) is progressing right along.  Three things are fundamental to good construction: a good foundation, good walls, and an adequate roof.

The adequacy of a roof is of course totally dependent upon what you (one) sees as coming.  For a little rain, a roof not much more elaborate than an east coast umbrella will do.  For snow and hail something stronger is a must.  For warmth in winter and cool days in a desert where it’s hot a better roof is better.  Standard roofs in Albuquerque were once composed of at least a foot of hard-packed earth and the thickness of the hand hewn beams that were required to support the weight of weather when it got heavy.

The philosophical argument revolves around the question of what type of roof is required when indeed the sky IS falling.  What roof is “drone-resistant” as in adequate to distract the all-seeing eye?  What kind of roof blocks alpha waves or the electrical interference waves that interfere with sleeping?  What roof best blocks sound, best blocks cosmic radiation, best keeps out Corexit and the smoke from a thousand distant burning fires?  Is a fire-proof roof really necessary for when the world burns?

The house in which I live was built in 1938, war was coming, tile roofs were all the rage.  The theory was that Mexico would side with Germany due to ancient grievances and that Albuquerque would be bombed and the main danger would come from the resulting fires.  By 1937 most houses being built were brick.  By 1940 houses with reinforced concrete walls (like my neighbor) were considered to be the only “safe house” type worth building.  A basement (too) was a “must”.

My house is brick of course, but the roof was never tile.  Maybe it was the depression thing (it is too expensive to be safe), or the owners thought the German planes would spare them or maybe they knew Mexicans that didn’t really want the “old” country (meaning nation-state in area) back.  Or maybe they just thought that there would never be another world war.

I read just the other day about Occupy Wallstreeters and their plans.  They are young kids mostly; history (for them) is about what happened in the 1970’s, much of it occurring on TV - you know, new programs and old ones that were cancelled.  An “idea” is something one was taught, not something that came to mind.  They are limited in their perspective.

The point being made was that the current system is saveable, transformable.  The “idea” is that there is time and that the center will hold long enough to change things and to hold on to quaint ideas like greenhouse warming and tax reform and to build a new America rebirthed in light rail and electric cars and weight loss centers that really work.  The new (old) idea is that it is business as usual in America, and all that is needed is a little twist, a little tweak and a million or two tweets; simple, given the millions of cellphones.

I guess they could be right, but I doubt it.  Time is slipping away too fast; we are far beyond the time for solutions.   You don’t order a tile roof when the German bombers have already been seen flying north over the border; it’s too late, and it doesn’t matter that they have yet to get here.  Wars are long, it is not always wise just to leave town.  The desert can be so inhospitable and starting from scratch in the sand is something that even Bill Gates never claimed he did.  A good roof over ones head is perhaps all that really matters.

The old owners and residents are now gone, departed.  The house lives on.  The idea is that the house will finally have the real roof that it deserves, strong and protective, like or better than the neighbors.  The tile is still months away, but the base for the tile is almost ready.  I’ve called it a “cement roof”, rolled aluminum sheeting is also something with which it is covered.  The old and new is bonded together with 3″ screws, not just nails.  This is a roof built to last and to make the best out of whatever really is coming.

The roof is real of course, but may be best seen as a metaphor.  Right now it is painted a medium shade of grey, industrial strength primer.  Some might call it a “battleship grey”.  Actually it is made by adding 3 oz. of pure black to the neutral white color of the Valspar contractor primer product.   It’s the only mix that works, given the volume of the can.

Some things can only be learned from experience.  Other things are best illuminated by the experience of others.  There is a certain truth in history; and by history I mean something considerably more than the last 30 years.  Or maybe this HAS BEEN the last “30 years”.

2011.11.26 - 04:37.

November

~ Eight weeks in November and December.

October 31 was not just Halloween in my early youth, it was also Admission Day, Nevada Day, the day that Nevada joined the union.  This day of celebrations, parades, open houses and dimes and candy (costumes and politicians) was followed by the beginning of November, a new month.

November had nothing in it except for the promise of cold and snow and ice skating on the local pond and turkey on the table on Thanksgiving.  The drudgery of school was a given, to be relieved only with December and the making of paper chains for Christmas and the Christmas tree at school and at home and then there were the carols too, and snowflakes cut out and pasted to black paper and white crayons to color snowmen if the background were colored blue.

Somewhere amidst  the all of this were too many hours spent under the too bright lights of fluorescent tubes and the all too ugly fluorescent fixtures and the deadly rays that they put out and the mind numbing static buzz that defeated even the simplest joy of learning.

The teachers would warn of escaped prisoners from the State Penitentiary just a mile or two away and then warn again of the pedophiles offering the candy that one could have for free on Halloween and would then advise (children, especially girls) not to climb into the cars of strangers and of course they would hardly listen because chocolate was such a given thing and Hershey’s sold it and who else gave it away absolutely free?

The Children’s Home just across the street from the Fremont School was its own little house of horrors.  Some called it home.  Some cried themselves to sleep each night or wet their beds or had other reasons for not doing their homework.  Children put such a brave face on things, like on poverty and exploitation and neglect and on authority figures that are too dead to ever really answer, but who cash their paychecks anyhow and can enjoy an Admission Day parade or Thanksgiving feast with the best of anyone.  Football was always about horsing around in the locker room, except horses never really “horse” around the way johns and whores and young victims do it.

Sure there was “Vets Housing” too and the damaged veterans from the greatest generation that nobody cared to talk about, and when one says, “War is Hell” they mean the prisoner camps and the social isolation and the don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t yell conduct expected of real men who weren’t so real men except in theory and how did childhood survive so many lies?  The teachers smiled so sweetly.

No, not everyone that ever worked in a pizza hut had to bend over.  Not every football star is just a homo.  Not every banker is a pathological liar and not every rich person will be denied the rewards of heaven.  But history does not remember the few, it remembers the works of the many and there are too many countless faces of the corrupt and the corrupted to keep the facade from going on too much longer.  These people make life into hell and a quick death would be too good for them so they retire with pilfered money and too much public trust which of course will be the death of them.  On Halloween we dance upon their graves and sorrow at their disunion.

Neither a bank loan nor a credit card can get ones innocence back.  All the tea in China, the temples in Japan, the cars in motor city or the olives west of Istanbul are capable of correcting even one wrong by one person unfit for leadership or power.  America is led by damaged goods and the damage that these men and women have done has wasted the best of everyone and that is why this nation is so justly cursed.  It’s on a road to hell.  The only good news is that I don’t believe in hell, so just leave the red suits out of it.

One year and seven weeks from now and some say it will be all over.  Some say on 11 - 11 -11 it will happen.  Some say it happened today when the EAS-T est was over.  I think they’re wrong.  I think “it was over” a long-long time ago when once upon a time became associated with power, wealth and money - with princes, princesses, fantasy and kings and queens.  It was “over” when the people of the world stopped caring and started hoarding and coveting and leching at each neighbor.  It was “over” when America chose the path of war.

There are a thousand good reasons why I have not been posting.  #1 is that the internet is not “it”.  There are no technological solutions just as there are no political solutions as I have all too frequently said.  There is no power associated with money, there is only one protection and that one protection is the truth.  Everything you need to know are things that I can’t tell you.  I can (at best) only talk around the things, ground zero is within you, not me.  Each person is the calm, or the center, of the storm and in that awareness there is a way to resolution.

Use each moment wisely.  This way will not pass this way again.

2011.11.10 - 04:23.

Cash dam

~ Busy beavers have been busy ending the cash flow.

A lot of theory has been written over the years explaining how money works (it doesn’t) and about “cash flow management” and how savings and investment create a better life for all.  It’s all BS.

If one had to choose which would come first, the end of history or the end of money, I bet a full 99% of everyone would accurately predict “the end of money”.  It’s not that they could predict why or how or even when (exactly), but based on life experience “they” would know that something was going on that was terribly wrong and that when you get (daily) less for what costs (daily) more then at some point (soon) money will be worth nothing as it will acquire nothing regardless of how much of it you have.

In such circumstances an intelligent person would dump all their money as fast as they could, exchanging the cash for something with greater weight or usefullness than paper printed with holograms and fancy ink.  The “bottom line” is that money must “flow” to be useful and when it stops flowing because of cash consolidation (too much money in too few hands) then the whole idea of money seizes up and cash stops being King and and the cash kings are soon reduced to pawns or paupers or something worse than being just dead.

In the process every entity and institution that is dependent upon cash and cash flow soon seizes up, shuts down, goes underwater or otherwise enters demise, which means “fail”.  So the end times (of money) is characterized by seemingly wild and irrational spending AND the hoarding of cash as though the green stuff actually had a future.  In this environment debt and cash are equal, they both can “buy things”, all moral compunction about ever paying either back is lost as everyone realizes that all money is just “debt” and having money is not evidence that anyone will ever honor it by parting with ANYTHING of value.  Oh my.

Things change very fast in this danger zone.  Fixed value items, like food and water and electricity remain the most fluid and stable.  Optional and discretionary items don’t stand a chance.  One day donuts or bangles may be the latest fad, the next day they are too expensive and are soon gone.  “Just in time” manufacturing needs just a moment to change direction and send the product message “kill”.  Consumer “demand” can create nothing when all real manufacturers are used to and expect to “make a killing”.

In this scenario almost all cash spent ends up in the hands of the richest, being the hands where the money will “do” actually the absolute least good.   The rich are always the most conservative, don’t need the money, and are the most cautious about parting with the money that they have unless they KNOW that they will make MORE MONEY before they even think of spending it.  Money in the hands of the rich is like DEAD MONEY, its stopped revolving, doesn’t have a heartbeat, and already has rigor mortis setting in.

The good thing about this end times process is that with each passing day there is noticeably less money in the publics pocket and that means that the pace of money contraction can only increase and will probably start increasing DRAMATICALLY.   Ask the cops, they DO LOVE the DRAMA!

The three signs of a collapsing society are (1) loss of trust in government, (2) loss of trust in businesses, (3) loss of trust in things.  The cause of (1) is “big government, too big to fail”.  The cause of (2) is “big business, with too little real competition”.  The cause of (3) is a society hellbent on a consumption that far exceeds any real need.  After the collapse life returns to something based on “simple”.  Simply put, it means that only those who can do something both basic and useful have a future, the money part is NOT a part of the equation.

So take your money out of the banks by November 5th (or earlier, or later).  Save it or spend it.  Give the greenbacks back to Caesar, retire the debt, cancel the loan - get something for the hours of labor you put in when you exchanged all that hard work for “just a piece of paper”.  It’s like a game of musical chairs, too much money and not enough products to make it meaningful - someone (many) will have to lose.

2011.10.28 - 04:13.

The disappearing present

~ What we want is not “we”.

“The younger generation don’t have a future,” says Mr Kedikoglou. “They don’t even have a present.”

The above quote is from an article about the latest crisis in Greece.   The bottom line is that there is a new crisis (there) every day, perhaps two or three times a day.  The situation is NOT getting better.  Things can (and WILL) only get much worse.  There are no solutions, there is only MONEY and money can’t and won’t solve anything when the concentration of wealth has gone critical - which it has.

There are certain myths that are dying daily, like the one about how it takes “the rich” to create jobs.  No, the rich destroy jobs by their “wealth creation”.  They destroy the jobs created by small businesses and those who farm and fish and hunt and gather and fend for themselves and help other people at the same time while fending.  Planting 160 acres in wheat or corn, harvesting a few trees from a forest, fishing in the coastal waters is all “work” and constitutes the best of jobs.  It is only when the wealth of man and nature is consolidated in the hands of the few when these good jobs disappear and when people are forced from their homes to work for others.

The factory town is capitalism, not America.  America was not found on the backs of banks, not found on finding loans and borrowing money and credit cards and debt.  Look at the output of Currier and Ives and you will see how America once lived when its people were happy.  There is no commute to work, no “happy banker”, no engravings of loan collectors repossessing the family riverboat or farms.  There is no Currier and Ives picture of the best of prisons, of “America’s finest” clamping down the cuffs and chains on other Americans driven to the need to protest.  The nation was different then, or at least the American Dream.

Every city, every town in America is now a factory town.  The smokestacks are gone, the only pollution is the incessant smell of paper.  The friction of the financial rubbings (robbings) create the obnoxious scent on nostrils of a nation in collapse, free-fall and despair.  It is not our future that we’ve lost; like Greece, it is the present.

The chain-mail that is the chains and chain-store malls and chain store businesses that are a poor substitute for real jobs and a real life of interaction with community and nature are the only ties left that bind us.  We shop at Walgreen’s or Trader Joe’s or Wal-Mart, we eat or drink at Burger King or Starbuck’s.  We trade at Safeway or the A&P, buy our gas at Chevron or Shell.  We are the captains of consumption when each last little bit of nature consumed is but a bit of plastic gouged from the earth to create just chemicals and pain, and there is nothing green in the process, nothing “earth friendly” about all the waste.

We can not rally round the flag (boys), cannot want and relate to “others” when all the others are just the same as us, or we, or what we have all become in our collective embrace of this madness.  There is no joy in disemboweling Wall Street and your local (national) big bank when all you get is a sleepless night in another factory town when the party is over.  There is no “back to nature” when all the land is owned by the government and big industry and the 1% of idle rich. and they are always idle when the people can still eat “cake”.  The only device capable of really changing things is the guillotine, just ask the French.

So, don’t look now, but America is not just changing, it is disappearing faster than a Wall Street minute.  It is the PRESENT that’s going, not the future, not the past.  The future is just fantasy.  The past is the only place that’s real.  “Be here NOW,” I don’t think so.  There is no NOW on which to base anything.  Get used to the new reality.  Can you dig it?

2011.10.26 - 00:40.

Fear of Winning

~ Wealth distribution shouldn’t be dependent upon “re”.

I was drinking in the Blind Lemon (in Berkeley) long ago and among the peanut shells on the barroom floor the conversation turned to wealth redistribution.  You see, I was conversing with someone very rich, someone descended from ancient whale oil money and more recently electricity.  To say this person wasn’t schooled by the advent of student loans is to restate the obvious.  Being a part of the 1% alleviates one from the humdrum life of deficit, debt and want.

“She said”, as I said, that it would do no good to give away my money, to the poor or elsewhere as If I did, the money that I gave up today would tomorrow by redistributed to the hands of the few as ordinary “people” are neither wise nor proud nor inclined to thrift or patient industry when it comes to wealth.  The foregoing is seen best as almost a quote.

The point was perhaps that the rich are wiser than the common folk and thus should be “by God above and circumstance” be custodians of most if not all of the money.  The rich do get richer, and the poor (obviously) must get poorer, and THAT is the way things ARE and of necessity should be.  Amen, or perhaps just Hail Mary and praise be to Buddha - so be it.

I (of course) was in a conundrum.  If I valued wealth I should support this girls inclination to keep it.  If I trusted the common man or woman or person or whatever to be wise I should speak up forthrightly and say, “give your money away and risk your life to starting over and starting equally with the unequal advantages that you have had”.  I didn’t (say that).  I agreed (instead) that the poor and wanton under-class was unwise and unschooled in the ways of wealth and money and fortune and good fortune were it to come.  The system may be flawed (I admitted), but it is flawed to favor the rich and that flaw is not so bad as to force a remedy that would disfavor the rich whom disfavor the poor and the justice that equal distribution of wealth would uplift to equality if not equanimity.

So, thus began my flirtations with the rich and landed and the love of the life that they sought or begot or somehow “had”.  It was not a lasting romance.  It was a love left unrequited in that the love of money can not be replaced by the love of just a man.  But it is an old, if not ancient, theme - it is Cinderella and the crystal slipper and the story of Fort Knox - it is the idea that wealth moves from person to person and does not just stay forever in basically the same hands.

So what is wrong with a little wealth redistribution now and then?   Maybe once every 100 years (or so) a nation should try it.  Maybe everyone should start from “scratch” and find out how wise and wonderful they really are and not how wise and wonderful “grandpa” or “grandma” or Uncle Scrooge or Uncle Amos might have been.  You take ALL the money and divide by the population and then each person gets their share, the land too, the shares, the factories, the oil underground and the gas resources and the gold - each person on July 4th starts EQUAL, economically and Under God.

Oh sure, some would still have the “gift of gab”, a silver tongue, a wagon load of potions and snake oil remedies to rob the wealth of the masses and put it into the hands of the few.  A few would be gullible, not savvy; would let their fair share of fortune go and rue the day of weakness and confusion and greed and want.  They would be the poor whose children would be raised in poverty and filth and unkind circumstance for a hundred years beginning on that day.  A sad story, but NOT a life eternal.  100 years can pass so fast, then there is a second chance, a new chance at redemption (financial if not just moral).  The “sins of the father” should only have to last so long.

There is a wickedness in the current financial system.  It assumes that “wealth” in the hands of the few should last forever.  It assumes that the poor should just get poorer and that bootstraps are the way to wealth and not just strips of broken leather.  If one person “poor” became “rich” who would not recognize the story as a fairy tale, as Cinderella, as Horatio Alger on speed?  Earning $500,000 per year is NOT like owning property worth $500 million; you’re doing quite well, but you are still just so damned poor.  Below you are just more of the ever poorer.

The “game” is not just keeping up with the Joneses.  The point is that equality is GOOD.   Starting on an equal footing now and then is not just a dream, it is probably a RIGHT!  The world that the rich have created is not just bad, it’s deplorable.   The bottom line is that even the worst of the ignorant could do much better.  Let’s have at it.  Let’s give the “B” Team an equal chance.

2011.10.25 - 03:24.

Life, Death & Taxes

~ It’s a lot like a new game of Clue.

I was going to write a post the other day about “Clue Revisited”.  It was about a new version of the game, devoid of the biases of Miss Marple.  It would update the old parlor game, the house, the usual suspects, the weapons; everything would be new “and global”.

“Obama did it in the Gulf with a controlled demolition.”  Next game:  “Bush did it in the Towers with Corexit.”   “Cheny did it in Yemen with Weapons of Mass Destruction.”  The clincher:  “Pelosi did it in Wall Street with a Drone.”  You get the idea, the game would be a lot of fun - Clue for the New Millennium.  What is life without a little treachery, blood & guts, destruction and mayhem?

So it took hitting the “younger generation” in the pocket book to get them started, to get them off their “too comfortable arses” and out of the buildings and into the streets.  Let’s hear it for the power of unforgiveable student loans and the great expectations of college educations providing more than a Wal-Mart stockers pay.  There’s hell to pay when the masses learn that the only American Dream that there is is borrowed and that there are no banks that can make that type of loan.

The Republican Party will arrive on the proverbial trash heap of history as the 312 million Americans realize that they will NEVER get rich, be rich, or even want to be rich.  The Republican Party will arrive on the proverbial trash heap of history as the 312 million Americans realize that all the “1%” positions (the role of being rich) are taken, and were taken a long-long time ago by a system of great inherited wealth, corruption, insider connections and power.

Yes, I read the headlines, “Jobs is DEAD”.  And the economy is dead, and hope is dead, and so too are all the day dreams of any shared wealth or power.  They aren’t making any new millionaires or billionaires in America, all “those” jobs have been moved out to overseas.

There is a quiet dignity in being middle-class and poor.  It is the ONLY dignity that America has left in this poor old world.  How can you have “class-warfare” when the rich “class” is so class-less and so crass, so degenerate and vulgar?  “Envy the rich?”, I don’t think so, not everyone aspires just to be a “fuc*er”.

Americans are waking up to the FACT that the only ones that benefit from any taxes are those that are feeding at the public trough, meaning the businesses, the corporations, those that “benefit” from public expenditures and public funding and public spending on missile plants, on bridges, on Boeing.   Sure “food stamps” are nice, but they are a pittance compared to the cost of endless war that provides endless wealth to the 1% who profit off human misery.  End food subsidies and the revolution starts the very next day.  Are all the Republican candidates that dumb?  Do they all have the same death wish (or something)?

I (personally) would not mind paying MORE taxes and more in taxes.  But there is a caveat of course.  The deal is this - FAIRNESS.   I want every millionaire and billionaire to pay tax rates on the same percentage as me.  Calculate TOTAL TAXES (as a percentage of everything) on everything.   Don’t just tax sales, tax the money that one could spend on sales.  Don’t just take real estate, tax all property, and tax it once or twice or how ever many times it goes around.  Tax the sales of a stock or bond as a purchase - then let’s see who wants to make a thousand “trades” a day.  Why should the “buyers” on Wall Street go tax free?

If an average “shares traded” on wall street were 170 billion dollars per day, a tax rate of 8.875% would yield about 15 billion dollars a day in sales taxes, about 300 billion per month, about $3.5 trillion dollars per year.  And this amount does NOT include any tax on the purchase price of bonds, on derivatives, or on other financial instruments; all of which are now purchased “tax free”.  This is WRONG.  I want FAIRNESS.  Let’s have real reforms on Wall Street NOW!  If “investment” is really “for the long term” why would a one-time sales tax be a real problem?  It is what I pay on the investment decisions that I make.

So get a clue, the new game.   Don’t be clueless any more.  The rich and their spokesperson minions have had you buffaloed for all these years, and I don’t mean bisoned.  There is no free range and there is no free grass.  Earn money the old fashioned way - pay your taxes, pay the way the common people do, NO special rules for the special ways of the rich.  It’s not envy, it’s just old fashioned common sense.

Talk to your friends, this thing can happen.

2011.10.07 - 17:01.

Rain & Taxes

~ I’m back for a visit, which is maybe better than nothing at all.

In these turbulent times it is perhaps understandable that I am on the roof, meaning “not posting”.  A hard rain is coming, last night it was just chemicals from Texas.  The throat burned, the Texas news said it was “nothing“.  They lie.  They don’t live downwind.

The “new roof” will be a shield against everything; radiation, BP corexit, chemical fires and terrorist threats from President Obama.  The new roof will seal out the smoke from fires and forest fires.  The new roof is the panacea if not the cure.  It’s a sure fire hit against the rain.

The new roof will not solve the problems of Greece and the Euro and the big bang of banks collapsing.  But money invested in a better roof sure beats money invested in a stock market about to fail.  There I go, postulating about economics and all.  The question I ask is, “Who does not see it all coming?”

The 0nly real thing that really threatens the new roof is the taxes, the “property taxes”.  They go with the house.  The taxes are what the middle class pays on wealth that the wealthy are (mostly) free of.  Observe.

When wealth is NOT consolidated in the hands of a few very rich the majority of wealth (equity) of an average person is the home and the home is taxed as “property”.  The tax (in Albuquerque) is about 1% per year.  On 80% of everything one has the tax adds up.  If one has a $250,000 home the tax is $2,500.

Why do the “uber rich” not pay this same tax?  If Bill Gates paid a 1% tax (each year) on his $56 billion dollars of net worth (at 80%, like “property” taxes) he would contribute an extra $560 million each year to the public coffers, to the retirement of bonds and debt, to the supporting of teachers and public servant salaries.  But NO, the uber rich don’t pay these taxes.  They are (largely) “property tax” tax free.  And this is WRONG!

The “emergency property tax” in Greece is about an additional 1% of the value of property.  It would be like Bill Gates having to come up with an “extra” $1.1 Billion dollars per year in extra taxes.  It’s the IMF, World Bank thing, taxing the poor as if they were rich.  If the poor were the rich they would pay none of these taxes.

So two things.  One, I should not have to pay “property” taxes on my home until the rich pay their same fair share.  It’s a “wealth tax”, who cares the kind of property.  My $2,500 could go into helping the economy, not just helping teachers and garbage collectors and the mayor and all his rot.  I pay for my own “home” (not land) security, I pay for my own roof, I don’t rely on the “roof” provided for by others (meaning by taxing the poor to get and stay uber rich).

So BP, Tepco, Magnablend Inc. and others can (and WILL) continue to pollute MY LIFE without the slightest bit of accountability.  The government will keep covering for them, will lie and cheat and steal and report falsely on the news.  It’s “them” or me, the way I see it.  Pray that Wall Street and the bankers are brought down, that politicians become defendants in the courts, that corporations PAY for all their greed.  I do. AMEN.

My heart goes out to Greece today.  I wish every Greek in Greece, well.  Stay the course, don’t buy the bailout offer, the debt offer, the need for NEW loans.  It’s war, pure and simple.  It’s ECONOMIC WAR, and the enemy is out to kill you, and to TAKE everything you have.  It’s the old rich thing - poor thing / the rich hate the poor and middle class just because they are not also RICH.  It’s not pure, but it IS simple.  That’s why the rich are laughing.

So hey, try and run the economy on an END to TAXES on all property.  See what “trickle down” really looks like when the local economy is not supported by the fed.  The real Tea Party starts here!  Let’s get rid of ALL taxes, not just the taxes on the rich.  And remember, sales taxes too are so regressive.  And automobile tax registrations ARE the worst.  End them ALL.  End them NOW!

Each day my roof gets stronger.  It is the better to weather the coming storm.  Up on the roof is perhaps not just a metaphor, perhaps it has to do with survival.

See you next week maybe.  I have a lot of work to do.

2011.10.05 - 02:47. 

Depression, Lies and Class Warfare

~ OK, this is not more about cap credits.

I must have been going a little crazy the other day, writing about HOPE and being born rich.  I thought the plan might “flip” reality, but the fact is that reality is too far gone.  It’s another “Chapter 1″ in the unfinished book of life.  Now back to reality, as in “reality sucks”.

I saw “The Beaver” the other night, via Netflicks, but even Netflicks is dying, lying, like a dead dog lying in the middle of the road.  The Beaver is a Jodie Foster movie, about depression.  Maybe that’s not what the movie is about at all.  Maybe the movie is about endangered animals and getting removed from nature and how even a pet dog needs a run, to play in water, time out of the yard and off the leash.

My first thought was that “the beaver” was a metaphor for the internet; not really a puppet, but attached.  Like the internet has become everybody’s alter-ego, fake accent from Australia (down under continent of criminals getting a second chance) - and that’s just the beginning.  We’re not talking New Zealand here, or Canada even.

This post is evidence that I have not severed the tie, the arm, yet.  The last post is evidence that maybe I’m getting a little crazy.  I’m getting cat like, like sleeping 16 hours a day, not the usual eight.  Not really, but the sleep time IS getting longer.  My backyard neighbor seems to sleep at least 16 (hours) and her dog barks most every hour that she is not awake.  The poor dog is bored and that is depressing.

People “hunker down” in a depression.  When there is no money to eat, sleep fills the bill.  When there is no energy, or the house is cold, or when everything there is to do costs more money than there is - then sleep is good, it comes naturally.  Jodie Foster did a movie about the rich and their depression.   Depression is a lot different if you’re poor.

A friend just lost her business to the downturn.  It was a toy store.  Depressions are not time for toys, not hand puppets, not computer games, not bankers playing “to tell the truth“, which is just another version of “who’s lying now?”   Her pain is real.  It’s a lot like “real depression”.

So I read this story from Greece.  There are many others like it from all over.  People are shutting down, beginning to really start spending NO money.  Bears do it, it’s called hibernation.  We might call it Hiber Nation, a people half asleep and hunkered down waiting for the depression of winter to be over.  If YOU are expecting “the consumer” to bring back the jobs and the economy you might forget about greenhouse warming.  There are icicles at the entrance to the cave.  They are going to stay there.  They’re real.

The ending to the movie, The Beaver, suggests that the new meme is that there are no happy endings, just memories, and that much of the time the memories are mostly just bad.  Now THAT IS depressing!   Thanks Jodie Foster.

The cost of the surgery, the rehab for the arm, would put most Americans permanently under.  So what’s the point?  Is the internet really the beaver, or is the beaver more the mainstream news, politics or the government and corporations and all their lies?  The Beaver speaks and all we do is parrot.

If you’ve liked September, you will love October and adore November.  And September is not even over.

There is one thing that I am increasingly sure of.  The way things will unfold, the way that they are unfolding, is going to be different than anyone expected.   There are no crystal balls, no computer models worth monitoring this time.  It’s like being on the yellow brick road in Oz and guess what, “Nobody wakes up“, and nobody ever reaches the Emerald City - and maybe there is no Kansas anymore.  Which is another way of saying that America has lost its center.

2011.09.26 - 05:20.