As We Enter The New Year, Remember. It Is All Related

[Post Update Note: I have added the following to the "See Also" section at the very bottom of this post:

1:Lonely? You're not alone. America's young people are suffering from a lack of meaningful connection

2:The $35 billion race to cure a silent killer that affects 30 million Americans

J.V.]

Everything affects everything else.

That is why change cannot be piecemeal, "Liberal," reform anymore. As well as to say why all change must be carefully integrated into existing social systems, so as to make for as seamless an interface, at every functional intersection, as we can possibly manage, with both the heart, and the mind, having their input (the balance of opposites which, naturally, is where the Cosmolosophy part of things comes into play).

Anymore than we can allow the electrified acceleration of change to continue within a ridiculously antiquated operating system. The very amplification of which is whirling us, and the subsystems we need to live in, all around, in so many different (and too often at cross purposes) ways, so much faster everyday, that we, and them, start to fly apart now, faster than the various, local, and national, auto repair institutions, can keep up with; precisely because the resultant mutations to the system, do more "disruptive" things we don't understand, ever faster (because money, as electrons in electric circuits, must find the path of least resistance). Thus creating more instability, for more turbulence, for more, already unstable, subsystems to cope with, and not be fully recuperated from; the very subsystems that are most often, of course, the ones that made abiding by society's rules, workable, or tolerable, at all, so we could have a chance to make not only better choices, but also so that we could then have a better chance of meaningful connections to the community, and the community to us. The kinds of connections that make it plain that you belong, that you matter, and are needed.

The irony here, for me, is that, after the printing press first Democratized information, via repeatable type, electricity should now be the means to turn information into a mutated commodity itself, that fosters repression all over again. A commodity that has also become a major weapon as well. All when the exact opposite outcome could have been what occurred if we had just been willing to redefine work, and come up with a new kind of social operating system. One that could use electrified experience retrieval to our advantage, instead of as a means of "Marginalization," "Reprogramming," and "Control." With all of that to the advantage, naturally, of a few who have convinced themselves of their own "Manifest Destiny." And now precisely because new instrumentality takes them far too virtually close to possessing the power of deities.

The real bottom line here, though, for me is that we must start taking responsibility for ourselves; organizing our own Libertarian Socialist parties in each community, and, with massive work stoppages, begin demanding that we have control of our own destinies, in cooperation with all of the other communities around us. Responsibility that will finally come to realize that we can't just pay others to do what is vitally important, letting ourselves forget about it after that, but then still expecting to have the results we need (as in my contention that "woe be unto those who become too separated from that which sustains them.").

No, we must be there, each and everyone of us, helping to share the load, and sacrifice, of responsibility, so that we all have the right to say we can, directly represent, ourselves. And also to say that we all have a right to share the benefits.

The referenced article quick list:

1:Jerry Brown -- Climate change challenges as serious as those faced in World War II

2:‘Completely Bizarre’ Stock Moves Leave Traders Scratching Heads

3:The Malaysia Scandal Is Starting to Look Dire for Goldman Sachs

4:A Critical Protection for Plant and Factory Workers Is Eroding

5:The Moral Horror of America’s Prisons

Jerry Brown -- Climate change challenges as serious as those faced in World War II

‘Completely Bizarre’ Stock Moves Leave Traders Scratching Heads

The Malaysia Scandal Is Starting to Look Dire for Goldman Sachs

A Critical Protection for Plant and Factory Workers Is Eroding

The Moral Horror of America’s Prisons

See Also:

Lonely? You're not alone. America's young people are suffering from a lack of meaningful connection


[Post Note: The truly sad thing here is that we get caught between a rock, and a hard place, with this type of situation. 

Of course spending money to try and find a cure would be a good thing with something that is already affecting so many, and will no doubt affect a good deal more, if other changes aren't made, but that's always the real rub, isn't it.

Not only is it a sad commentary that it is the drug companies who are funding the research, for obvious reasons, both good, and bad, even if we give them the benefit of the doubt. But this also sheds little light on the more obvious question of why we can't treat the larger problem of causation, in the first place. 

We can't, naturally, because in that is another, "it's a whole can of worms", kind of thing where, "treating the symptoms," and not the structural elements, that influence people to be so prone to the bad health choices; the ones that put them at risk for this disease, as well as a significant number of others; these are just par for the course for that "whole can of worms."

And this is, most likely, because too many other industry groups, and the people supported by those jobs, are in the business of selling consumption (as opposed to healthy food, or healthy anything else for that matter). That means, besides the starting fact, for the corporations, that they already get to have all the rights of citizenship, but none of the responsibilities, that any considerations, other than irresistible branding, and consumptive qualities that, at the very least, border on the addictive (whether by sugar, or fat, or their various combinations, and now probably pot too, once that gets more accepted as a cash crop), have little importance; even if they are made to put little labels on the packaging that actually declare how bad a thing is (which, also quite likely, will get watered down, obfuscated, and made irrelevant eventually, as most Liberal "Reform" legislation usually ends up. 

You couple that with the community demanding so little, generally, from all of us, to keep it all going, and where the meaninglessness of any singular, cog in a lost maze of cogs, kind of commercialized work, makes people even more needful of escape, and the search for something that provides involvement in depth (and maybe a chance for some status, however narrowly focused), you get what is absolutely going to be mostly a sedentary kind of responsive behavior; most likely in front of, or holding, a screen of some type. And letting the software do all of the heavy lifting for you. 

That the center cannot hold for a society, mainlined on this sort of lifestyle, is only too ably represented by the lowly sugar doughnut itself; a metaphor that Homer Simpson only too ably, as well, expressed our group supplication to, almost as a religious chant, as he would utter it in that long, drawn out, low frequency, warbled pronunciation of the word.

I do not think it takes a rocket scientist to see what will become of us if we stay with this other aspect of "Business As Usual."

J.V.]

The $35 billion race to cure a silent killer that affects 30 million Americans

The burden of war falls on fewer Americans than ever before

Ignorant Economy Bashing, And The Dems Lack Of A Coherent Message, Are Part And Parcel Of The Same Thing

[Post Note: Don't forget to check out the "See Also" entries below. I also (1-1-2019) just added the following new entries there:

1:Apple Blew $9 Billion Buying Back Its Own Stock. There’s a Lesson Here.

J.V.]


And that same thing, naturally, is that Capitalism Is Obsolete. A fact for which all involved seem to be incapable of seeing; even as it is in their face, grimly mocking them

As you may have noticed, our demented "Clown Car Driver-n-Chief" (to go along with "Corrupter-n-Chief," or "Confuser-n-Chief," etc.), within his infinite grasp of economics, is bashing the Fed Chairman for the main reason that the very rich have gotten used to the idea of free money; at least of course, for them (which for him is just a "shiny" thing; something that gives him the instant adoration, that is the only, real, motivation he ever has, and craves; and for which has always worked for him, if you just wave the shiny thing around enough, shouting whatever exaggerated claim, or other, that pops into that awful cauldron of impulse, that he calls a mind).

Just as the very richest have gotten used to the idea that monopolies are good, for a certain group of "Manifestly Destined" individuals, while everyone else, of course, should have to deal with competition.

The fact of the matter has always been that short term money isn't supposed to cost more than long term money. But it has been tending towards that condition for some time now.

Coincident to that is that fact that, Something over 5 trillion dollars, at least, was pumped into the American economy via "Quantitative Easing," and the Republican tax giveaway that a former Speaker of The House of Representatives orchestrated for his rich masters, between 2008 and 2017 (noting that the "easing" ended in 2015, and the tax giveaway happened after that).

The question then just naturally arises, what happened to all of that money? Why didn't it increase prices as significantly as it would ordinarily have been expected to?

Unfortunately, the answer is both complicated, and straightforwardly simple.

Simple, in the fact that you only need look to where most of the "easing" money went in the first place: to the holders of large securities, and bonds, which the Fed bought with the zeros and ones of computer money; where they only needed to type in a number, and that then became how much they had available to spend.

As well as to say that, in making short term money more expensive, you put the burden of paying for capital on the backs of everyone who is not so "Manifestly Destined;" which is everyone, and everything, medium sized as a business, and down to individual workers. The extension of which, certainly, is credit card debt. which they talked us into with surprising ease (and usury interest rates, that aren't all that much worried about at all anymore); not to mention student debt, and mortgage debt, which at least used to have something of a lobby, in the home construction industry, protecting the mortgage tax deduction, which has naturally been debased now to a significant degree, by the tax giveaway.

Keeping that fact in mind, though, what you have is another, rather warped, example of "Supply Side," economics; supposedly to keep money in the hands of the "jobs" creators, even if the majority of the new jobs will never be able to pay a minimum living wage; precisely because of the fear of inflation, as well as from who's pocket this largess will come.

But now, the real source of purchasing power (the average, working stiff, American consumer), is stretched too thin, to keep the economy humming, from so many disasters, economic and otherwise, that never get fully recovered from (at least not for the majority of us), and so much so that there just isn't any discretionary spending ability left. Thus requiring so much more dogged effort, just to keep from losing any more economic ground, that ever greater numbers are just burning out, or flying out of control, or addictively escaping by whatever means they can still, barely, afford. Which is certainly a big part of why suicides, and addictive excess, and people just exploding as rage bombs, is increasing now. Along with the various system's, functional disasters, we see in both the physical, and social realms.

Describing all of this, however, still doesn't explain where all of that 5 trillion or so went. Or what what was the ultimate effect of it all.

And for that you need only look at how so much venture capital went into things like "BitCoin" mining, or lets just dump "X" machine (in egregious quantities), or "X" process, into, say a series of city economic scapes, or social web spaces, that just instantly disrupt what was once, whatever the small semblance, of operating integration (or integrity) said scapes might have had, sorta working, at any given time, pre disruption; given the already stressed nature of such entities trying to do the basic functionality they were meant to do, as social points of mixed, cooperative effort; but being forced to do so with fewer folks able, or willing, to contribute to supporting it in the first place.

And when you look, I think you'll find that a very significant portion went into those investments that turned over the investment the fastest, with the least worry of having to create something substantial, and then wait for the slow return of profit from the sale of each item. And where, certainly, if anything substantial is made, it is seldom made here.

The thing is, though, I think a further significant portion went into the trash heap of pure waste, in oh so many ways; the most prominent being either simple, abject failure, of what should have been seen as a stupid idea, at the very beginning; or the waste of the disruption causing extra operating problems for the other, already struggling, in place enterprises, because of the lack, or even thought, of proactive integration, with those systems; and finally, because of the ever increasing mass fraud, secret hoarding, and outright thievery, occuring by big players, and small, all across the vast enterprise matrix that makes up this, and rest of the world's, economies.

So the problem for both, old parties, is that their old message stopped working years ago. It was only until recently that somebody figured out how to really manipulate the hell out of the message machine itself. And because so much of this is "information" oriented, it is automatically subject to the new realities of asymmetrical information struggle; where even small players can have a huge impact on entities vastly larger than they are.

And most especially for me is this emphasized as it relates to the Democrats, because they still think that Liberalism will save the day. And worse, they are left to argue amongst themselves for the irrelevant concept of just how much "Liberalism" they can now propose, even knowing it is unlikely to pass in any case. And irrelevant, in this context, because Liberalism itself has become irrelevant now that human skill can no longer be relied upon as a viable store of value. Now that electrified experience retrieval has made it possible to make virtually anything, virtually anywhere. And with ever decreasing human cost factors involved at all.

Surprise surprise that there are thus less folks able to purchase stuff.

Bottom line for me, though, is the even more surprising group think, being exhibited by the economic inteligencia, for the most part now; and that being this notion that government ought to still be able to create "predictability" in economic operating conditions. Because we all just "know" that it is only the government's instability that creates all of the various examples of "turbulence," and thus "uncertainty," that now rocks most systems.

So in that context, perhaps it's not just the demented "Clown Car Driver-n-Chief" who has drank too much of his own Kool-Aid.

The referenced article quick list;

1:'Staring contest' -- Trump's vulnerable, but 2020 Dems off to surprisingly slow start in early states

2:Dow rallies by 1,000 points, erasing record Christmas Eve losses

3:Trump has unsettled Wall Street and Washington, and it will probably get worse

4:The Fed launched QE nine years ago — these four charts show its impact

5:'Climate grief' -- The growing emotional toll of climate change

'Staring contest' -- Trump's vulnerable, but 2020 Dems off to surprisingly slow start in early states


[Post Note: Remember guys, it's the volatility itself that you should really be worried about here. J.V.]

Dow rallies by 1,000 points, erasing record Christmas Eve losses

Trump has unsettled Wall Street and Washington, and it will probably get worse

The Fed launched QE nine years ago — these four charts show its impact

'Climate grief' -- The growing emotional toll of climate change


See Also:

Apple Blew $9 Billion Buying Back Its Own Stock. There’s a Lesson Here.

[Post Note: I Predicted our fearless Clown Car Leader's attack on the Fed back in August. J.V.]

The Real Problem Is That Smart Capital Doesn't Sit Still At All Any More

Strong Indications That Money Is Now Like Electrons In Electrical Circuits

We’re Measuring the Economy All Wrong, Even When We Are Allowed To Measure At All

Is This Another Example Of How Evil "Vertical Integration" Can Be?

[Change Note: I have added the following to the "See Also" Section at the bottom:

1:U.S. pullout from Syria will be 'trigger that blows up the region'

2:One-third of U.K. kids live in poverty — and Brexit will make things worse

J.V.]

Well... At least as much as "vertical integration" is now employed by Capitalism these days?

And isn't this another example of, and this is important, how a significant portion of the "gosh gee, isn't the economy doing just great now!" is actually economic activity that is quite destructive, one way or another (as it cascades out in this unbelievably complex system); and not just of social cohesion, but of economic stability itself? Dectruction, of course, that the system wouldn't know how to factor in to a better understanding of where the country is at, as it reports important data to us, as various forms of leadership is required to do; even if the powers that be were to acknowledge it as described here. Data that is supposed to be there so that everybody, not just players in the various markets, can make informed decisions.

Unfortunately, this is also where my curse of seeing too many connections in everything comes to bear. For now I can't help but also notice the unique irony of how Putin's Criminal Capitalism Inc. operation (masquerading as a Russian government) seems to have no problem at all in getting various parts of our government informing it of quite a bit of what it needs to make informed decisions.

That they are, nonetheless, still demonstrating incredibly stupid, only cements the understanding of why Putin, who you'd think would know a human resource as being too risky to exploit, or not, as they continue to double down on the process. Which is to hardly even to begin mentioning the lack of understanding of how complex systems work, that is also on display here. All combined, as the dumb ass (Putin, not the demented "Clown Car Driver") continues to poke a stick in various tender places, of a player the entire world still needs as one of the biggest consumers of all of the, mostly crap, that the world competitive, productive machine, can create now.

Whereupon I also reiterate a point I made, I think almost a year ago, that we have to be considered, at least in the most significant part, as the ones who invented "too big too fail." And certainly one need only point out that losing a very significant consumer of your one, main export product (besides weapons), oil, when there is already too much laying about, and now the prospect of a slowing world economy, to illustrate this, as far as the economy he's supposed to be focused on, his own, is concerned.

I cannot help wondering, though, if it is also ironic that he seems to be spending so much effort on informing our citizenry, and bending our popular view to his own, not really getting much of effective substance, as far as real results are concerned, on making life easier for his own economy (as the sanctions keep getting more, instead of less), and succeeding only in making everything more unstable, and turbulent (his personal satisfaction at irritating us aside). Whereupon, certainly, we are now looking at the very real prospect of a very bad, world economic meltdown, again. Only this time it might be further meltdowns as well, as the world itself burns.

I think that it may be ironic, but I'm too overcome with grief sometimes to waste too many brain cells on it. The grief, of course, being for what this is doing to not only working people here, but working people in Russia. People who are, just as the Chinese are, not our enemies; not exactly our best friends either, certainly, but that's what unbridled, cutthroat competition, on too many planes of human interaction now, will do to people. Especially when we are, by nature, so prone to fear, and more to the point, the manipulation of same.

I still have faith that a majority of us will come to realize these facts and understand just how much Capitalism being obsolete is at most of the bottom of it. The only question remaining, however, is if we will do this in time to make effective use of the new found consensus. And that means a choice facing each and every one of you. A very important choice indeed. One where doing nothing at all is probably, at least nearly, as bad as doing what the dumb asses described here have been doing.

Prime And Punishment


See Also:

U.S. pullout from Syria will be 'trigger that blows up the region'

One-third of U.K. kids live in poverty — and Brexit will make things worse

Russian Agents Sought Secret US Treasury Records On Clinton Backers During 2016 Campaign

[Post Note: The funny, or really not so funny at all, thing here is that we could have asked Putin, and (perhaps as a bargaining chip), he might have given it to us a long time ago. And for the simple reason that, if he had any sense at all, he would have seen it as the opportunity to ditch this loser it should have been seen as; the "realpolitik" winner it would have been for all concerned. Even if unbelievably distasteful for us, and conceivably even for him, as well, depending on what was ultimately negotiated, and how much the dumb ass could actually be made to realize about the world situation right now. J.V.]

Democrats want to use obscure law to grab Donald Trump's tax returns

The Rule of Ruhle: Who Gets Credit For Paying Proper Attention To Credit Markets? And Who Ultimately Pays For Deficiencies?

[Update Note: Added the following in the "See Also" section:

1: Why Is Costco Opening Its Own Chicken Farm?

2: While Sears executives get $25 million in bonuses, laid-off workers struggle during Christmastime

J.V.]

Here is demonstrated another example of an interesting new contradiction with electrified Capitalism.

This new one is quite similar to one I have already identified, which is: Everybody wants to buy from a competitive market, but nobody wants to sell there. Only here it concerns money as something you both need to have in quantity, on hand, so as to do something with it, but of course, not doing so unless you get a really good return for the duration of the funds not being available for anything else. Because, in this case, anything else might be your "Mad" money; as in everything has gone mad and I need to buy protection, and/or escape, in whatever form I can, funds.

You also, though, want to be able to secure more, from others, when needed, flexibly, so that you can take advantage of longer term process investments; being willing to make the payment for the right, because you know a good thing when you see one, and you know you'll be able to cash out once the venture does its IPO. Or so it has been at least.

But this, then, is the dilemma: I want to get the best return for the money I have in short, and mid, term deposits, like the right type of bonds and securities, but I don't want to have to pay for those rates when I want to risk other people's money.

And now that money must move ever more as an electron in an electrical circuit, it presses competitively for ever more clever ways to always have it in motion, and earning, without ever having to be tied up in anything too substantial for very long. And it does that, of course, by suddenly presenting you with players who might have enough windfall to buy your foundation out from under you. Players who took one of the "big risks" and cashed out out fast enough to now challenge you in ways you don't have the cash to counter.

So which is it to be, do we raise rates to make holders of capital have a chance for a decent return, and also, as a side effect, perhaps slow down an overstimulated economy (after quite a spell of quantitative easing, and then a tax cut-giveaway, that put huge new sums of counters into the hands of folks who already had quite a bit, you might expect that it would have revved up a bit, wouldn't you? Even if the acceleration was due to things that were just as disruptive, and thus destructive to the rest of our systems as the disasters previous inputs have already caused)?

Then again, though, precisely because so many are chasing whatever quick turn they can, and again, often at cross purposes to each other (which simply means that both sides cause problems for the other by their very, disrupting, existence), people are, as already stated, taking unbelievable chances. And even others still are out there in cyber land doing all they can to steal from everybody at the same time, in the ensuing confusion. Because if you do win, in these conditions, you do often win very big indeed, even when everyone else around you does not.

So now we get to add extreme weather, and who knows how horrible the extremes might get now, and from that, so many more channels for instability to be pumped into every system, already too stressed, that we have that we rely on, for there to be a society in the first place; be it in the overall information exchange, of complex, over commercialization, of cosmic proportions, that the current operating system requires -- to keep even a deity boggling amount of state changes up to date -- so all of the books balance, more or less; or whether it's just a particular human institution focused on microcosm; as well as an ecosystem long suffering of instability inputs not taken care of; in the end you are guaranteed to have increasing turbulence within each, and for which all of it will most likely be bad. And bad precisely to the degree that your instrumentality has gained greater reach, and power, than it had a few decades before; with all of that, don't you think the reasons for the "skittishness" ought to be quite plain? It sure seems like it to me.

And yet, with all of this evidence, there is still this vague sense the experts try to portray as to exactly what it is that is causing investors to be so skittish now. As in, to paraphrase, "oh, it could be trade, or it could be tarifs, or no consistent policy on any of it, but no one knows for sure, other than it is at least partially connected to either slow, or fast, moving disasters (of which the current administration is a prominent example of both). An ironic kind of thing when you also hear them lament how the current administration isn't more appreciative of the complexity of things; as in it's leader fixating on the simple realization that keeping money inexpensive will always stoke the stock market (and make that clown car driver feel good about himself), at least for the short media span of a particular news cycle event; and a new potential disaster grabs our attention.

So what else would you expect from a clown car driver?

This might also beg the question of whether folks are aware of my interpretation of things at all in the first place. It is certainly quite possible that they are not of course. And they might just all of them, experts included, be truly confused as to these unprecedented new conditions. Miss Ruhle asked rather pointedly about why everybody is so spooked, after all.

I'd like to think, of course, that it has been my input, not only in general, for a while now, but also more specifically since September, which was when I started asking questions concerning money, within the characterization of it as having become like "electrons in electronic circuits," that must always move faster, that has got folks in the know really spooked. Something that I'm pretty sure began some time around the second week of September (I was using what I thought was Netflix's difficult position of having to exist so exclusively on borrowed money to keep the big investment in content going (and being limited on how much they can raise their monthly rates); so as to also stay ahead of Amazon, and Disney from jumping in with 20k league boots themselves.

It's a conceit on my part, certainly, but hey, why the heck not when nobody seems to have any better reasons available. And then there is also the fact that they would be reluctant to mention me, in any case, for precisely the reason that to do so would give credibility to also considering my alternative, which, at present, they are not yet quite desperate enough to do.

No worries about that part from my end though. That reluctance will change soon enough. Once just how bad things can actually get starts sinking in.

Investors On Edge Ahead Of Fed Interest Rate Decision -- Velshi & Ruhle



See Also:
[See Also Note: Let us also not forget, however, that we are considering a lot more than the effect of on the bottom lines of so many commercial entities. We are also weighing in on real, astounding, pain; emotional, and physical, because so much is not being met as to what we need as human beings. The Over Commercialization of Everything. The Lack of Meaning for most people, and any sense that they matter. And certainly the world's all time favorite; the ever present, and quite often brutal, marginalization of one group, or another, simply because it suites singularly selfish views on how a zero sum game should be played. All when it doesn't have to be such a zero sum game at all, or that we'll have a snowball's chance in hell to survive at all, unless everybody has a chance to pitch in and help. J.V.]

While Sears executives get $25 million in bonuses, laid-off workers struggle during Christmastime

Why Is Costco Opening Its Own Chicken Farm?

How Much Income It Takes To Survive In Every State, Mapped

'A torrent of ghastly revelations' -- what military service taught me about America



[Post Note: Remember, it has been noted that, for every uptick in our GDP, container traffic increases two upticks. J.V.]

GOING CRAZY ON THE HIGH SEAS

After her skiing accident, an uphill battle over snowballing bills

The Gutting Of This Legislation Was Only Too Predictable

Because it has already been described as the death of "Liberalism" (my words J.V.) back in the late eighties, and early nineties. Back when William Greider described how things really worked. With books like "Who Will Tell The People," and "Secrets Of The Temple."

First, "Big Money" gets anything liberal that might get through watered down. And I mean really watered down. Then, later, when they have more veto protection, they do everything they can to cripple how the legislation was supposed to work; with the usual approach of either starving it of funding, crippling the administration of the legislation through whatever kinds of appointments, and rule changes they can get away with, as well as keeping up the propaganda efforts to say it was bad in the first place (even though, despite the controversy, people end up realizing that the affordable care might actually be worth mandating coverage). Do all of that, in various combinations of course, mix with continuous court challenges, because you have also gamed that setup as well, and eventually you do indeed make it be something that will just not be allowed to work anymore.

They want things their way and they don't care what you want; at least as long as what you want falls outside of the bounds of properly branded, "anesthetized in the process of being made to want, just so," consumption. And in that context, don't even think of asking questions you shouldn't have the information to be able to form in the first place.

Unless you, as the working majority of Americans (and those who used to be, and are retired now), wrest control back in the hands of working people, we will not be able to save this planet. It is as simple as that.

Simple because we simply do not have the time to be arguing at all about who's pocket the cost is going to come out of. We must, in fact, abandon the whole idea of money itself; not only because we no longer need a "universal experience translator," as money was intended to be, because we have electrified experience retrieval to do that for us now, to an absolutely amazing degree, but also because the effort we must undertake can't be done with a cost based economy at all, in the first place; at least not a necessarily multi-pronged effort, of this magnitude, in pretty much every dimension you can imagine, of social interaction. Both because markets will have no hope of remaining stable, with the ever increasing extreme weather effects that are in store for us, but also because of the fact of excess baggage, that money carries inexorably now, and which always gets in the way. The baggage of who gets what, and how much, and why. And of course everybody wanting to get their beaks wet, while making sure it's anybody but them who has to take the cost hit. All joined at the hip with the inevitable profiteering, which is precisely the corruption the baggage was, at least partly, meant to do away with; and if money, and the system that supports is left to keep breathing at all, you can be sure the corruption will continue, and at least to the degree that only insane profit can create a hothouse environment for.

And simple also because the current inequality of outcomes, that gross, income maldistribution has created over the last several decades now, will not allow social cohesion to be maintained if really difficult times are coming; the very time when we will need cohesion at least as great as the "Greatest Generation" demonstrated the last time we had to mobilize as a nation.

We all know that, in the end, it will be working people who get the job done of taking us back from the brink, if it is to be anybody. The only question is if we will be able to do it in a way that benefits us, as well as the planet; as opposed to just letting them continue to benefit themselves and to hell with everything else. We can either give up and let them ride us to hell, or we can demand that they negotiate our doing a complete employee buyout of all of it, so we can organize ourselves to do the fix properly. We can charge them a parting tax, to help grease the skids for us, but they will still be able to walk away with the major majority of their total asset value, with all debts then wiped out for everybody (save for the bond we issue to ourselves, from ourselves, to refinance the whole phase over -- keeping a managed form of Capitalism temporarily so we can plan, and instigate, our translations to a new type of organization, with some sense of calm purpose). We even help them set up in new diggs someplace else. They can go on being rich people, and we can get on with saving the planet, and regaining our sanity in the process. To do that, however, means to chose to be ready to give it all you've got to get the job done. Just like some parents, and grandparents (etc), did for us back in the forties.

That's the choice facing you, right now. What will you do about it?

The referenced article quick list (be sure to check out the "See Also" section at the very bottom of this post):

1:Federal judge in Texas strikes down Affordable Care Act

2:An Upheaval at the Ends of the World

3:The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules

4:Amazon and Walmart add more robots, but insist they won’t terminate jobs

5:Criminal justice reformers reach cusp of history — but worry about last-minute hitches

Federal judge in Texas strikes down Affordable Care Act

An Upheaval at the Ends of the World

The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules

Amazon and Walmart add more robots, but insist they won’t terminate jobs

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[Post Note: The only real hard truth here is that this is what happens when we let them decide what is valuable or not. As well as what happens when we forget that it is supposed to be government of the people, for the people, and not government of the markets, for the marketeers. J.V.]

The Hard Truths of Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy


[Post Note: And how long do you think it would take them to gut this legislation; even assuming you could get a watered down vcrsion of it passed? J.

Wow, a Financial Transactions Tax Is an Amazingly Good Idea

This Is A Litany Of Systemic Failure Of Epic Proportions

Part of it, without doubt, is rooted in the darker aspects of human nature; especially when it comes to giving in to the fear of "other" that racism initially stems from. There is also the awful, as well as grossly simplistic, logic of: "if you win, I lose," that can be playoff of here far too easily, but still, the simple fact remains that we are a nation with a significant population of racists in it. The abolishment of slavery, and the Civil War that followed, may have established a firm legal precedent, but it did not eliminate racism.

Racism plays into another aspect here, marginalization itself; whereupon you need only be a group the powerful don't like for whatever reason; as in sexism. Ageism. Anybody who would question power as it now exists. Etc. Marginalization is important in its own right in this context because it makes sure that there will always be an easily manipulated underclass of fodder for whatever purpose; as in fighting your conflicts of resource control, or market access, as well as keeping a subservient working class to have an ongoing check against the automators, and robot creators, from having whatever would be power player by the balls if they want to do major production of something.

There is also the problem of the lack of socially essential information flow to consider. How can you know socially unacceptable (for both moral, and practical aspects of human interaction, reasons) things are going on if certain groups are allowed to be exempt from providing it. Would bad coach pedafiles be nearly the problem if we kept better track of such skill segments across the boards for all institutions in the nation? Would priests? Would bad cops? Bad doctors? Etc. And by the same token, would predatory lending practices for one group, as opposed to another, be in evidence at all if we did not have even the skimpy comparative data we have now (Red Lining went on for quite a while in some cities before it was noticed and made public).

So what are we to do here? I, for one, have become a firm believer in the idea that you just cannot legislate against stupidity, whether it is willful ignorance or not. And trying to pretend that these people don't exist because we've moved on from racism, because we have minorities in relative positions of power now, isn't going to cut it anymore either. So, for my part I think we should do what Don Corleone always told his boys to do: "you keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." And in this I mean we need to accept their existence; make them state it openly, and if they want to live in communities of only one type of characteristic, then let them do so. Setting themselves up as as semi independent City States, like any other like minded group (Google people, after all, might want to stay together as an information services provider community for hire, for instance, whereas creative Hollywood types might keep independent cinema going as a barter export, or a hundred other examples). Then, everybody will be free to barter among City States as they see fit. And people who value a diversity of minds, and perceptive styles, and myriad kinds of creative strengths, can join together in their communities.

None of this can happen, however, until we accept the fact that Capitalism is done for. It is kaput. Finished and long past the date where even a hazardous waste cite could hold it now. We may not be able to  change certain aspects of human nature (though a better way or organizing ourselves could sure help), but we can change a system that now plays on all of our darkest primal needs, and fears. A system that not only puts way too much power into the hands of individuals, stupid beliefs or not, it also makes having any sense of critical social information not even anything an "ordinary" citizen should concern oneself about; because all they really need to know, in this ever more mutated monster, is that they must simply work, and buy, as they are told to work and buy, and to shut the
intercourse up otherwise.

The referenced article quick list:

1:Why won’t the US Supreme Court do anything about racism?

2:A Killing Season

3:Does systematic racism drain, deny and diminish black homeowners' wealth?

4:The future of software isn’t an app. It’s a habit

5:Uncertainty over late GI Bill payments leave lawmakers asking -- Who is accountable?

Why won’t the US Supreme Court do anything about racism?

A Killing Season

Does systematic racism drain, deny and diminish black homeowners' wealth?

[Post Note: You know, of course, that when they say "habit" what they really mean, whether they are aware of it or not, is addiction; addiction as the new, sure way to ensure brand loyalty. J.V.]

The future of software isn’t an app. It’s a habit

Uncertainty over late GI Bill payments leave lawmakers asking -- Who is accountable?


See Also:
[Post Note: Not only are things so screwed up that very little of what is actually important gets done, one other aspect of this is that, even if you could get the consensus to spend a very large amount of money, to make a baseline for wages to not fall below, the myriad current contradictions of Capitalism, as well as its now over abundant amount of conflicting complexity (because it has already been amended so many times), the unintended effects of this sort altruism become so convoluted, and potentially damaging that any benefits, would be negated to a quite large degree. And that's assuming you could find a pocket to take the money from in the first place. J.V.]

The ‘Sweeping’ Effect of a $15-an-Hour Job Guarantee