Great start in Washington; a suggestion here

I was totally delighted to listen just now to the open press wrap-up of the White House and Congressional meeting. I cannot be overly complimentary when I praise both the taking place of this meeting (which was structured according to working groups on key topics and issues) and the open dialogue and feedback at the conclusion. This was an extraordinary event and a fine role model for what I hope is just the beginning of a new way of doing business in America. The President and the members of the Senate and the House deserve a lot of praise.

Now, I have just one suggestion that I hope will make everyone’s job easier as they wrestle now with the very urgent and complex topics. I address this suggestion to both conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, each with a slight twist but the same message.

Whenever our members of Congress contemplate legislation, it is natural to think first and foremost, “Can we pay for this and if so, how will we do so?” In fact, one of the greatest areas of unease is the feeling by conservatives that America has resorted to “printing money” and “throwing it at the problem,” and I share this unease. However, I am also sympathetic with those who argue that inaction is worse, as the economy continues to spiral further in crisis, than shelling out the money. Also, generations of politicians and bureaucrats, fueled by corporate mindsets, have grown up with the belief that “grown ups” always keep “how do we pay for this” in mind before contemplating any expenditure.

The problem is that if that attitude rules the entire analysis of a particular legislation or problem solving, it codifies a problem into only two possible solutions: spend money or not. As a result multitudes of other possible approaches fall off the table unnoticed. Consideration of “how to pay” has become a show stopper for doing the right thing because the “how to pay” argument overshadows problem solving too early in the process.

Legislators need to start the legislative process following a more classic approach to problem solving, which is open ended at the very beginning. In other words, they need to put all options for progress on the table, evaluate and refine them first and foremost by whether they are the correct, desirable and “right” thing to do. Consideration of “can we pay” and “how do we pay” must come later in the process. Let me give an example.

Suppose that the legislature needs to evaluate a specific health crisis, let’s say some sort of toxic compound poisoning has been discovered and there is an urgent need for new legislation to address this new crisis. (Stick with me on the example, even though I know that literally existing agencies and budgets would cover this scenario in reality). Instead, assume in my example that a totally new potentially dire but not yet proven dire scenario has come up that requires legislation and of course, by implication, funding.

If the legislators and their aides immediately jump into a “how do we pay for it” attitude, they cannot focus on the genuine extent of the need and all possible implications for solution. Those who are alarmed by the threat of the toxic compound will want to throw money at the problem. Those who are tight with the purse strings will be tempted to poo-poo the potential risk, arguing there is no proof that legislation or investment is needed. That is the danger of allowing money to set the stage for determining whether something needs to be done, or not.

In the ideal case committees do research and determine whether or not this problem exists in truth, and whether or not a solution is needed. THEN experts in this problem can put forth alternatives. Many of these alternatives might suggest creative ways to fund the legislation rather than budget busting straight out expenditure. Suppose in my scenario that a university is already doing research in this area. One solution might be to transfer government resources on temporary assignment to that university’s endeavor, rather than allocate new funding. So people in the educational sector already working (in theory) on research in this area now have a dotted line relationship to a program that is already funded, and the staff and their resources are now reassigned, and what they had been working on is demoted in priority. This is one example where a new legislative endeavor can be “funded” without the tradition approaches of allocating new budgetary funds and the problem of raising money or busting budgets.

Here is another example. Suppose that another country is already doing research in this toxic compound problem. Why not consider an alliance, rather than fund a parallel effort? Again, one could allocate some new funds for additional staff, or reassign, or “swap” with the other country for use of their resources.

It is crucial, especially in this financial crisis, that the President, legislators, their aides, educational institutions and corporations start first and foremost with dialogue on what is correct and what needs or must be done, and leave funding as secondary, as counterintuitive as that sounds. If one decides first and foremost that something is a genuine legislative need, with allocated resources of some specific type needed, one can then secondarily consider options that may not involve budget spoilers or new allocated funds at all. It can also force a fresh look at existing budget priorities, where the responsible agencies just have to push something further down the stack as a greater problem arises.

My suggestion is actually the MOST fiscally conservative approach, rather than the worried dollar signs in the head from the very beginning approach. That is because one is open to a host of alternative ways to procure and provide the resources needed for the new legislative initiative. Sometimes one can craft a better law and budget if one MUST do something but there is no NEW money to do it. That is because one can consider governmental partnerships, private initiatives, swaps and alliances with corporations. What if, for example, a private company was given an extraordinary tax break in return for using their existing staff to work on this problem? Some laboratory that was working on pure research gets the assignment to work on the new potential toxic compound problem and they reallocate their staff from pure to targeted research, in return for a tax break or other non-budgetary incentive.

So it’s actually not the most “adult” thing to think “how do we pay” first and foremost. The most adult thing is “what must we do (if anything) about a particular problem, and what is the correct approach with the most hoped for results?” Then one figures out how to procure the resources and staffing. It is extremely difficult to overcome the deliberate and unconscious programming that has taken place in everyone’s mindset, I understand that all too well, seeing it become a disaster of missteps in decision making in government and society for decades now. It is especially hard with entitlements discussions, where hardly anyone discusses what the right thing to do is, and instead, they just dissolve into quarrels and intransigent positions about money, such as in health care and social security. But if you continue to do that you totally miss out on 1) what is right and essential to do and 2) many alternative ways to do it. Both sides harden into an expensive proposal with one side saying yes and the other side saying no.

This happened with Social Security in the Bush administration. President Bush set his heart on a “free market” approach to actually investing some of Social Security in the money markets (heaven forbid). This is an example of where the President and legislators hardened into one proposal rather than starting by looking at comprehensive reform, where needed. This is because both sides assumed that it is the political “third rail” of politics AND that reform can’t be afforded. Therefore the President thought he was peeling off a piece that would be innovative and helpful, but not touch the third rail or “cost” anything. Can you imagine what would be happening now, in the financial meltdown, if Social Security were part of it? But I’m not criticizing President Bush for trying to peel off doing at least “something” that he felt avoided the third rail of budgetary explosion of costs, and political fighting if people feared reduced benefits. It seemed logical to him, but that logic is erroneous. It’s not his fault in this area because he has walked into a hardened environment of thinking that we must think “first” of “how much will it cost” and “how do we pay for it” before even determining if “it” is the right thing to do. So everyone is somewhat bipolar about it. They tiptoe around the need to do the right thing if it is going to be costly or they then swing to the other extreme and just warm up the printing press and manufacture some greenbacks. As a result very poor decisions are made one after the other because they are not based on the facts of the problem and the need to invest in some action.

I hope that you understand what I am explaining here and find it helpful. It is crucial that people try to change this mindset right away. In classic problem solving one does start with an assumption that is totally free of any consideration of funding. In other words, one must spend at least some time in the “problem definition” and “solutions exploration” stages of just assuming “money is no object.” It is only by assuming that in the beginning that one can determine what the “right” thing to do is. It is after the problem is defined and alternatives identified and sketched that one introduces the “resources needed” part of the process, where implications for investment become identified. After that is done then people can start to identify either staged or modified implementations based on budget realities or, as I am suggesting, how to do the “right thing” without classic check writing or money printing approaches, as I demonstrate in the toxic compound example, where several solutions can be reasonably pursued that are not budget busters yet are highly targeted and effective “investment”.

Economic crisis: stop being part of problem

I want to address the people who are making wise cracks about socialism and irresponsible homeowners who got bad mortgages, who have children they "can't afford," and those who didn't "prepare themselves" for the "new economy" (whatever that was).

Stop being part of the problem, and prepare to start being part of the solution.

First of all, I am sick of hearing people (mostly conservatives) who state that people do not have a right to own a home, have children etc.

You are dead wrong and that is, as I've pointed out, one of the problems with this phony and mean spirited "free market" "capitalism" that has ruined this country and much of the western economies.

True capitalism arose from agrarian societies where people built their own shelters and supplied their own food, and had as many children as the food supply could support.

I have explained that human beings arose and developed civilization and genuine capitalism via understanding that there is a natural expectation that one can create for one's self shelter, food and a family.

Thus any capitalism that does not realize that every human has a right to basic shelter, food and the ability to have unrestricted children (not as "economic options") is not genuine capitalism.

This does not mean that everyone is entitled to a McMansion. But it is not the fault of the people when society herds them so that that is the only choice that they have.

At this point in so called civilization this country at the very least should have been overflowing with cheap homes and apartments, and jobs that allow everyone to have shelter, whether a home or an apartment. Likewise children should have been recognized as a human right and a treasure, not as pawns in the abortion ping pong video game.

I am still shocked to my very core of being at where this country has gone. There is no excuse that there is not an abundance of good jobs, that while paying modest wages are more than sufficient for one person to comfortably afford housing and to support a family.

There is NO EXCUSE for this disaster that is ongoing. The very least conservatives and well paid liberals can do is shut the F*** up, while you are pulling in your very undeserved salaries living in your McMansions that you do not deserve at all.

I could reach through this screen and punch in the face the next fat ass "expert" behind a microphone that bleats that people do not have a right to a home. F*** YOU.

I just read that a man in Ohio, a carpenter, lost his job, so he killed his wife (who had reduced hours at a senior home) and his son, and then himself.

HOW CAN ANY OF YOU LOOK AT YOURSELVES IN THE MIRROR WITHOUT SHAME?

If you are not going to help than at least shut up and be grateful for what you have, especially you miserable ignorant media moron asshats.

Economic renewal not recovery

Not to word smith, but just make a point that while using the descriptive word "recovery" regarding the economy, I think you should keep in mind that "renewal" or "restoration" are more accurate. So use the word "recovery" but keep "renewal" in mind. Why? Because you are not trying to recover, as in go back to, the position just before the crisis since that erroneous position caused the problem.

For example, people should not hope to recover the economy back to its previous position of relying on phony money on Wall Street, such as complex derivatives and the mortgage "products" that were high wire acts without a net. As I've blogged before I saw first hand that corporate executives have had an attitude of individuals making a killing rather than individuals making a living. Immoral and false monetary tools are simply ways to invent money and give it to the few who are "in on the act."

Meanwhile genuine jobs that create genuine product disappear, are outsourced, or given to immigrants since they are "beneath" the corporate Illuminati.

The economy will not "recover," as in become healthy again, if corporate executives, all the way down to small business owners, do not restore their own view of how the economy should work and succeed, so that the most can be prosperous doing work that is real and of value.

I've written about this before, so I won't repeat myself. But people must change their minds and their hearts about the American dream (and, indeed, the global universal aspiration of just about everyone) to not be only about raising prices and raising incomes and being on the endless hamster wheel. People have been enslaved in this economy so that there is only one way to survive, and that remains precarious too. The answer cannot be just to think only of products that liberate money from people's wallets and call that free market and success.

Capitalism/financial crisis: relevant ancient history

Besides God, there is nothing more important to humanity than good stewardship of the earth. By this I mean the basics, such as the ability of humans to grow food and feed all of the population (without imposing population controls) and for humans to wisely manage the ecosystems so that flora and fauna can continue to grow and flourish, and not meet extinction unless it is genuinely their time.

People must learn to be shepherds of the wild and natural flora and fauna, being activist within the natural order of things. Thus they should not be blind exploiters, nor should they be laissez faire protectionists (where they protect the land but then do not lift a finger to either prune or encourage the species within). It is not a coincidence that God gave humans to understand that the earth is a garden because gardeners tend to their garden; they neither exploit the garden nor do they seal it off to be "all natural."

Why do I mention this? It is important to understand that more of humanity's education, jobs and interest must be redirected away from the false (electronic entertainment for example) and more toward the reality of tending to the earth. That is what genuine "green jobs" should be.

I also mention this as part of my helping people to realign their thinking back to reality, and to find their way back to sanity, and back away from the freak show societal delusions. So I want to explain to you something that used to be well understood, but I'm not sure it is taught in schools anymore.

Why did humans invent writing and number systems so they can count? Not to write down stories. Not to label the great buildings with the names of the kings. Not to develop Egyptian hieroglyphs for memorializing the dead. Humans invented writing and counting for one simple reason: to inventory their food supplies.

The earliest writing is preserved from Sumeria, now known as Iraq, in the form of clay tablets and also"cylinder seals." These are blocks of stones shaped like tubes, so that when one rolls the seal the message is also unrolled. As a former antiquities collector I always wanted to add a Sumerian cylinder seal to my collection, but did not get the opportunity to afford one.

When experts decipher the very earliest of human writing, they do not find sacred scripture or the deeds of mythical or real kings. They find boring crop reports, preserved on many clay tablets. Later tablets, but more often the cylinders, were used to depict scenes, history and divine beliefs.

Remember, then, those crop reports were not boring for people who live and die based on what they can grow in that season. Just ask those in Africa and Asia, and those in drought areas elsewhere today, and you will realize that all of mundane life is ultimately summarized and glorified in the ability of the good earth to provide for humans who are fruitful and who multiply, those who share the blessings of earth with new infants, and not resent, as so many "greens" seem to do, new life and new mouths to feed.

Sometimes it is very helpful to remember that writing, which is used so much for "entertainment" and agenda driven purposes today, and numbers, which have also been given by some people a weird and incorrect supernatural and superstitious importance, would not have been invented at all if people did not realize the most fundamental need, which is to provide the goodness of adequate food for all who need it. The old saying is that "necessity is the mother of invention." Writing and counting were invented because of the need to understand and inventory food supplies. Once writing and counting were invented, it is later that they are used for other purposes.

This, by the way, is one reason that Abraham was so wealthy: it was not gold or silver, but agricultural goods and flocks, so that his family could grow and support with love all who were born within it. Wealth among early humans was measured by counting one's flocks and one's harvest, so one knew that one could support their family and contribute to the clan and tribe's survival.

Sometimes to disinfect the skewing of mindset that has taken place, and what moderns take for granted, it is useful to think back to what used to be taught with some detail in schools, which is the agricultural basis for not only capitalism (which I explained in many previous blog posts) but also writing and counting. Thus people ascribe very strange "purposes" to the written word and to numbers, without understanding that they serve humans, and humans do not serve the written word or numbers.

I hope that you have found this helpful.

If you read articles about cylinder seals, you find that they speak almost exclusively of the more "glamorous" topics, such as deities and history, since that is, of course, what they were later used for and are of the most interest to archaeologists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cylinder_seals

This is a great introduction to the beginning of agriculture in the area of Sumeria, and also the written tools I describe here in this blog.

http://www.nlcs.k12.in.us/oljrhi/brown/mesopotamia/meso.htm

But the more boring history indicates what I have explained above, which is that it was not the desire to record history that promoted writing and counting (since oral history continued very strongly after writing and counting were invented), but that the actual inventions of writing and counting centered around the essential inventory of food stuffs, both their aquisitions storage and their trade.

Cannot resist posting bank corruption story

I heard about this at one of the banks I worked for in the 1990's.

This was told to me as it was happening by someone in a position to know, but not in a position to do anything about it.

A trader stole millions of dollars from the bank using the "trade tickets in the drawer" method. I don't remember how much but it was truly an enormous amount of money.

When he was detected in his theft the bank declined to press charges and covered the whole thing up out of fear that he would ruin their reputation by being in the press and explaining how stupid and weak the bank was (it had a sterling reputation among its customers).

So he was allowed to leave with the millions he had stolen and given a good reference!

He went to work a few days later for a trading location "across the street."

I was told this was not an uncommon thing, where insiders were allowed to get away with what they stole in return for keeping quiet and supposedly preserving the reputation of the bank.

The only evidence I have is that this person was really scared when this person told me and especially when the bank got busy trying to find out who inside knew about this. This honest and really hard working person was really, really scared and wished that he or she did not know about it for fear of being purged or something.

And you wonder why the problems have all come home to roost, and people like me have suffered for not being an insider at the dishonest pig trough.

Capitalism/financial crisis rule of thumb

I've written much on this subject but tonight want to just give you a rule of thumb as a basis for discussion of where we should go and what we should do to fix the incredible mess.

If you read in my previous post the excerpts from FDR's inaugural address, it will be helpful for you to understand the point I am about to make.

Somewhere between FDR's time and today, modern society has, to their error and peril, redefined citizens of this country as "consumers."

In other words, the entire national psyche has stopped thinking of people as individuals (and communities) who "have lives" and replaced them with an image of "consumers."

In fact, this view of people as being only consumers has been codified into every business structure, particularly large businesses and corporations, by government laws and regulations, by the tax code, and by the coarse culture at large (e.g. news, entertainment and advertising).

The concept of "jobs" is one of the battlelines drawn in the sand regarding the question of whether people are living human beings or consumers. Those who tend to think that people are living human beings tend to, like FDR, focus on the vital importance for everyone who wants and needs a meaningful job to have one. That is because jobs are the activity that human beings engage in, in order to continue to live.

Those who oppose emphasis on jobs claim they do so because "job creation programs do not work," but they are actually revealing their almost robotic programming that people are not people but "consumers." That is why they parrot over and over "let the market decide," and "the government is not good at fixing problems" and "we must have 'free markets.'" They believe, some of them sincerely, that they advocate the "American dream," but instead they are part of the American nightmare.

Young people in particular, do read almost any literature from the time of the 1930's and 1940's, from FDR's time, and keep what I said in mind and you will be struck by the difference. FDR sniffed that very bad change in the wind, which is why he was so harsh in criticizing immoral business practices, such as exploitive banking. Yet even he who was so visionary would not have foreseen a time such as today where American society and each other so often think people as simply being "consumers," no longer concerned with the dignity of day to day life, including a job.

This country will die a miserable death if we do not regain an awareness of people as individuals with needs for living, not needs for spending. People need the basics, what I have called sustenance portion of capitalism, and that includes good and lasting jobs. It is then the excess, the surplus of their labor where they can engage in the activity of consumerism. That is totally different from the current situation where people self manipulate and manipulate each other as beings that are only open maws of consumers. I do not understand how any scholarly or thoughtful "free market" advocates do not understand that the reduction of humans and their lives to the definition of "consumers" is just as bad as if the government and each other viewed humans as potential military draftees and that was their sole identity.

Work with me on that analogy. To better understand how human beings and their lives have been enslaved and chained into the identity of "consumers," think about what our country would be like if we did not have an active military draft, but that every human was viewed as having value only as a potential military draftee. We would have physical education programs for our kids that emphasized combat skills and readiness. We would rewrite the curriculum of our schools to produce good potential soldiers. We would have recruiters everywhere extolling the virtue of service, perhaps one located in every classroom in every school. The recruiters would point out during studies those skills and world events that are the most interest to potential soldiers and the best role models. What would entertainment be like? Movies that pine for the draft and glorify it. Fashion? Clothes that reminded the wearer that they could be called to service at any time. What would the job pecking order be like? Jobs that would support a draft would be highly esteemed, while those that had nothing to do with the draft would be viewed as low status. Cars could be designed like small tanks so that civilian drivers could "get used to" the feel of a tank, or another war machine or vessel, "just in case."

So do you see how the mindset of the people when they surrender the idea that they are citizens and human beings and are instead "a verb" has totally dire consequences? In my analogy the humans in that scenario are no longer people-citizens-but a verb (actually an adverb), "ones who might be drafted." Today we are no longer humans but we are a verb, an adverb, a noun and an identity based on one manic activity, which is to "consume."

President Obama is entirely correct to focus on jobs as the cornerstone of recovery. Yes, jobs programs can be messed up, but the identity of the human beings is correct and sound, unlike in this nightmare of a consumer driven economy and worse, as self identity as consumers. Even faith has become far too consumer oriented, where "product" is packaged and consumed. This is a disaster, one that is based on a total misunderstanding of genuine capitalism (as I've explained in many previous posts; if you are new just follow the capitalism and financial crisis labels for more of what I've previously written).

I cannot overemphasize and just repeat my draftee analogy the problem with human beings and their lives being viewed as simply variations of consumers. This is not semantics because as I show in my analogy, an erroneous view of humanity cascades and infects all aspects of individual life, curtails freedom and demeans the individual and their local communities. That, by the way, is another byproduct of the trend away from supposedly "inefficient" local business to multi corporation "centralized" banks and other service providers or product producers. When locally owned business dries up and vanishes you have people who view multiple states, the entire country, and even globally humans as being "current consumers" and "potential consumers." They are no longer people living lives and living in communities. They are only consumers of your products. So any genuine job revitalization must be understood as a local resource that enables local residents to have good ongoing lives, not fill the coffers of people who are far away and again, just view job creation as a way to stimulate consumption for their own benefit. That is a complicated topic that needs its own post. My point remains to you, however, that jobs are not just "the way that those consumer-robots can start spending money again."

I hope you have found this helpful. Before it is too late would be nice.

Capitalism/financial crisis, another comparison

This one is especially for young people who don't remember, actually, when alternative two was a genuine alternative, nor the debate that we had when "conglomeration" became an issue. Actually it was not much of a social or economic debate because we were just steam rolled into accepting it as the new norm.

Which is better?

You have a man who has become a great success with his own company. He started out with one company in his area of expertise, let's say a chemical company. He has decided to "diversify" so he starts acquiring businesses that are outside of and separate from his original area of expertise. So let's say he buys a candy making company, a clothing manufacturer, a television station and a manufacturer of health care products. They all are now part of his "conglomerate." How are they purchased? By paying large fees to financial managers, and then stripping off parts of the acquired companies that are viewed as not helping the bottom line. For "efficiencies" jobs that are "duplicating" are eliminated. The success of the conglomerate is measured by the one stock of the conglomerate and by the salaries the executives receive.

or

You have a man who has become a great success with his own company. He started out with one company in his area of expertise, let's say a chemical company. He decides to diversify so using his successful model he helps other chemical companies to start up, and to explore greener product lines. He thus goes into new lines of his old business and prospers, while modernizing his own company to be more green and innovative (let's say how to break down the very chemicals he produces in times where a pollution clean up is needed). He is honored as someone who is part of the solution, not part of the problem, and his company thrives, including bringing good jobs to underdeveloped countries.

A candy company has been in business for a long time and provides one hundred people with steady jobs. They "break even" each year; they operate at no loss but not with much profit. Yet one hundred people have homes, benefits and good jobs that they can count on. The owner thinks about offering her product on the Internet or partnering in marketing during special events, thus she continually looks for steady market growth or at least maintenance.

A clothing company is struggling, and they worry about the hundred people who work for them, if they will keep their jobs. They are tempted to let themselves be acquired, knowing that this will be a payout for the owners, but probably the demise of the local jobs. Instead of doing that they decide to remain where they are and find other ways to thrive and keep the local jobs. They create a new line of clothes that is branded by a local celebrity and sold in the casinos. Thus they have a unique clothing product that is not subject to the lowest price wars. They thus create and hang onto their niche, and those jobs.

I don't know much about the television station business, but know that they were the first to be sucked up by media conglomerates. I think that is a free market example of where the chips fall where they may. The question is, does being acquired by a media conglomerate give it more financial security, or render it a mouthpiece for certain viewpoints or "entertainment?" The station owners and managers make a thoughtful decision based on that question.

When the owners of a small health care product line are first asked about their interest in merging with a conglomerate, they wonder, "Why?" They know they have a small but important product, one that is not market driven so much as healthcare need driven. The conglomerate offers large "PR" and "advertising" resources, and says they can hook them up with decision makers who make bulk purchases. It's tempting, but would the product still be manufactured where it is, preserving the local jobs? Could they not do a better job themselves of marketing their product and keeping their profits rather than be absorbed into a conglomerate balance sheet? Would the conglomerate even know anything about their line of health care and care about their patients and their ability to afford their products? The conglomerate's interest stirs them to explore their options, but they recognize that their first obligation is to preserving their local jobs and meeting the needs of their patients and customers at the lowest possible cost.

Capitalism/financial crisis: a question for you

Which is the better situation?

You have two separate companies in the same line of business, let's say two small community banks. Each one is financially solid and solvent, but not dramatic. One bank employs about one hundred people and the other employs about two hundred people. Everyone gets a good salary and benefits. Thus three hundred people, including the top managers, earn "a good living" but are not exactly plutocrats or captains of industry.

-or-

The bank with one hundred people figures they could "do better" and takes over the bank of two hundred people. They "merge" and eliminate "duplicate services." They now employ a total of two hundred and twenty people, eliminating eighty of the previous employees. The deal makers made a big commission out of the merger and the managers make more money. The "shareholders" get a few cents more per share in earnings than they did before.


That is the problem. All of western society has been brainwashed to think that scenario number two is "better."

Babies' health, spiritually and for the economy

It's a sign of the times, and not a good one, that many of you might wonder what the health of infants has to do with the economy and the current economic crisis. These modern times are so ill informed and warped in their priorities that obvious connections are no longer recognized or well understood. So here are some thoughts and background for you to contemplate.

For virtually all of human history parents have had many children, and several of them have died young. As recently as the early 1900's this was an unsurprising pattern. Everyone knew a family who had a baby die at birth or soon after. It was a great sorrow and not spoken about, not because people were ashamed of the poor baby, but because that was how everyone was "in the same boat" and coped by feeling sorrow but moving on.

We then had tremendous health breakthroughs in the middle 1900's where prenatal care was better understood and provided, hospitals provided rapid response to problem births, and people began to learn how to treat many birth defect conditions and other problems that put a baby's life at risk.

I don't know if young people today know the old expression of relief that new parents would express, saying "As soon as he or she was born we counted all his or her fingers and toes." This is from the time when there was no sonogram or other prenatal diagnosis of fetal health, and upon first sight virtually all parents "checked" the hands and feet of their newborn for all the fingers and toes. Birth was a time of suspense because as I said, everyone knew a family who had lost a baby in birth or in young childhood and the counting the fingers and toes was a kind of "laughing in the dark" ritual that accompanied the sigh of relief when a birth was healthy and successful.

Humans have a horrible problem of back sliding, though. One would assume that infant health would only get better and better as society and technology "progressed," but it has not. For example, just as infant prenatal and post natal doctor care improved, women took up smoking cigarettes. Women did not smoke, either while pregnant or normally, until pretty recently. So in a way, much of the health of infants that was achieved through technology progress was canceled out by women taking up cigarette smoking. A study announced today shows that women who smoke while pregnant put their children at higher risk of being aggressive. That is a risk factor that simply did not exist throughout human history, just to give you one example. During more socially prurient times mainstream women did not smoke cigarettes, drink or take illegal drugs, including marijuana. Thus on the one hand women gained the benefits of prenatal care and more prosperous lives in which to have safer births (housing, heating, vaccinations, antibiotics, for example). However, on the other hand, "liberated" women started putting substances into their bodies both before and during pregnancy. See, I am not explaining this to blame, but to educate especially the young people about why things change the way that they do in human social and medical history. As having babies became safer women (and the fathers) accelerated their unsafe choices that canceled out much of the progress.

Further, lifestyle and environmental situations changed around all humans, both those having children and not. For example there is a huge influx of food additives, chemicals such as in plastic, medication and hormones that are in the drinking water, and toxins in the air and even more insidiously in the household. Again, the health gains of safer prenatal care and post birth delivery and treatment of any birth defects or conditions has been canceled out by the acute toxicity of the environment. In my time I have witnessed houses that used to be made out of natural materials (wood, stone, brick, etc) be replaced by houses made out of artificial chemically produced and "treated" materials. People were slow to recognize that humans have built two generations of "sick buildings." Upholstery and carpet used to be made from cotton and wool. Now it is filled with toxic material. We used to wash our bodies and homes with soap and water. Now the "cleansers" are worse than the dirt and those that kill germs only breed stronger and stranger germs to replace them.

So now we see all sorts of mysterious physical, emotional and mental reactions in babies and children and lots of them look like "allergies." The asthma crisis of several decades ago should have been the first wake up call. Mold and the dander and leavings of vermin such as roaches are a large contributor to the asthma crisis. But now it is even more insidious because even the "cleanest" modern house is filled with toxins. Just as an example, those expensive lovely granite countertops in the finest homes sometimes emit radiation. Scented products are no longer scented by the actual flower or herb but potentially toxic chemicals. So your "cinnamon"candle does not have cinnamon but a chemical that is "derived" from or "smells like" cinnamon.

Thus there is a confluence of three tragic things:
1) People have very high and unrealistic expectations about the health and survivability of all of their children since they only remember the good times where people could take it somewhat for granted, and thus forget that there has always been a real risk of losing a child to death or being presented with very serious life curtailing conditions.
2) People have unwittingly canceled out much of the progress in infant and child health by engaging in optional activities (drugs, drinking, smoking) or enduring unwittingly enforced (surrounded by toxic products) high risk conditions.
3) People have not invested their economy's wealth into addressing these problems and promoting the best of healthcare, free healthcare, for all pregnant women and their fetuses, and their born infants and growing children.

So here is the economic kicker. No economy thrives or survives that is not based on a high child bearing population.

"It's not the spending, stupid."

People think that "spending" is the key to the successful western economy. It is NOT. The key to the (previously) successful western economy was an economy that was highly child and child birth oriented.

The "baby boom" was a great time, not because babies were born with charge cards and thus we had "more spenders."

The "baby boom" was a great time because genuine economic growth and thriving relies on lots of people having lots of children and building child friendly communities and thus jobs.

Where there are many children there were investments in health care facilities, schools, infant and child clothing and products, nutrition industries... you name it.

What is key is that these were lasting products. A school is not a video game.

This country has invested in total trash for thirty years now while losing all the gains of "progress" regarding our infants and children.

I do not understand how the economy can survive and recover, especially in the form of the "faux capitalism" that I've explained previously that has ruined genuine capitalism, if it does not reform to have a new orientation toward the having of children in families.

We lack babies, we lack children, we lack jobs, we lack health care for those who do have children, we have more, not less, troubled children with grave medical or emotional woes, we have less healthy communities that are structured around schools and family place of worship, and ultimately we have less workers and people who participate in the grassroots life and growth of the economy.

While people are yapping about "carbon credits" they are letting their babies (if they even had any) crawl on artificial chemically infested surfaces, letting water get polluted, ignoring sewage treatment plant needs, not researching childhood diseases and conditions as much as they could have been, and letting communities that used to be child-centric dissolve into narcissistic enclaves of "self actualizing" garbage oriented "entertainment."

If I were President Elect Obama I would not sign funding for a single "project" that does not have an "invest in our children" orientation, one way or the other.

Healthy or desperately sick, all children should live within a total network of family and community support. I cannot believe the crap that this country has invested its treasure in while parents of sick children lack proper care and have to fight for the smallest of gains.

That's why I believe that there should be free medical care for prenatal and young infants and children and kick the stupid and greedy insurance companies right out of it. I've blogged about this before, presenting my vision and arguments for why this economy will never recover (say nothing of the country's spiritual goodness) if there is not comprehensive and free prenatal (NOT "market driven") preventative and medical care for prenatal to age of majority children, period.

With such a system you would also address the problems that are now plaguing our children, whether asthma, diabetes, obesity, autism, rare or common birth defects, teenage depression and nihilism, addiction etc. All children need in a just and prosperous society comprehensive medical care and a system of preventative medicine that includes components such as vitamins and nutrition.

I don't understand how economists and other "experts" do not realize that a successful economy relies on a vigorous and loving birth rate in a stable child-oriented community structure nationwide, not on "spending" in and of itself.

Meanwhile, start to educate yourselves about the housing materials that you take for granted. We are all living among materials that are hazardous and unnatural and it is only getting worse, not better.

Some of it is "lazy safety" thinking. Rather than being careful around fire and so forth people started pouring "fire retardant" chemicals onto the fabrics and building substances around them. This is just an example of where what looks like a safety "break through" is the addition of needless chemicals. The same with food additives: rather than cook fresh food people eat pounds of "preservatives" in every bite of food that they consume. I remember the days when things were packaged in waxed paper and glass; now it is plastic and God knows what added to the handy packaging for "microwaves."

Think about Korea and Japan, who used to have traditional housing of wood such as bamboo and even paper. As they moved to modern housing they have also had increases in instances such as the recent discuss of Kawasaki syndrome. Japan is a useful study and I've blogged about this before. Breast cancer among Japanese women was extremely rare until the 1960's when those who moved to the USA and also adopted western diet and probably trigger substances in their environment observed that their numbers now converged on what western women experienced.

This country will not "get back to good" unless it becomes child oriented again and we look long and hard at the environmental pollution of home and work place substances, and until we treat all children, sick and well, for free and comprehensively. I get lots of sheer frustration headaches whenever I think about this topic and look at the horrible mess that everyone is in today.

Case study: Understanding America

I believe that no one can effectively understand, love or govern any part of the United States of America unless one has read one specific poem, "Prairie" by Carl Sandburg (my favorite poet).

You know how in science fiction books and fantasy novels sometimes the hero discovers something like an instant learning helmet, where he or she puts it on and they suddenly have a lot of knowledge and wisdom put directly into his or her brain?

"Prairie" accomplishes the same thing. It explains the land of America, the people of America, God, time, destiny, hopes, reality, joy, the economy and peace of mind. One also cannot truly understand the environment or being "green" without reading and studying this poem.

Carl Sandburg was hardly wearing rose colored glasses, so even cynics can have total confidence in his vision. He saw the horrors of service in World War I, and has antiwar and Socialist credentials! But he also believed in God, and admired Abraham Lincoln above all men, spending years in study of him.

Follow this link and study this poem, allowing yourself to really feel section by section what he is transmitting, and you will have an instant transfusion of understanding American. Print it out and read it a few times, at leisure, over these next few days.

"Put on your instant learning and wisdom helmet" here:

http://www.bartleby.com/134/1.html

marymajor's Diary: December 29

And Jesus looking round, said to his disciples, "With what difficulty will they who have riches enter the kingdom of God!" Mark 10:23.


In the USA it's only a few days until the end of the calendar year and also the end of the tax year.

Thus it is the time of year that, depending on the tax code, the engaged delay or speed up their weddings, in order to achieve the best tax "break," whether to file taxes as a married couple or not.

Thus it is the time of year that those who are pregnant with child hope that "Daddy's little tax deduction" hurries up and gets born, as the child then counts for the entire year. In modern medicine they will "help" make this possible.

When I was born, people were married because they loved each other and had their wedding plans and household established.

When I was born babies were born because it was their natural time.

My mother was a little annoyed that I was born a bit late, but not because she and my father were "aiming for the right date."

In California a man who was married was divorced by his wife because she discovered that he claimed a yearly tax deduction for a disabled child of his that didn't live with him nor did he support the child. But he needed that tax deduction because that's the way the arm of the Antichrist, the tax code, has now ruled the mindset of families for many years now.

They divorced, she went to her parents' Christmas party, he followed with guns and a canister of rocket fuel. All are now dead in smouldering ruins as a country asks "Why?"

Taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes.

Right or wrong "dates."

Marriages and babies "timed" in order to satisfy the cruel people in the suits.

I'm glad that I was born when it was my natural time. Oh, but wait, for years I was hurt by those who thought my birth date "meant something bad" according to their "beliefs."

Jerusalem of the west has fallen in its ethics a long time ago.

Even in Babylon babies were encouraged to be born when God sent them, and people wed when they found each other, and the means to live.

No wonder so many get drunk on New Year's Eve.

And some say that drugs should be legalized so that "they can be controlled and taxed."

Even Babylon was better than that.

Capitalism/Financial Crisis: ADVICE

As local, state and federal governments and agencies look to their budgets and programs, especially where there is a need to stimulate growth and provide jobs, here is essential advice. (This also applies somewhat to private capitalists, but to a lesser degree, helping more in where you locate facilities and also plan new product).

When you do your program by program examination of what you have and what you propose to do, as part of the review identify the multiple purposes of each program. Do not do this defensively, but do it honestly. Here is an example. I've seen a lot of kind of "arty" programs and projects supported in the past where they are characterized as "revitalizing a neighborhood" or "providing jobs." I'm not bashing arts, but I want to use the example of building a museum to make the point. In the past I've seen local governments decide to invest in some art facility because they hope that it will be a cornerstone of revitalizing a neighborhood, etc. Here's the problem: they "hope." They rarely know. Yet at the same time other essential service programs and other opportunities for revitalization are ignored or starved. This is because "ideals" and "assumptions" cloud the investment and budgetary decision making.

Now, here is where an idea to build a museum (to "revitalize" or to "provide jobs") would be a good idea because it is "multi-purpose." Suppose that it is located in a neighborhood that does not have a Boys and Girls club, strong after school programs, or sports and it INCLUDES in the building of the museum a staffed and safe community center. This way you provide multiple benefits in one decision: 1) you are motivated to locate the theoretical "new museum" in a neighborhood that truly needs the stimulation (even if on the face of it you think, "Huh?" put a museum 'there?') 2) you use the same building and utilities and potentially even the staff for two separate but compatible purposes, to provide art exhibition and to provide a community center that provides real sports, after school programs, and creative activities for the neighborhood's youth, on a large scale, and safely 3) you will get more benefit from infrastructure (road, parking lot, etc) improvements because in all likelihood that area was already deficient 4) you might offset some expense in the long run if educational success of the area is raised and crime is lowered.

Now I know that it's unlikely people are pondering such projects, but keep this in mind for all sorts of projects, such as sports stadiums. I think that people should consider housing a separate but compatible beneficial use for the community (a real one, one that is staffed, secure and is needed, not dedicating an empty room and calling it a "community center") so that great public works projects (including private ones that get tax breaks) are not single purpose. Further, you need to consider "multiple use" in even the types of projects that most are thinking about today, such as public works to improve infrastructure, such as roads and bridges. Use this time to decide if that road or bridge has impact beyond just being safe to drive. In other words, revisit plans and think about if a change in the plans might solve several problems, such as relieve congestion or safety issues, steer motorists toward areas that need the stimulation of more potential customers. Don't feel stuck investing in fixing a road just because it is there, if perhaps the community would prefer a rerouting that supports multiple purpose (restore communities to eliminate commuter traffic going through them, vitalize business sections that are bypassed, have more logical connections using bridges, etc.)

Be honest and have your planners look at each existing or proposed new project with "new eyes" to list the multiple purpose and benefits of each and re-assess and re-prioritize with that perspective and information where it would be advantageous. I hope that you have found this helpful.

Capitalism/financial crisis trade/purity issue

I do not understand why "free market" advocates constantly push for more trade without saying one word about how to not only maintain but increase testing and guarantee of any imported product, especially food, medicine and toys, safety and quality.

Sorry to be blunt, but someone has to be. Just as ethics have degraded in the USA, foreign developing countries have companies that often never had ethics in the first place. The obvious example is what has happened in China about the melamine in milk, but the purpose of this post is to explain to you that this has been a trusting and naive generation in the USA, used to putting anything in your mouth or your children's without giving a thought to deliberate poisoners on the other end. Read this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7750464.stm

snip

Nigeria's food and drug agency says that 25 children aged between three months and four years have died after taking a contaminated teething syrup.
The National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control said it had shut down the Lagos-based manufacturer, Barewa Pharmaceuticals.
It said the syrup, called My Pikin, had been tainted with diethylene glycol.
The substance, used in engine coolant and anti-freeze, triggered kidney failure in the children, it said.
The children died at three hospitals in Lagos, Ibadan and Zaria.
At least 10 other children are reported to have been brought to hospital.
The NAFDAC said symptoms among the children who had taken the syrup included diarrhoea, vomiting, fever and convulsions, and that they had not been able to pass urine for several days.
The agency said it had first received reports of possible contamination on 19 November and had begun to confiscate the syrup two days later.
"NAFDAC officers nationwide have been directed to mop up all batches of the offending drug from circulation," the agency's head, Dora Akunyili, was quoted as saying.
She also appealed to mothers to stop using the medicine on their children.


Now here is my point. Both the left and the right in economic and trade policy have been asleep at the wheel. The left thinks it is all enlightened and groovy to stimulate the economies of poor countries by importing their goods to the USA. The right thinks this is the "competitive free market at its best," since of course goods from developing countries are cheap. But look, here is another example where obviously some people don't mind putting a deadly chemical in baby teething formula for their own country's children!

How does this stuff get in these products? Greed is the reason whether an accidental contamination or deliberate. If it is an accident that means they cut corners on cleanliness and purity in the factory. If it is deliberate then they are substituting industrial chemicals for the more costly active food or medical ingredients. Either way the reason is to be cheap and thus greedy.

So I do not understand why there are less resources in the United States who work full time at not only testing all products before they enter but are part of the initial trade negotiation process. "If I were in charge" I would never sign a trade agreement without US inspectors not only doing initial inspections of all likely import products (to gain background information on how the goods that might enter the USA are being made, and create a database in advance) but also there should be an incremental addition to the FDA, customs and other inspecting organizations at the time any new trade agreement is signed. They should be "specialists," then, for the products that the new trade agreement proposes to allow into the country.

This is part of our horrible financial and economic meltdown, just as much as the mortgage problem, because it reflects the breakdown of standards of quality and due diligence on behalf of the American public.

Somehow American governments, agencies, and corporations, pushed by both the left and the right, think that just because the USA has a friendly relationship with a country, and wishes to do good by opening trade, that automatically like magic dust that means that all of the product suppliers and manufacturers in that country are well educated and ethical folks, and that their product can be swapped as "just as good but cheaper" as anything that had been previously grown or made in the USA. That is one of the most incredibly naive views of both greed and "culture" that I've seen in the past several decades. Our parents and grandparents used to be suspicious of imported aka "foreign" goods for a reason, not because they are prejudiced dolts, but many of them know that things are not too nice and clean, and anything will be done for a buck, in many of these places. But that knowledge has been dismissed as being old fuddy duddies who are prejudiced. Anyone with a lick of common sense and world experience, though, knows that "any thing goes" in most of the developing country marketplaces, including deliberately putting poisonous industrial chemicals in products for babies.

WISE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would not sign a single trade agreement, no matter how "nice" the country or how "worthy" the desire for mutual benefit and trade without some sort of advance product vetting by legitimate and beefed up USA agencies. A database should be established in advance so that if any problem does arise, Washington is not scratching their arses wondering "where did those tomatos or chiles come from?" Sheesh.

Capitalism/financial crisis with history excerpt

Today I want to explain a kind of catch bag of economic concepts. While I am fully aware of professional terminology such as “the fundamentals” and “money velocity,” I’m not going to use them for the reasons I’ve explained previously, which is they are definitions used to describe warped and skewed capitalism, not genuine capitalism as it first emerged in its true form. I had the misfortune of working with highly paid and arrogant bank economists and I observed first hand that their education, and subsequent “Unreal Greed Street” job experience, hardened their misunderstanding of the origins of their own profession. Also, I obviously am not trying to train the people who read my blog to do more of the same of what has not only not worked, but was incorrectly crafted in the first place. However, I mention my background so that I can reach out to economists who genuinely do wish to do well and help the country-and all of the people and also, by implication, those in the world who depend upon the health of the USA to ensure their own. There are so many well formed ideas that I have, and so much background information that I would need to convey, that this is why I decided to lightly touch on a number of topics rather than go in depth in any one of them today. I know both the financial experts will get what I am saying nonetheless, as will those who have been following what I’m teaching as concerned citizens. I especially want at this time to reach out to local governments (states, cities, towns, counties, parishes and so forth) in order to help them cope and be heartened that there is a reasonable approach to solving our problems, one that is still firmly grounded in the Constitution.

So here I will introduce and explain a number of topics, in no particular order, just as they occur to me today, having been on my mind for many years.

The first is to understand money (in the form of currency, not theoretical measures of wealth) and how to properly assess the best uses of it. The trouble with money, and let’s use the American example of the dollar bill, is that like I’ve explained previously, people jump too quickly to thinking about some end goal without considering how the dollar bill has made its way there. Think of a dollar bill in an analogy (you knew one was coming, didn’t you?) Let’s think of a given dollar bill as an old fashioned antibiotic, such as penicillin. I’m not selecting penicillin as a hidden symbol of the dollar bill being less effective or out of favor, but because penicillin was the world changing discovery that first allowed humans to treat themselves successfully against infection. Likewise the use of standardization of currency was a wonderful development that allowed humans to do many things they could not otherwise do. Also I’m not implying that only the sick need a dollar bill, LOL, (though it seems like only the sick are the money managers, but that is a whole other problem!) I want to use the analogy so everyone can understand how a dose of money works its benefit throughout the economy and just as importantly, how it does not work as a magic cure all for every situation.

When doing some important financial planning task, such as trying to stimulate a local economy, there is a concept of looking at how quickly a dollar bill moves within that area, and whether it stays in that area, and how many hands touch and presumably benefit from it. This is a wise concept but one that has been totally misapplied and has become misunderstood. Would be economic planners sometimes think that if a dollar touches, let’s say ten local merchants, that it has done more “good” for the “local economy” than a dollar that touches two or three local merchants. But that is not always true. Using the penicillin analogy, if the penicillin touches ten local merchants, but only one of them was sick, what was the benefit of that? It’s almost as though the genuinely sick merchant was lucky to get a touch of the penicillin dollar bill. Suppose the dollar bill that touched “only” two or three merchants, however, was targeted to touch those that who were genuinely sick. Therefore the analogous penicillin dollar bill proved the wiser investment where it touched “only” two or three genuinely “sick” merchants than the dollar bill who touched ten merchants, only one of whom was “sick.” Economists, local planners and the hidden money plutocrats and mandarins who pull the strings behind the scenes both innocently and deliberately misunderstand this concept and abuse it accordingly. So my first lesson is that money that does not touch the right hands and settle in the right places does not perform its function.

Now, before I hear the howls of those who accuse me of wanting to “redistribute wealth,” you are totally wrong and I am not saying that. I am telling you how to invest your money properly, not trying to take it away from you. I have seen over the decades people make what they think are both wise and compassionate investment and charitable donations, and who might as well have burned the money in the parking lot, because they did not understand what I have just explained. I’m not trying to “redistribute your wealth,” I’m trying to be the wise investment planner that you never had as your partner. So whenever one assesses a dose of penicillin dollar bill, do not be tempted by visions of that dollar bill going from let’s say gas station to grocery store to bank account to paycheck to buying some home furnishing and compare it to some other use of the dollar bill and immediately conclude that since the first use, to use a baseball analogy, “touched five bases” that it is automatically more “stimulating” to the community that let’s say a dollar bill that went into a much need school repair. In the latter case, that dollar bill might only have moved “once,” from the payer hands to the contractor payee (and to keep the comparison pure, let’s assume the contractor sent the earned dollar out of state and had brought supplies in from out of state), nonetheless that dollar bill might have had a cascading economic benefit that was as if one hundred dollar bills “magically” appeared. The wise penicillin dollar bill might have kept a few more kids in school who might have dropped out and turned to crime, it might have stimulated more after school scholarly or sports activities for a dozen other kids, it might have avoided some insurance payout due to decaying school conditions, and thus avoided a future loss, etc. I know for a fact that hardly anyone understands and uses that concept of measuring a penicillin dollar impact on a local community or in fact in any given fiscal problem. Instead they retreat to the standard talking points, which over time they have come to believe, which are, to list just a few, “trickle down,” “keep the money local,” “stimulate local business,” “give back to the community” and so forth. Thus both the left and the right totally misunderstand how to properly gauge and manage the best impact of any penicillin dollar in either their personal planning or their community, or national, fiscal spending.

I’m reminded of one of President Grant’s stories from his memoirs and will repeat it here because you will see how that mindset crept into society as it happened. Here Grant sees himself as the average educated white man who understands money (this was in the beginning of his Army career), so please do not read this with the usual prickliness about racism, but consider that he thought he was actually observing an ignorant practice by the local Native Americans. That is one of the problems with today (I first observed it in my Ivy League university in 1971-5), which is that people refuse to read any further and learn from historical literature if they think the author was, despite the context of the times, “racist” or “sexist.” So if you want to own your own mind you need to learn to read without wincing and prejudging the observations that people made during certain times in history, period.

OK, so think about the penicillin dollar when you read this.

When I was stationed on the Pacific coast we were free from Indian wars. There were quite a number of remnants of tribes in the vicinity of Portland in Oregon, and of Fort Vancouver in Washington Territory. They had generally acquired some of the vices of civilization, but none of the virtues, except in individual cases. The Hudson’s Bay Company had held the Northwest with their trading posts for many years before the United States was represented on the Pacific coast. They still retained posts along the Columbia River and one at Fort Vancouver, when I was there. Their treatment of the Indians had brought out the better qualities of the savages. Farming had been undertaken by the company to supply the Indians with bread and vegetables; they raised some cattle and horses; and they had now taught the Indians to do the labor of the farm and herd. They always compensated them for their labor, and always gave them goods of uniform quality and at uniform price.

Before the advent of the American, the medium of exchange between the Indian and the white man was pelts. Afterward it was silver coin. If an Indian received in the sale of a horse a fifty dollar gold piece, not an infrequent occurrence, the first thing he did was to exchange it for American half dollars. These he could count. He would then commence his purchase, paying for each article separately, as he got it. He would not trust any one to add up the bill and pay it all at once. At that day fifty dollar gold pieces, not the issue of the government, were common on the Pacific coast. They were called slugs.

Now, here is what Grant meant by saying the Indians would pay for each item. Suppose you went to the grocery store to buy milk, bread, meat, a carrot and an apple. You let the check out clerk total your purchases and you pay once the total, receiving change. However, the Indians would have the clerk ring up the bread, and then pay for the bread, ring up the milk, and then pay for the milk, ring up the meat, and then pay for the meat and so forth for the five full separate transactions. Grant said it was because they did not trust the clerk to add up the total correctly, but you know, do you not see now, that it was more than that. The Indians maintained control and value judgment over each item piece by piece. The value of each individual item was not hidden in the total. It’s not that they just didn’t trust the adding up of the total (and I bet they had good reason to not trust in many situations!) Even if someone could prove that the clerk was always honest and that the total was the same as each price individually, they still would have stuck to the individual payment of individual items. This is because despite being “ignorant” they instinctively understood both a benefit and danger of capitalism. The benefit of capitalism was money they could trust (even though the slugs were not minted by the government, they were based on the gold standard) and so they readily accepted as wise that development of capitalism, which was a trustworthy standard means of exchange of a precious metal. However, they instinctively recognized that a danger of capitalism was the tyranny of the “sum total” mentality. When one manages money using sum totals, the meaning and wisdom of individual purchases is hidden and indeed lost. We all experience this feeling ourselves when we “throw a few things in the grocery cart” and then find a higher price than we expected at checkout, just because we no longer pay attention to either the individual item’s merits of purchase or the running sum total. Now, imagine an entire people, and entire world, that only looks at sum totals of millions of individual decisions, never analyzing the impact or the wisdom of any one of them. That is what I call the tyranny of the sum total.

So I’ve introduced to you here two concepts that it is important that everyone genuinely understand. One is the need to examine alternatives when deciding how each “dollar bill” is used in order to truly discern the best usage, and not to implicitly assume that frequent rotation through a lot of hands is “good” when in fact it is often what I call a “shallow” use of money. Money that is used shallowly is flash money, usually paid for transitory goods and services that is usually justified as “adding salaries to the community” yet does not “stick” to any place in the community where it can genuinely generate on its own “new dollars,” almost out of thin air. The second concept is the tyranny of the sum total, which we see everywhere from the problem of the bloated and still ineffective Federal budget, all the way down to a business man or woman accepting a plan from one of their staff that is “bottom line” and has not been examined not just for accuracy but more importantly for more substantial individual choices of expenditure and alternatives that could be more meaningful.

It is critical that today’s money managers, no matter how great or small your budget or investment pool, look at each item, rather than the sum total, and act as though you had never heard of such a thing, and need to be persuaded anew that this is a necessary or wise usage of funds. That’s the third concept that I want to introduce which I call “what if” financial analysis. It’s different from the concept of “valuation,” the “value chain” or “value analysis” because it constantly questions the chain of production and assumptions itself, rather than valuing the pieces of production that one takes for granted and never questions. People are incredible creatures of habit and easily slip into both information overload and what we call in the vernacular “being on auto pilot” in our decision making. A lot of this is not malicious, but those who have ruined the economy are guilty of this kind of thinking themselves and at the same time exploiting it in others. Here are some examples so you know what I mean.

The entire problem of providing social services and welfare is an example of sides that hardened into two alternatives (“provide welfare” or “make them work”) and the result is a horrible and at times dastardly mess. This is the tyranny of sum total thinking that totally lacks “line by line” “what if” thinking. Welfare is an example of “one miserable disaster fits all” sum total planning. I don’t need to list how many ways welfare as it is constructed today has failed individuals and society as a whole, especially the children. Yet whenever someone mentions that welfare is the nightmare that it seems as though we will never wake up from, the “other side” can’t wait to jump in and have a hardness of heart that is shocking. Both sides are “wrong” because both are enslaved to sum total mentality combined with a lack of visionary and genuinely well intentioned “what if” analysis of real alternatives within the system. It would take me about one hour to list ten different scenarios for providing necessary services for the needy, tailored to the actual context of the needy that we are discussing (their community setting, for example) rather than assuming that throwing penicillin dollars, to go back to our analogy, hits the right hands. Yes, in one hour I could give people a list of at least ten alternatives that they could select from that would address a particular welfare based problem or case study. Yet no one even tries to come up with a third alternative these days, they just fall into arguing their two sides, each atop an ignorant sum total tyranny. Welfare as it is structured today is a disaster, and so is the touted “put them to work” “alternative.” I cannot believe how willfully ignorant humans seem to have become and what miserable failures everyone has become at analysis and problem solving based on both wisdom and compassion.

I have just paused for a minute in order to resist slipping into one of my rants about the freak show society. What triggered it was what a woeful spectacle “job creation” has turned into, and I dearly hope and pray that with the new administration they recognize that meaningful jobs are not just the means of getting a paycheck for producing more garbage to throw into society as the “product.” In other words, I totally support the vision that the new administration seems to have of real jobs related to infrastructure and schools, for example, rather than enabling shake your money maker entertainment “jobs.” Entertainment is a vital sector of the economy and you might be surprised to hear that I do not oppose entertainment such as casinos, on principle. But the incredibly shallow output of much of American “entertainment industry” rather than infrastructure entertainment, such as Boys and Girls clubs or local sports and music programs is shocking. So when one argues that people need to “get a job,” its more than just a job because in this economic crisis, those who can make these decisions at the federal, local, corporate, agency and individual levels must make some wise decisions based on alternatives, for once. Here is an example.

Suppose that I have one hundred penicillin dollar bills, and I want to create a business so I can earn a good living, create some jobs and help the community. I decide to manufacture violent video games because it will “provide the poor with good jobs.” Huh?

That’s not free market, despite the fact that both the left and the right will argue that, saying “Well, if the public didn’t want violent videos they would not buy them.” Yeah, but you could have thought about creating a business that is genuinely “free market.” How about if I had used the one hundred penicillin dollar bills to open a Boys and Girls after school club where they could apprentice making video games under ethical teachers? I could have generated salaries (the teachers), made money (by selling the supplies), and gotten dozens if not hundreds of local kids to learn skills (video making and also business and creative skills) and best of all, THAT is free market. After all, suppose you had a thousand students in your business lifetime. Many would not go into that career but it was character building. Some might have become young entrepreneurs themselves in civic areas since you did not bind them to just learning the lowest common denominator of product. For example, one of your students might have developed an idea for a video game that teaches local kids how to discover areas of pollution in their community and how to be a genuine activist! A few might go on to make violent video games, LOL, but that is free market in truth, not brainwashing. Maybe you would not be a video game millionaire. But see, that’s the problem with the mindset today. I referred to that in earlier blog postings as being the “make a killing” mentality instead of the “make a good living” mentality that capitalism is genuinely founded upon, and needs as its basis, not greed, or it is doomed to dismal, crushing moral and fiscal failure.

I’m just painting a vivid example but one that is not too far off of the mark.

I’ll say “it’s a wrap” on this particularly posting, having introduced three economic concepts, and there’s of course much more, but these are essential to reorienting the thinking that is killing this country. I hope that you have found this helpful. To summarize:

1. Always analyze the flow of dollars and do not assume anything about the benefit of any particular dollar volume, location or frequency without examining purported benefits and alternatives thoroughly, especially looking for dollar usage that beneficially “sticks” and generates new dollars.
2. Beware of the tyranny of the sum total and wherever possible examine each item, questioning if a better usage or placement of dollars is possible on that “line by line” basis. Use "what if" analysis to generate alternatives for even what one thinks are obvious inherent portions of investment.
3. Genuine free market means the open ended creation of both jobs and skill sets that are wisely discerned and targeted for maximum benefit and both economic and civic worthiness.

Capitalism/financial crisis: Auto industry crisis

I agree that it is an essential component to have the continued existence and, hopefully, restored economic health of domestic auto manufacturers. Full disclosure: I drive a '97 Toyota RAV4 (the last time I was able to afford to buy a new car, since my Wall Street career cratered shortly after), BUT my stepfather was a loyal GM dealer mechanic, we remain loyal "Chevrolet" fans, and my first cars included Chevies.

For this quick installment on the financial crisis and the structure of true capitalism, I offer one suggestion to the domestic car manufacturers. I totally agree with Congress that you need to do some humble and visionary restructuring before asking for bailouts, which would be more good money after the bad, otherwise. No jobs get preserved long term if one is simply pursuing a failing strategy. That has been the fundamental problem for several decades now.

Having said that, and while I support fuel efficient and alternate fuel cars, a "worthy cause" should never be the only driver of one's consumer strategy. In other words, don't write a business plan just to appeal to theoretical "greens." You need to develop your business plan together with your hoped for future consumers directly, not "special interest" advocates, no matter how worthy may be their cause and their singular viewpoint. I have my Ivy League university Bachelor of Science in environmental sciences, and I can tell you, this generation of "greens" are terrible economists, business people or even intellectuals or visionaries. Thus they cannot represent your hoped for consumers.

Therefore I offer one suggestion (among many that I have up my sleeve, ha). One is to take a leaf from how the aircraft manufacturers plan product and book orders. One component of your new business plan should be to put a new emphasis on placing future orders for product with corporations, government entities, agencies, not for profits, and other organizations who might be interested in buying a fleet of cars. This would include companies who already have fleets, but also those who have not considered doing this. Here is where there is new opportunity. I think some major corporations should consider developing fleets of cars for business, not only to replace plane business travel, but as a job benefit in lieu of wage increases that may not be possible. For example, even minimum wage earners would experience a great increase in their personal prosperity if they had use of a company car. So I think you should develop that idea and pitch it to corporations, and then design or identify what of your product line would be ideal for that niche market of fleet purchaser, and then book future product orders. Having those product orders on your books, you then know how to retool and, obviously, you know what automotive product is most appealing to both existing and new market niches of customers.

(By the way, well paid talk show hosts driving your various expensive loaner cars and bragging about their relationship with you, while their listeners cannot afford your product, hardly enhances your marketability or your product appeal. In fact, I find that approach personally repugnant, listening each week to the talk radio hosts gloat about how you kiss their rear ends and loan them fancy cars to drive, while I pray that my '97 car lasts until I get my next substantial paycheck).

I've thought about this idea for quite a while and already know the usual objections, and I can assure you that there are very agreeable solutions to all of the likely objections. This approach would be something like win-win-win-win-win for producers-customers-workers-low wage earners-the stability and growth of the economy.

I hope that all of my readers find this modest suggestion useful!

Capitalism/financial crisis: oil and gas discussion

I used to work for one of the largest of the petrochemical companies, and one thing they never appreciated and, in fact, tortured me out of my job and pension, is that I'm one of the best friends that "oil companies" and producers will ever have. That is because I can demonstrate that one can conserve the environment and also full out utilize natural resources such as oil and gas.

In fact, it is important to realize that one will never defeat poverty and raise the poor unless the price of gas is consistently cheap. Fuel is one of the foundational items in the "subsistence" side of true capitalism (see previous blogs on the subject of capitalism for my definition of subsistence and surplus). All you have to do is look at impoverished countries, such as Haiti, and many countries in Africa, who have stripped the landscape of every scrap of wood in order to survive, so that they can burn the wood to cook food and warm their dwellings. Humans cannot live without fuel and that's why fuel, such as petroleum, exists on earth, dummies.

For those of you who do not believe in the true God, the one who has deliberately provided all that humans need to survive on earth, including petroleum, here is the way that you can understand my point using only rational logic. Life does not tend to evolve and then thrive in conditions that are hostile to life. I mean, duh. Think about it. While scientists often discover microbes and other life living in extreme conditions (under ocean vents, at the depths of the ocean, in boiling sulfur springs, and so forth), it's not as though those particular forms of life then exploded into high numbers and took over the earth. We aren't watching millions of sulfur spring microbes commuting to work in cities each day. They are confined to where they can "thrive," relative to their limited population. Hence human beings now number in the billions precisely because petroleum and other fuels are abundant. Humans would never have achieved dominance, or perhaps even permanence as a species, if fuel available for their use was not abundant and easy to obtain.

This is why one must understand that petroleum is not the source of gasoline for those evil drivers of gas guzzlers who are just running around wasting "precious oil," that precious oil, I guess, that is so precious that it's supposed to remain locked in the ground forever. Petroleum is a life giving and humanity ensuring subsistence product.

If you have not already, read my previous post about understanding God where I discuss what it means to be poor. Here is where I am going to show you how to understand "cheap gas prices" as being both a rational and a faith based necessity.

Humans cannot survive and they can not thrive without cheap or free access to subsistence levels of fuel. That is most obviously seen as an example when every year some people freeze to death because they cannot obtain fuel for warmth in the winter. The most basic need of human is the ability to keep themselves warm when it is cold, and to cook their food so they can digest it. For those of you young people who have had such a terrible education, here is an explanatory aside for you. Early prehistoric humans learned to cook their food not because they like it hot, but because it is necessary for digestion to take place. Humans cannot digest food, especially meat, that is raw. It's not a matter of aesthetics or preference, but an essential process to cook food to break it down into digestible and nourishing components. It is simply fantasy to image that humans could ever prance through vegetarian gardens, plucking raw and uncooked food solely, and thus "not harming the 'environment.'" You don't have a lot of babies and you do not stay healthy if you do not eat cooked food, for not just the digestion reason, but also hygiene. As you know, if you have a good education, bacteria are both essential to life ("good bacteria" lives in human bodies in a symbiotic relationship... yeah, "yuck" I know, but that's one of the things one should be glad for and just ignore the aesthetics of it all) but bacteria are also harmful (the "bad" ones) and constantly evolve and so humans can never be lax about hygiene.

This is all so obvious, but capitalism (and the war against poverty) has become so screwed up and misunderstood, even being derailed in many places, that I have to help you go back to "the beginning" of understanding. Those of you who have been through prolonged power outages know what I mean. If it happened in winter you were really cold and you also could not cook your food. Throughout human history and to the modern times people lost their lives as simply as that. In developed countries there are shelters and hopefully other alternatives during crisis. But it is an instructive reminder to the "take it for granted" western countries that fuel for cooking and heating means the difference for everyone (no superhumans here) between life and death. You can even see it in the converse, when fuel is lacking for cooling during heat waves. You can search on the Internet to read about the hot summer heat wave in France where hundreds or thousands of people actually died of heat exhaustion. Fuel and the devices that use fuel are essential to heat or cool humans, to cook their food, and to keep their immediate environment sterilized from the bad types of bacteria and other contaminants.

So how does the obvious need for fuel to heat, cook and clean translate into fighting about how much gas ("petrol") should cost for driving cars? Well, how did people "earn" their living in the thousands of years up until the last century? They did not have "jobs" and they did not receive "paychecks." So what did they do? They grew their own food, built their own homes, and made their own clothing. Their "job" was to eke out life from the land around them, and their "paycheck" was to live another day, another year, and to feed their hopefully growing families. People used to "earn their living" by living.

But now in modern western society, one is unable to simply "live" to live, no matter how "back to the earth" one may try to be. And that is not a bad thing because as I explained, that is the birth of capitalism, true capitalism. People made their own individual living off of the land, aka "subsistence" living, until they made "extra," aka "surplus," which they could sell on the "free market" for cash, and also provide more of to others who were too aged, sickly, young, weak or ill or otherwise occupied in order to survive. That is how "farmers' markets" arose. Farmers took their produce into the city, where people could not grow their own food, in order to raise their surplus cash. But farmers were also providing those who could not grow their own food with subsistence. This is what every generation of human has done, and the birth of capitalism, since the beginning of organized civilization until the last century. No one had "jobs" or "paychecks" until the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's. Further, in times of crisis, as recently as World War II, countries were sufficiently and predominantly agriculture based so that much of the population could turn to that tradition way of life with ease, growing their own food and fixing their own homes and providing other essential needs.

Today, however, in western society, one needs a car even if one is living a "subsistence" life, which basically means working a minimum wage job or receiving public benefits. One genuinely cannot live and thrive without a car and cheap gasoline. I don't know why people persist in cartoon character arguments about driving big SUV's or whether they will drive far for family vacations when the real issue is that one cannot eat, live in a home, earn a paycheck or receive entitlement benefits, send your children to school, or receive medical care without a car. The idiocy and elitism of the "green" arguments make me want to bang my head against the wall, regularly. Western society "greens" have not a clue that everyone is, ultimately, part of the "poor." Even someone who is wealthy can find themselves suddenly in a situation where if there were no fuel, and the grocery stores were empty, and there was no heat in the winter, a situation that reminds them that the barrier between care free survival and possibly dying in need is a barrier that is very thin. Everyone is "poor" in the sense that everyone needs and is dependent upon somehow receiving reliable sources of the subsistence goods and services essential to life. To structure society so that cars and gasoline are needed for life itself, for subsistence, and then to not use all of the American' natural resources to keep petroleum and gas (both petrol and natural gas) available and cheap is a fundamental error and outrageous.

Jacking up minimum wage is not the answer since that's part of the inflation of subsistence, which cannot be tolerated. The price of all essential subsistence goods should be LOW. Can not people see the insanity of forcing minimum wage up and up so that the gas pump can take away more and more until it's not even worth it to work? The minimum wage would be just fine if there were plentiful apartments that cost $100 a month, if food were as cheap as it should be, and if gas (petrol) was under a dollar a gallon and jobs and schools were nearby one's residence. There is absolutely no reason that technology and good will should not have already by now resulted in a society in the USA where one could live a good life in security at that stratum, and where others can still do their ambitious capitalism thing in order to accumulate wealth.

This is my point I alluded to in my previous post. In the time of the Bible everyone was "poor," if you define poor as we do today. Everyone in the Bible was "poor" because they lived lives that were vulnerable and subsistence based. Thus when the Bible talks about taking care of the poor, they did not mean poor the way we mean it today. The "poor" in the Bible were those in survival crisis. That is why the poor was constantly defined as the widow, the orphan and the lame. When Jesus said that the poor will always be with us, he meant people whose very survival was in immediate crisis. Jesus did not mean those of few resources and subsistence living because.... the "poor" is "us." For example, up until medieval times most families did not own even one dish or one spoon. Having a spoon was considered incredibly important and listed in last wills and testaments as a family legacy. Even the wealthiest kings lived sparsely in modern terms. I mean, for example, they didn't have a set of bed sheets for each day of the week. Until recently people lived in conditions that we call "poor" today. The difference is that they were able to live that way, unless they fell into crisis (for example, the bread winner died), and even then, so long as there were sons and uncles their survival was assured.

What has happened in modern times is that there has developed a lack of understanding of the relationship, one that should be affirmative and positive, among capitalism and fighting poverty. I'll use the word poverty because that is one that is easiest to make resonate to modern mindsets. True capitalists would have not used the "free market" to raise prices and availability of subsistence goods and certainly not to eliminate jobs that allow subsistence living. When it comes to the "surplus," sure, knock yourself out and try to "build a better mousetrap" in order to accumulate wealth. But as I've admonished before, "making a killing" took over the "make a good living" mindset, and that has codified and enforced poverty, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. (Putting aside for the moment equally egregious causes of poverty such as human conflict and war).

So who is in poverty today? You can begin to see now where I am leading you in this analysis. In some ways even the most impoverished in western countries are wealthier than most of humans were through most of their existence. People skip meals, go hungry and cannot afford the healthiest food, but generally they do not starve to death in western countries (except, oddly enough, in a new child abuse fad of starving one of your children to death while taking drugs or watching video games or something). So "traditional" poverty in history, and in parts of the world, carry with it a genuine risk of starvation. Contemporary western poverty tends to not result in starvation, but it is still wrong and it is still cruel. Some on the right like to gloat that no one starves because we have such a great country. Well, I say that even one child going to bed hungry one night is outrageous, and I resent the cartoon characterization of hunger by those on the right. The left, however, all errs because, like I said, they are so blinded by efforts to bring "equality" that they do not understand how to actually work the system in the proper way, which is NOT to keep inflating pay, benefits and prices. If the left had their way I guess everyone would get paid a million dollars an hour but then pay four hundred thousand dollars a gallon of gas... oh, wait, for ethanol, ha ha ha. I mean, then we would not be "harming" the earth, or so they would say.

If the United States in particular had cultivated the combination of capitalism with ethics and the American dream of making "a good living" (but not "a killing") this would be a far different and better country today than it is. Many people would be able to live in homes or apartments that cost one fourth or less than they do on the average today. They could earn modest livings in good jobs where their dollar "really stretched," buying cheap food, gas, energy for their home, and needs for their children. I cannot believe how the word "inflation" has become marginalized to mean some sort of relativistic measure ("Oh, it's not that bad from year to year or decade to decade" they claim) while prices that are "normal" now should never have been a fraction as high as they are now. Technology is supposed to make things cheaper and more available, at higher not lower quality. I just find it incredible how the prices of subsistence needs have been gouged into permanent states of inflated high prices allowing the few to "make a killing." Convincing people that their homes with rising prices were their "bank accounts" were part of this unconscionable manipulation of subsistence sectors of the economy.

Unlike the greens of today, I remember what polluting cars smelled like, but thanks to using technology not even a busy street emits smog or the smell of cars (except in special cases such as low wind cities). People learn how to do things better. Greens never give humans the credit that is due to them and only look for the next environmental "enemy" (without paying attention to real problems, like not enough sewage treatment plants, or the need to break the cycle of poverty so that people do not war against the environment as they try to survive). Off shore drilling is another example. In the 1970's I was against off shore oil drilling on the coast of California because I felt they had not demonstrated that they could do so safely in a high risk area. Over thirty years later, look at the Gulf of Mexico and witness how there has been no disaster even when the worst of hurricanes struck. I still am not thrilled about the thought of California off shore drilling, but who can argue against more drilling in the other areas? It is the same with ANWAR in the Arctic. I was against drilling there in the 1970's because I knew that humans needed more time to perfect their safety measures and to properly assess environmental impact. Well, they have, in my opinion. All the greens do is dart from one demonizing to the next, without either genuinely fighting poverty or genuinely protecting the ecosystems that are most at risk.

"If I had been asked" I would have had nuclear power plants, at least one or two additional refineries in the USA, more domestic oil production, low polluting but fun cars, and darn cheap gasoline (petrol). There would not have been a single family in the USA who would have had to worry about heating or cooling their homes and cooking their food, or driving their car to work, if they must. That's what the freaking nuclear, oil, coal is there for! Further, people would be much more astute and advanced in safety and environmentally protective know-how because they'd actually have been "doing it" for forty years, not arguing about it like ill informed and unethical neurotics.

I just thought of a term for what many who oppose full use of domestic energy resources are doing. They are doing some sort of "reverse colonialism." When many earnest young pups in the 1960's began speaking up they criticized colonialism, where developed countries would go into less developed countries and mine their natural resources. And that is, for sure, an area where great wrong has been done. However, here's what's weird, if you think about it. Today's earnest young pups don't want America to fully utilize their own natural resources, making many Americans feel like they are being colonialists, but in their own country? It's like they took the valid question of whether it is fair to develop and exploit natural resources in a subordinate country, and now turned it back on ourselves saying what, exactly? That it is "unfair" for America to use their own resources? There is a very strange psychology behind this, one that is not healthy or balanced.

I have of course more that I can say about the overall question of poverty, but I wanted to write here specifically about my views regarding the stupid arguing and reluctance to use America's own domestic natural resources, specifically oil and gas. Also, as I've alluded to in previous discussions of the economy, we will never balance our budget so long as we send so much of our financial resources overseas to obtain oil that we could generate at home. A country that is not sound fiscally cannot raise and sustain its entire population out of poverty.

So I'll leave you now with your own thoughts about this most recent material, until the next time. I hope that you have found this helpful.