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SD middle class vanishing
I misspoke. Here is the corrected copy: If one followed, for example, "pure" Islam, one could charge no interest at all. One would not borrow outside of one's group, however. But that would be just fine with me--were the system not so contaminated that the social mores that impose an obligation to eventually reciprocate (loan to the young, they take care of you when you're too old or sick to work--that's the "interest" on the debt) not so screwed up by "western values" that the ancient "pay it forward" principle survives only in the bits and shards of past social (cooperative) mores ridiculed into insignificance by the segment of this rotten culture in which doing TO others is the central value and doing FOR each other is considered quaint. I have discussed this principle in terms of real grownups and spoiled brats in my recent piece on this website. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/earth-fire-… /valid-tears/ Note: Those who wish to read this piece may have to cut-and-paste this URL to reach the piece directly. Apparently the Reader's machinery will not permit links to specific articles--at least not in the catacombs wherein the blogs of the masses lie incognito.— December 15, 2012 12:24 p.m.
SD middle class vanishing
If one followed, for example, "pure" Islam, one could charge no interest at all. One would not borrow outside of one's group, however. But that would be just fine with me--were the system not so contaminated that the social mores that impose an obligation to eventually reciprocate (loan to the young, they take care of you when you're too old or sick to work--that's the "interest" on the debt) not so screwed up by "western values."— December 15, 2012 8:36 a.m.
SD middle class vanishing
Just how is it that we continue to swallow, hook, line, and sinker, every arbitrary "figure" that every "expert" picks out of the air? I don't doubt Cunningham's good intentions, but he needs to do at least a little more work on what it means to be in a category than pick a convenient margin. As Geiger long ago pointed out (to little effect): "The more you generalize about a population, the less you know about any individual in that population."— December 14, 2012 6:56 p.m.
SD middle class vanishing
We all need to be careful how we cite statistics, and which "statistics" we cite. Removal of distortion remains the great undone task of statistics as a discipline. We continue to believe that, through statistics, we will erase the lie from anecdote. We're not there yet. Will we ever be? What's so bad about anecdote? Hint: The preponderance of the evidence may be a superior way to examine phenomena. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" ranks 'way up there in the top ranks of absurdities. Arrogance. Indifference. We know that this arrogance has left a trail of ruin behind. We also know that a preponderance is not good enough to kill the party found "guilty" thereby.— December 14, 2012 6:48 p.m.
SD middle class vanishing
Not only have industries been lost to "outsourcing," the exceptionally high-level skills that were associated with them (e.g. machinists), at least in sufficient numbers to re-start re-industrialization, are lost forever because those with the skills have retired or died. It took a long time to build such high skill levels and the culture surrounding them which handed down those skills to a younger generation. If I recall correctly, this decline began in the Reagan administration (I seem to remember Ronny talking up the idea that we were moving into an "information" economy and did not need those skills and industries). We shifted from being "can-doers" to gamblers and servants, and that trend continues. I would like to put what little money I have left on the continued disintegration of this economy, because as I have repeatedly said here (honk, honk!), the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of the few has had, and continues to have, the effect of killing the Golden Goose, the consumer. If this is true, the Fiscal Cliff coming in January will seem like a rather small curb rather than the abyss into which the US (and thus the world) economy will collapse. We had better get used to living well within our increasingly meager means, because we continue to ignore the fact that the baseline for "normal" is continually reset to the top of the previous bubble. We are in a delusional dream-world, and we had better wake up and smell the toasted barley (if we're in the upper-middle class) while the rich sniff their real coffee. First, there will be the hyper-inflation to suck up the last of our savings, followed by a deep cratering into epidemic and pandemic poverty from which we will require generations to get back to anything resembling a life at a subsistence level, much less one of reasonable comfort (still far below the binge-spending one we persist in having).— December 14, 2012 5:52 p.m.
Will Work for Food
Too bad this story didn't get more play, but then maybe it didn't deserve more play. A snip of the issue, and now the author's moving on. Too bad he wasn't drawn into its depths deep enough to germinate and become rooted into our individual and collective consciousness. There are far too many facets of this phenomenon for it to be kissed off as just another potboiler. Will write for food. Will write for love . . .— November 20, 2012 8:44 p.m.
Mary Hoffman takes on CPUC
Don, please keep us up-to-date on this. BTW, who's minding the store with respect to districts and other quasi- and pseudo-governmental entities like the Port Authority that answer to no one?— November 14, 2012 4:17 p.m.
Mary Hoffman takes on CPUC
Is the Sherman Anti-Trust Act still law? If not, when was it killed? If so, why is it no longer enforced?— November 14, 2012 4:14 p.m.
UCAN: Misspelled Accounts Add Up
There's no good reason that pure sunlight should not be required to shine upon all NGO (and for that matter, government at all levels), readily and easily available on their websites that clearly reveal the input and the output with no smoke and mirrors. Those which don't do this will not get one thin dime from me. If the US Attorney knowingly tries to bury any of the public's business, he and all of the involved staff should not only have to fall on their swords, they should have to compensate the public for their violations of their responsibilities. Bigness IS badness. Yes, the initial motives may have been noble and true, but when they have been demeaned and distorted by the "it's play-money" attitude, they should have to die a natural death like the rest of us. But when we have a SCOTUS that declares corporations to not only be "persons," but never to die, that is a distortion of the Constitution's intent, with or without the founding fathers (mothers are blameless because they were excluded--is that constitutional?).— November 14, 2012 4:05 p.m.
Unforgettable: The Trail of Torment on Gold Mountain
A friend once told me, "The suspension of judgment is the highest exercise in intellectual discipline."— November 14, 2012 3:52 p.m.