Well, here it is almost New Year and I'm still struggling to get in the Christmas spirit. The CDs sit unplayed, the movies unwatched. Sigh. What happened? Um, you don't really want to know. It hasn't been merry around here, but it's not really depressing, just sort of flat. I did find some of Obama's cabinet and advisory picks exciting. Of course, that was rather tempered by idiots still saying global warming is a , quote, "hoax."
Life goes on. I keep trying to figure out why I'm just sitting on finished books, not even looking for a publisher, or income. I'm not even trying to get family or friends to read and give opinions any longer. Maybe it is depressing. Or maybe I just want this year over. Whatever the reason... Sigh.
I don't have any plans for New Year eve, not even a resolution to make. I'm not overweight. I don't spend too much money. I don't need more excercise. I'm not even damaged by the financial meltdown. Ah, maybe that's it. It came just as I predicted and prepared for and not a warning got through to anyone. I wonder what the reviewer, who said, "A good read, despite a lot of ranting about corporations," in Heroes Needs a Captain, thinks now. I'm not fond of saying, "I told you so." I want just one person to tell me he or she understood the warning and prepared. Just one. Dear Alvin Toffler, someone 'got' what you were saying and understood, back when you wrote Power Shift. Sigh.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Consumers are pushing the recession. They may even be pushing for deflation. The question is why. The 'lack of confidence' description isn't incorrect, but it has a connotation of being fear-driven. This is more disgust-driven. "Stand back, so we don't get hurt worse, and watch it fall down." Conspicuous consumerism isn't the social ideal this season, despite all the efforts of the advertisers.
What do we want? Change. How many feel the only way to assure it's enough change is by pulling their support from the current system?
What do we want? Change. How many feel the only way to assure it's enough change is by pulling their support from the current system?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
It's an odd perspective, looking at the present in what I wrote of the future. The economic realignment following the establishment of a global economy... It's history in every book I write, part of my cultural foundation for my fiction. It's the first step in establishing a planetary government. That won't happen soon. This is just the undeniable proof it is a global economy. We're all in the mess together. Wha' hoppen?
The labor market became global. American consumers were the basis of the world spending whoopee, but it was more profitable to pay cheap labor to do it. The correct ethic for work is the work ethic. The execs' job is steer the profit-making machine to the most profit. Yes, that does mean researching maintenance drugs, not cures. The executives work for the corporation, a thing. The only way to impose a human ethic is with regulation, and those fell off at borders. That will begin to change.
Now, America. What can we do to make our labor so internationally competitive we can pay for our modern lifestyle, and to protect it? It's not going to get more peaceful until violence gets real, real, real unprofitable. I agree with the intelligence forecasters (sigh). 2025 won't be peaceful. Power-generation self-sufficient is an essential buffer against the 'resource wars' that could develop. It could also reduce their scope by reducing the vast power that goes with controlling something people need. We have trolls watching every bridge that's yielding a nice toll. Can you say "pirates?"
Am I saying America needs a WPA-style program? I'm saying we need a lot more lasting program than that. Our kids don't see any reason to work hard in school. Too many of their parents are still struggling to pay student loans, not saving so they don't have them, and college doesn't mean you'll get a job. And you can't get a loan at eighteen, so you either try to live for three years on whatever will feed you to be on your own to get a grant, or you start on your twenty-year student loan debt. Or maybe your parents have been in default for years. It's common.
It going to be a big bundle, a comprehensive plan to upgrade the country and create twenty-first century jobs. Can we get health care in it? I don't know. The insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies have a whole lot of investment power in our economy. They would have to change radically.
The labor market became global. American consumers were the basis of the world spending whoopee, but it was more profitable to pay cheap labor to do it. The correct ethic for work is the work ethic. The execs' job is steer the profit-making machine to the most profit. Yes, that does mean researching maintenance drugs, not cures. The executives work for the corporation, a thing. The only way to impose a human ethic is with regulation, and those fell off at borders. That will begin to change.
Now, America. What can we do to make our labor so internationally competitive we can pay for our modern lifestyle, and to protect it? It's not going to get more peaceful until violence gets real, real, real unprofitable. I agree with the intelligence forecasters (sigh). 2025 won't be peaceful. Power-generation self-sufficient is an essential buffer against the 'resource wars' that could develop. It could also reduce their scope by reducing the vast power that goes with controlling something people need. We have trolls watching every bridge that's yielding a nice toll. Can you say "pirates?"
Am I saying America needs a WPA-style program? I'm saying we need a lot more lasting program than that. Our kids don't see any reason to work hard in school. Too many of their parents are still struggling to pay student loans, not saving so they don't have them, and college doesn't mean you'll get a job. And you can't get a loan at eighteen, so you either try to live for three years on whatever will feed you to be on your own to get a grant, or you start on your twenty-year student loan debt. Or maybe your parents have been in default for years. It's common.
It going to be a big bundle, a comprehensive plan to upgrade the country and create twenty-first century jobs. Can we get health care in it? I don't know. The insurance industry and the pharmaceutical companies have a whole lot of investment power in our economy. They would have to change radically.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The intelligence prediction of the future to 2025 isn't easy to take. It's exactly what I expected, but "I told you so" doesn't make me feel better. The economic restructure of the world is inevitable. The hardship that it will cause, here in the US, was avoidable, but the expected collapse isn't hurting the people who got tens of millions a year taking money out of the middle-income pockets and putting it in those of the 5% at the very top of the income ladder. Of course they knew the bottom would fall out when the American consumer ran out of money. Of course, they expected to get the money to keep them afloat from taxpayers.
So, we're now paying the tens of millions in annual salaries to the people who gambled away our pensions and investments for our future. Oh, and the corporations are buying their own stock, so they don't have to answer to stockholders for the losses. Don't you fire managers who bankrupt the business? No, they pay themselves their salaries, benefits and bonuses out of our money. Corporate management as usual.
Yes, there is going to be a world economic reorder. The disparity of worker pay and quality-of-life makes it more profitable to fire American workers, close American plants and build and hire cheap elsewhere, especially those places that don't have all those cumbersome regulations of safety and insurance costs and so forth. Patriotism isn't good business.
I think we need our big three carmakers, but they knew it was coming too. Of course, we have the example of what happened to the first electric cars to show exactly why they kept making gas-guzzlers bigger and bigger. There's still huge profit to be made on oil, for about another twenty years. "Keep those alternative energies from being used, while we make all the billions possible."
The technology they have to 'develop' has been around for well over a decade. My sons followed the directions on the internet and put HHO units in our vehicles, so about half the fuel we use is water. That's why it costs me less to commute from forty miles out than it does someone about five miles from work. Our electric coop buys wind power. That's why I only pay 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour.
So, we're now paying the tens of millions in annual salaries to the people who gambled away our pensions and investments for our future. Oh, and the corporations are buying their own stock, so they don't have to answer to stockholders for the losses. Don't you fire managers who bankrupt the business? No, they pay themselves their salaries, benefits and bonuses out of our money. Corporate management as usual.
Yes, there is going to be a world economic reorder. The disparity of worker pay and quality-of-life makes it more profitable to fire American workers, close American plants and build and hire cheap elsewhere, especially those places that don't have all those cumbersome regulations of safety and insurance costs and so forth. Patriotism isn't good business.
I think we need our big three carmakers, but they knew it was coming too. Of course, we have the example of what happened to the first electric cars to show exactly why they kept making gas-guzzlers bigger and bigger. There's still huge profit to be made on oil, for about another twenty years. "Keep those alternative energies from being used, while we make all the billions possible."
The technology they have to 'develop' has been around for well over a decade. My sons followed the directions on the internet and put HHO units in our vehicles, so about half the fuel we use is water. That's why it costs me less to commute from forty miles out than it does someone about five miles from work. Our electric coop buys wind power. That's why I only pay 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
In the long view: Prop 8
"Marriage" has two distinct connotations. On NPR, I participated in a call-in on the passage of Prop Eight in California. I said the 'government' is the place to change the word, to describe the secular domestic contract. The panelist said, "Not in my lifetime." I almost asked her if she has health problems. It'll take quite a while, but she should still be around.
It's inevitable that marriage become a type of legal domestic partnership under federal law. It will start in taxes, as other types of domestic partnerships require restructuring for fairness. Right now, a family with a kid who goes home with the kids makes taxes a problem. Two people working can provide better for four kids than two each, with shared home and expenses. More tax revision ahead. Health care reform will hit this one. And daycare payment problems and... Contractual cross-obligation for the care of children would help greatly in cases where one person in a shared home's primary job is taking care of the kids. We'll see a lot more of this as the economy slumps.
Where is it going? Where does your computer go when you hit the reset button? We're headed for deflation and depression. No, it won't be as bad as The Great Depression. They may even stick with calling it a' recession.' We've got both that experience and modern communications to reduce the human suffering. Wall Street has the experience of a crash after overextending credit. You can't tell me those pros didn't know it was coming, because I did and I just took basic economics.
Yep, government jobs to build America. It's going to cost our future labor to build something that will pay for that labor. Now, the problem becomes, who can loan us money? Uh, oh, we already owe just about everybody and they're not in any better shape. I have visions of how this could be done , of course, but those are books and it'll be interesting to see the reality compromises. I do think a US Bond, or some other America-investment, is going to be part of the work-now-get-more-later plan.
It's inevitable that marriage become a type of legal domestic partnership under federal law. It will start in taxes, as other types of domestic partnerships require restructuring for fairness. Right now, a family with a kid who goes home with the kids makes taxes a problem. Two people working can provide better for four kids than two each, with shared home and expenses. More tax revision ahead. Health care reform will hit this one. And daycare payment problems and... Contractual cross-obligation for the care of children would help greatly in cases where one person in a shared home's primary job is taking care of the kids. We'll see a lot more of this as the economy slumps.
Where is it going? Where does your computer go when you hit the reset button? We're headed for deflation and depression. No, it won't be as bad as The Great Depression. They may even stick with calling it a' recession.' We've got both that experience and modern communications to reduce the human suffering. Wall Street has the experience of a crash after overextending credit. You can't tell me those pros didn't know it was coming, because I did and I just took basic economics.
Yep, government jobs to build America. It's going to cost our future labor to build something that will pay for that labor. Now, the problem becomes, who can loan us money? Uh, oh, we already owe just about everybody and they're not in any better shape. I have visions of how this could be done , of course, but those are books and it'll be interesting to see the reality compromises. I do think a US Bond, or some other America-investment, is going to be part of the work-now-get-more-later plan.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
What do I want the new administration to do? Build something that will pay off the debt we're incurring and assure our children and grandchildren have jobs, so they can pay taxes too. I want a whole lot more than most people do, but a very large number have very strongly said 'Fix it!' Now, how does the new administration and congress do that.
Obama has said create jobs in green energy production. That's good. It's a nice bundle with 'fix the infrastructure. Here's another piece for the bundle. Earn education for community service. That's the opportunity for a twenty-first-century vo-tech and apprenticeship system too. Our eighteen-year-olds are getting out of high school with nowhere to go, unless they burden their families or themselves with a huge debt for university. We have, not tens, hundreds of thousands of students between 6th and 12th grade who have the attitude 'Why bother to work to learn? It won't do you any good anyway. Payments on the loans will cost more than the increased income for a degree will pay.' The problem with that is it's true and there are a whole lot of college grads out of work. 'Sorry, you're overqualified to flip burgers.'
Many mayors are calling for a WPA-type program to put people back to work. When the moderate-conservative majority agree with liberal-type government action, the situation is too severe to play politics. The livelihoods and future of millions of Americans, are not just in jeopardy. They're gone. We can spend our present and future labor (deficit=credit=future labor) to build something that will strengthen our ability to produce competitive products, by 'upgrading' everything, or we can pay for foodstamps for hundreds of thousand more, and watch doctors quit and hospitals close, because people can't pay for the cost of the emergency room visit that could have easily been prevented.
You can't deal with a worldwide economic problem as a business problem. It's a labor problem. The betting system on the populations of regions to produce, the credit market, fell apart because it just makes business sense to pay less money for higher skill elsewhere, and the betting odds were built on the American ability to produce enough for a nice comfortable life. Biggest economy in the world. It is here that corporations outgrew borders, which regulations don't cross.
The proof the economy is global is irrefutable. Every big corporate exec knew this was coming. Hitting the economic reset button and getting the money from the people you bet on, knowing only the goverment can get a big enough loan on their labor to pay it, from the future earnings of the taxpayers, isn't a bad business move, considering the economic position of the people getting the big payoffs for the last eight years. The rich got richer and richer and a whole lot more of us got so poor we had to shop at Wal-mart, the Chinese emporium, to clothe and feed our kids. We have a trade deficit with China. Exxon-Mobil makes billions reselling us foreign oil. Why would any person in management, professionally, support development of renewable resource-powered vehicles? Like electric cars powered by wind farms.
Regulation. Control how much of their own stocks corporations own. Corporations exist to make a profit. If there are no participating voting stockholders, there cannot ethically be 'not-at-that-human-price or with-that-human-ideal-in-mind' decision-making. The work ethic is do the job and the job is just make money, not make a good future for our children and grandchildren.
It's the quality-of-life bundle we have to rebuild. Home, health, days free of worry you won't have enough to keep a roof over your head and food on the table, and you're not handing your grandkids a devastated civilization on a dying planet. Is a WPA-style program needed? Way too many are hoping Obama is 'an FDR' not to consider it. I think too many are, not to pledge the labor of the people to fix it. Yes, we'll pay for it, but we have to have the ability to produce to do it. Give us work and training and create the right TVA for this century.
Obama has said create jobs in green energy production. That's good. It's a nice bundle with 'fix the infrastructure. Here's another piece for the bundle. Earn education for community service. That's the opportunity for a twenty-first-century vo-tech and apprenticeship system too. Our eighteen-year-olds are getting out of high school with nowhere to go, unless they burden their families or themselves with a huge debt for university. We have, not tens, hundreds of thousands of students between 6th and 12th grade who have the attitude 'Why bother to work to learn? It won't do you any good anyway. Payments on the loans will cost more than the increased income for a degree will pay.' The problem with that is it's true and there are a whole lot of college grads out of work. 'Sorry, you're overqualified to flip burgers.'
Many mayors are calling for a WPA-type program to put people back to work. When the moderate-conservative majority agree with liberal-type government action, the situation is too severe to play politics. The livelihoods and future of millions of Americans, are not just in jeopardy. They're gone. We can spend our present and future labor (deficit=credit=future labor) to build something that will strengthen our ability to produce competitive products, by 'upgrading' everything, or we can pay for foodstamps for hundreds of thousand more, and watch doctors quit and hospitals close, because people can't pay for the cost of the emergency room visit that could have easily been prevented.
You can't deal with a worldwide economic problem as a business problem. It's a labor problem. The betting system on the populations of regions to produce, the credit market, fell apart because it just makes business sense to pay less money for higher skill elsewhere, and the betting odds were built on the American ability to produce enough for a nice comfortable life. Biggest economy in the world. It is here that corporations outgrew borders, which regulations don't cross.
The proof the economy is global is irrefutable. Every big corporate exec knew this was coming. Hitting the economic reset button and getting the money from the people you bet on, knowing only the goverment can get a big enough loan on their labor to pay it, from the future earnings of the taxpayers, isn't a bad business move, considering the economic position of the people getting the big payoffs for the last eight years. The rich got richer and richer and a whole lot more of us got so poor we had to shop at Wal-mart, the Chinese emporium, to clothe and feed our kids. We have a trade deficit with China. Exxon-Mobil makes billions reselling us foreign oil. Why would any person in management, professionally, support development of renewable resource-powered vehicles? Like electric cars powered by wind farms.
Regulation. Control how much of their own stocks corporations own. Corporations exist to make a profit. If there are no participating voting stockholders, there cannot ethically be 'not-at-that-human-price or with-that-human-ideal-in-mind' decision-making. The work ethic is do the job and the job is just make money, not make a good future for our children and grandchildren.
It's the quality-of-life bundle we have to rebuild. Home, health, days free of worry you won't have enough to keep a roof over your head and food on the table, and you're not handing your grandkids a devastated civilization on a dying planet. Is a WPA-style program needed? Way too many are hoping Obama is 'an FDR' not to consider it. I think too many are, not to pledge the labor of the people to fix it. Yes, we'll pay for it, but we have to have the ability to produce to do it. Give us work and training and create the right TVA for this century.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Birthday
I entered my 63rd year a few days ago. What did I get? The most important work there is. My ex-daughter-in-law and my son agreed I'm the best one to take care of their children right now. He's working to get ahead in the field of long odds, film production. She's in pre-law and probably about to go through a messy divorce from her second husband. My eldest son and husband have been working to make this a four-bedroom house for days. I promised the boy who's about to be a teenager he would not have to share a bedroom with his about-to-be-nine brother. They're helping me keep the promise.
My wonderful high-desert writer's retreat is now a long busride to school that means a five AM wakeup. Loads and loads of laundry, fixing meals and getting kids to do homework and to bed on time now have priority over the writing. The kids have problems. Just because they're 'typical manifestations of problems at home' doesn't mean they're easy. I've got major self-esteem construction work to do on all three. Blame-throwing and fault-finding are terrible habits and all three are attention-competitive. Mom just had too much 'on her plate' and I'm prepping daily self-esteem injections for her too. My sons are both good help in every way they can be, but the put-dinner-on-the table of both is tied to the depressed real estate market and they're barely getting by.
I'm not complaining. I knew what I was getting into when I asked for it. It was such a hard decision for their mom. She's got a whole lot of you're-a-wife-and-mom-or-nothing cultural baggage from her childhood. I'm proud of her. She made the decision she thinks is best for her children. That's a good mom. I had to make the same one when I was in my twenties. My boys' closeness to me now is the best reassurance we can give her that children never forget you made the best decisions for them that you could, no matter how hard.
I've got a long way to go to bring these kids up to healthy self-confidence and goal-setting and achievement. They can't make breakfast together without fighting over who gets to pour milk first. It's far in excess of the 'usual' sibling rivalry. At least now each has personal space. Of course, I do have to continually enforce the sanctity of it. I have constant 'that's-mine' battles that are not 'age equivalent,' more like dealing with three five-year-olds than 13, 12 and 9. I've got three way below age-normal for the development of critical thinking. I have to get cracking on that one. Brain development in puberty is specifically in the interconnectivity of ideas and that's critical thinking.
So, a little fun with a birthday tarot reading online and back to work helping the kids feel like they're 'really home.' We can squeak by in these hard economic times. I did plan for them. I've got a few changes to the plan and the budget will be a lot tighter, but nothing is more important than a child and these are family too. I expect wonderful rewards for my hard work. I intend to smugly attend at least four university graduations, starting with their mom's in 2010.
My wonderful high-desert writer's retreat is now a long busride to school that means a five AM wakeup. Loads and loads of laundry, fixing meals and getting kids to do homework and to bed on time now have priority over the writing. The kids have problems. Just because they're 'typical manifestations of problems at home' doesn't mean they're easy. I've got major self-esteem construction work to do on all three. Blame-throwing and fault-finding are terrible habits and all three are attention-competitive. Mom just had too much 'on her plate' and I'm prepping daily self-esteem injections for her too. My sons are both good help in every way they can be, but the put-dinner-on-the table of both is tied to the depressed real estate market and they're barely getting by.
I'm not complaining. I knew what I was getting into when I asked for it. It was such a hard decision for their mom. She's got a whole lot of you're-a-wife-and-mom-or-nothing cultural baggage from her childhood. I'm proud of her. She made the decision she thinks is best for her children. That's a good mom. I had to make the same one when I was in my twenties. My boys' closeness to me now is the best reassurance we can give her that children never forget you made the best decisions for them that you could, no matter how hard.
I've got a long way to go to bring these kids up to healthy self-confidence and goal-setting and achievement. They can't make breakfast together without fighting over who gets to pour milk first. It's far in excess of the 'usual' sibling rivalry. At least now each has personal space. Of course, I do have to continually enforce the sanctity of it. I have constant 'that's-mine' battles that are not 'age equivalent,' more like dealing with three five-year-olds than 13, 12 and 9. I've got three way below age-normal for the development of critical thinking. I have to get cracking on that one. Brain development in puberty is specifically in the interconnectivity of ideas and that's critical thinking.
So, a little fun with a birthday tarot reading online and back to work helping the kids feel like they're 'really home.' We can squeak by in these hard economic times. I did plan for them. I've got a few changes to the plan and the budget will be a lot tighter, but nothing is more important than a child and these are family too. I expect wonderful rewards for my hard work. I intend to smugly attend at least four university graduations, starting with their mom's in 2010.
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