Several experts have recently said that our current economic crisis is unlike any other financial disaster in US history since the Great Depression, which began in 1930 and finally ended in 1954. A good comparison? Sorry, I don't buy it.
Now if my memory serves me correctly, the reason for the onset of the Great Depression can be attributed to just a few cliff notes. Everyday people were able to invest in the stock market due to the increasing use of telecommunications systems and mass urbanization. Investors were able to purchase on margin, often at a 10% rate. Our currency was pegged to an asset which could rise and fall in value - gold. There was literally no federal banking system in place, so people's deposits weren't insured.
When the stock market crashed, people went to withdraw their money from the local bank, and it just wasn't there and neither were their jobs when they got back. Of course, the environmental catastrophe called the Dust Bowl also played a factor. Unemployment at its peak hit around 30%.
While on the surface these two periods in American history can look similar, there are more reasons why they are very different.
Why are they so different? Today it's credit not margin that's killing us. After the roaring 20s, our government was sitting on a huge stockpile of wealth and enjoyed a substantial trade surplus (due to the export of oil and other natural resources). Now, our government is perhaps the largest holder of debit. Instead of being a net exporter, we are a nation that survives primarily from imported goods. Back then, there was no real system in place to regulate the financial industry. Now it's the industry itself that has spawned a legacy of greed through deregulation.
You might say things started looking bad for us around the time of Hurricane Katrina when so many people's lives were devastated never being able to recover. Unlike the Dust Bowl however, environmental disasters like Katrina are the result of a global climate crisis which shows no signs of recovery, not because of over-farming in soil depleted regions.
I guess I could go on, but suffice it to say we are looking at something much larger in scope than the problems faced by previous generations.
Great projects like the Hoover Dam, Mt. Rushmore and the Golden Gate Bridge were built as government projects that employed people and injected money into the the system by providing jobs. Currently, our government is seemingly committed to injecting money it doesn't have anyway (by simply printing, or borrowing more) into the capital market.
Now unlike then, it seems they have committed to bail out mortgage companies Fannie May and Freddie Mac as well as hundreds of banks and investment brokerage firms through the Fed and FDIC. According to this article, total debit could be in the range of 70+ trillion dollars. The FDIC has 54 billion in reserve. Social Security, at most, 11 trillion.
Try to picture this. You're going to the bank to take out all of your money in exchange for cash because credit doesn't look so good anymore. OK sounds good, there's no reason to panic. Now picture everyone doing this at the same time, and in effect shutting down the bank itself. Your bank. OK, still no problem because you'll manage to get some of it back seeing that your deposit is federally insured right? Wrong.
Looks like instead of building great projects and employing people putting wages back into our hands, our tax money is being used instead to bail out the very financial institutions that have played a role in creating this crisis.
Soon there won't be enough money left in our pockets to fuel the huge tanker ships that come from China which supply us with the meaningless trinkets we used to make ourselves.
This time it won't be like the last time and it shows every sign of being dramatically worse. So, until the entire nation wakes up and our government starts actually working for us, we as a nation will continue our perilous journey into uncharted territories.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
I told you so?
You know that old saying, "I told you so," which is usually precluded by two or more people entering into an agreement, where one person has already predicted the correct outcome? Of course, we all have.
Well, this brings me to one night I vividly remember watching the news as a young child. After Reagan announced to the President of the Soviet Union, Mikael Gorbachev, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" while standing in front of a half million German's at the Brandenburg Gate, I turned to dad and told him that I believed the end of the communist nation had begun and that the wall separating East and West Germany would come down soon. Dad just laughed at me in response and continued reading the newspaper. A few years later, and that was another I told you so moment.
Here is another one to think about. It's similar to an I told you so, but a little different. Probably similar (in exactly the opposite way) to the following riddle ...
An enthusiastic young archeologist emerges from an extensive dig and announces to the media that he has discovered the remains of Adam and Eve. How did he know this? We are all then supposed to guess, how he knew these bodies were actually Adam and Eve.
Except I don't think this is a riddle, but more of a sad reality really. We of course, shouldn't or couldn't say something like, I told you so at the end of this event because for us there really isn't an after to talk about. History will just continue, except that we won't be a part of it. Would it still be history?
The only way that part would work (for me anyway), is if it were said by a drunken Englishman, who by that point had no idea that he was actually the only person left alive but just didn't know it. Sad irony. Something the British are great for.
But dash it all, we are just about at the end here. May be not to the extreme of total extinction, but close enough. According to the genetic experts, there was a time in human history when we did face a near extinction of our species. At that time in our early years, there were only 2,000 women or so left living which created a huge "genetic bottleneck". Fortunately those that were left survived and reproduced.
It is supposed that possibly a great flood may have caused this, but whatever legends persist, I am sure Noah may have been thinking, "I told you so" which he tried to do often despite harsh ridicule before the rain came.
From my limited knowledge, I understand that God had become sick of us because, well we just weren't good people anymore and He decided that it was time to scrape the project and break the mold, almost.
Now here we go again. Whatever your beliefs may be, one thing is for sure, you have to be one deranged person not to think that this definitely looks like the end of the world is approaching. What that may look like when we try to picture it using our limited powers of imagination, I am sure will be nothing like the actual events that take place.
Because the world is so large, things may happen in some places before others, but eventually it will affect everyone to the point where life itself may not be viable.
Activists think there is still hope, but fail to realize the true scope of the problem and feel that if only they do their part, things may just improve. It won't. People are powerless this time as well.
Unfortunately, the dice has already been cast and all we can do is wait until it bounces off the backboard and stops. Where we are and what we are doing when this happens will just provide us with time enough to ponder the bitterly sad remark, I told you so ...
The problem is that we as humans are far to removed from life itself. Almost everything we create, or consume has a net negative balance for life.
Take cell phones for example. We cannot live without them. There is no changing that fact, and there is nothing that will change us to change that fact. Now cell phones are actually very bad for us. Given long enough use, we will almost certainly develop a brain tumor, or two. That is fine. Even though scientific research has concluded for years that putting a magnet to your brain can cause cancer, cell phone use keeps increasing. In fact, these magnets and magnetic fields, (not to mention the radiation) which is created only gets stronger as new models come out.
This strange behavior in humans to caste aside their personal health, just for the benefit of immediate gratification (which is what a cell phone really represents) reminds me of breast implants for some strange reason.
Anyway, not only is a cell phone bad for us, but its very bad for the earth itself. Now, try hard to imagine that we as humans cannot exist without food, and that almost all grown food sources, such as oranges, must be pollinated by a bee. There are actually very few things that don't need to be pollinated via insect assistance.
Someone should really compile a list though because pretty soon those foods will be all we will have left to eat. It will be a short list. Einstein once said that if the bees were gone, that people would only have a few years left. What's the correlation?
Bees hate cell phones, and especially cell phone towers. In fact they hate them so much, that these thriving colonies just evaporate leaving a scattered few behind and a dying Queen.
Used to be farmers would tend their own bee colonies, or use a local bee keeper. Now, bees are treated like a simple commodity going by freight to where ever they are needed at the time.
Like the trout which used to spawn in so many of America's west-coast tributaries, the bees are rapidly facing extinction here and across many parts of the world.
Of course, this is just one small example of the plight we all face. Some are just feeling things a little sooner. Someone from California I met today, said things are just crazy over there right now.
One thing that struck me was that the problems seemed to touch everyone in some way both in their personal lives and in things surrounding them. That is, she said, except those rich people seem to be doing just fine.
Well they may be somewhat insulated for now, but they also have to notice that it's 110 degrees in San Francisco and those beautiful bay-area fogs are gone to realize something is coming that may even be bigger than them.
Well, this brings me to one night I vividly remember watching the news as a young child. After Reagan announced to the President of the Soviet Union, Mikael Gorbachev, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" while standing in front of a half million German's at the Brandenburg Gate, I turned to dad and told him that I believed the end of the communist nation had begun and that the wall separating East and West Germany would come down soon. Dad just laughed at me in response and continued reading the newspaper. A few years later, and that was another I told you so moment.
Here is another one to think about. It's similar to an I told you so, but a little different. Probably similar (in exactly the opposite way) to the following riddle ...
An enthusiastic young archeologist emerges from an extensive dig and announces to the media that he has discovered the remains of Adam and Eve. How did he know this? We are all then supposed to guess, how he knew these bodies were actually Adam and Eve.
Except I don't think this is a riddle, but more of a sad reality really. We of course, shouldn't or couldn't say something like, I told you so at the end of this event because for us there really isn't an after to talk about. History will just continue, except that we won't be a part of it. Would it still be history?
The only way that part would work (for me anyway), is if it were said by a drunken Englishman, who by that point had no idea that he was actually the only person left alive but just didn't know it. Sad irony. Something the British are great for.
But dash it all, we are just about at the end here. May be not to the extreme of total extinction, but close enough. According to the genetic experts, there was a time in human history when we did face a near extinction of our species. At that time in our early years, there were only 2,000 women or so left living which created a huge "genetic bottleneck". Fortunately those that were left survived and reproduced.
It is supposed that possibly a great flood may have caused this, but whatever legends persist, I am sure Noah may have been thinking, "I told you so" which he tried to do often despite harsh ridicule before the rain came.
From my limited knowledge, I understand that God had become sick of us because, well we just weren't good people anymore and He decided that it was time to scrape the project and break the mold, almost.
Now here we go again. Whatever your beliefs may be, one thing is for sure, you have to be one deranged person not to think that this definitely looks like the end of the world is approaching. What that may look like when we try to picture it using our limited powers of imagination, I am sure will be nothing like the actual events that take place.
Because the world is so large, things may happen in some places before others, but eventually it will affect everyone to the point where life itself may not be viable.
Activists think there is still hope, but fail to realize the true scope of the problem and feel that if only they do their part, things may just improve. It won't. People are powerless this time as well.
Unfortunately, the dice has already been cast and all we can do is wait until it bounces off the backboard and stops. Where we are and what we are doing when this happens will just provide us with time enough to ponder the bitterly sad remark, I told you so ...
The problem is that we as humans are far to removed from life itself. Almost everything we create, or consume has a net negative balance for life.
Take cell phones for example. We cannot live without them. There is no changing that fact, and there is nothing that will change us to change that fact. Now cell phones are actually very bad for us. Given long enough use, we will almost certainly develop a brain tumor, or two. That is fine. Even though scientific research has concluded for years that putting a magnet to your brain can cause cancer, cell phone use keeps increasing. In fact, these magnets and magnetic fields, (not to mention the radiation) which is created only gets stronger as new models come out.
This strange behavior in humans to caste aside their personal health, just for the benefit of immediate gratification (which is what a cell phone really represents) reminds me of breast implants for some strange reason.
Anyway, not only is a cell phone bad for us, but its very bad for the earth itself. Now, try hard to imagine that we as humans cannot exist without food, and that almost all grown food sources, such as oranges, must be pollinated by a bee. There are actually very few things that don't need to be pollinated via insect assistance.
Someone should really compile a list though because pretty soon those foods will be all we will have left to eat. It will be a short list. Einstein once said that if the bees were gone, that people would only have a few years left. What's the correlation?
Bees hate cell phones, and especially cell phone towers. In fact they hate them so much, that these thriving colonies just evaporate leaving a scattered few behind and a dying Queen.
Used to be farmers would tend their own bee colonies, or use a local bee keeper. Now, bees are treated like a simple commodity going by freight to where ever they are needed at the time.
Like the trout which used to spawn in so many of America's west-coast tributaries, the bees are rapidly facing extinction here and across many parts of the world.
Of course, this is just one small example of the plight we all face. Some are just feeling things a little sooner. Someone from California I met today, said things are just crazy over there right now.
One thing that struck me was that the problems seemed to touch everyone in some way both in their personal lives and in things surrounding them. That is, she said, except those rich people seem to be doing just fine.
Well they may be somewhat insulated for now, but they also have to notice that it's 110 degrees in San Francisco and those beautiful bay-area fogs are gone to realize something is coming that may even be bigger than them.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
A Brief Account of Human History
As the noted author Chuck Palahniuk once noted, "On a long enough time-line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." Then when we consider the entire span of human existence, how can we summarize our collective history?
How about, "We came, we saw, we conquered"? Hardly.
May be we can take a few notes from one of the most important movies of 2007, Semi-Pro, when the legendary film-star Will Ferrell declares, "In the annals of human history, they will note three things, the invention of fire, submarines, and the Mega-Bowl!" Not quite.
On a long enough time-lime, I would venture to say that our fate is beginning to take an ominous path towards self destruction and the majority of us are only in the first stage of AA's 12 step process of recovery, denial.
So then let's say we continue on with the status quo, and conclude that humans emerged from the trees, didn't like what they saw and decided to change things. Humans changed things so much that soon there were no more trees left, and then the humans died.
Among humans chief accomplishments were various inventions, almost complete eradication of all other living creatures on Earth, and terra-forming the planet while removing its most valuable resources for profit.
They were not successful enough to emerge from their infancy to colonize the stars, although exploration of space was attempted on a basic level.
Possibly worthy of amending the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I think the current edition might be even shorter.
How about, "We came, we saw, we conquered"? Hardly.
May be we can take a few notes from one of the most important movies of 2007, Semi-Pro, when the legendary film-star Will Ferrell declares, "In the annals of human history, they will note three things, the invention of fire, submarines, and the Mega-Bowl!" Not quite.
On a long enough time-lime, I would venture to say that our fate is beginning to take an ominous path towards self destruction and the majority of us are only in the first stage of AA's 12 step process of recovery, denial.
So then let's say we continue on with the status quo, and conclude that humans emerged from the trees, didn't like what they saw and decided to change things. Humans changed things so much that soon there were no more trees left, and then the humans died.
Among humans chief accomplishments were various inventions, almost complete eradication of all other living creatures on Earth, and terra-forming the planet while removing its most valuable resources for profit.
They were not successful enough to emerge from their infancy to colonize the stars, although exploration of space was attempted on a basic level.
Possibly worthy of amending the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I think the current edition might be even shorter.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Steve, Bob and Harvey's Take on the Ohio Stink
Does any of this really matter? If, and by the time this would get as far as the Supreme Court, it would have already been filled with more Bush appointee's anyway.
This probably isn’t the end of it either. Who knows, maybe Jeb will run, or possibly Colin Powel. You can bet that John McCain will, as well as Pat Buchanon.
Democrats should simply count on continuing massive voter fraud and intimidation for several years to come, because this is bigger than just Bush. Until we find a way to separate church-created issues such as abortion and who sucked off who, from public policy, there is no hope for us.
Unfortunately, this trend is too deeply embedded in our culture now to see any real progress. I’d bet this trend will only get worse with Bush still in office for some time to come making their base even stronger. And the longer we’re exposed to this national dialogue that should belong on the scrap-heap, the more we’ll be accustomed to it being incorporated into how we judge elected our officials.
This probably isn’t the end of it either. Who knows, maybe Jeb will run, or possibly Colin Powel. You can bet that John McCain will, as well as Pat Buchanon.
Democrats should simply count on continuing massive voter fraud and intimidation for several years to come, because this is bigger than just Bush. Until we find a way to separate church-created issues such as abortion and who sucked off who, from public policy, there is no hope for us.
Unfortunately, this trend is too deeply embedded in our culture now to see any real progress. I’d bet this trend will only get worse with Bush still in office for some time to come making their base even stronger. And the longer we’re exposed to this national dialogue that should belong on the scrap-heap, the more we’ll be accustomed to it being incorporated into how we judge elected our officials.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Froggytwang's Take on Liberalism
"Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water for his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging commie liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With his first swallow of coffee, Joe takes his daily medications. His medications are safe to take because some evil lefty bomb-throwers fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of Joe's medications is paid for by his employer's medical plan because some fire-breathing lazy ass union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. Never would he turn it down.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry."
... continues from link above.
With his first swallow of coffee, Joe takes his daily medications. His medications are safe to take because some evil lefty bomb-throwers fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of Joe's medications is paid for by his employer's medical plan because some fire-breathing lazy ass union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. Never would he turn it down.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry."
... continues from link above.
From Corporate Avenger Lyrics: Voting Doesn't Work
Thanks to the reader who suggested this dark lyric ... send some more!
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Environmental Disaster Ahead
Last time I checked, there were only 5 or so countries that hadn't signed off on the Kyoto Treaty, and of those only two were industrialized nations.
Now we are not only left alone, as Russia recently signed on board the global bandwagon, but seem to be taking a whole new direction by dismantling what little protections we have left.
Guess it's back to the good ole 70s. Can we give the world another reason not to respect us?
Now we are not only left alone, as Russia recently signed on board the global bandwagon, but seem to be taking a whole new direction by dismantling what little protections we have left.
Guess it's back to the good ole 70s. Can we give the world another reason not to respect us?
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Our Food in Their Gas Tank
The troubling thing about our dependance on oil is that there really is nothing that can replace it effectively. As the Guardian points out, there is simply not enough arable land in Britian to produce enough bio-fuel; the only real solution to the long-term replacement of oil. The fate of Briton's, condemned to live on their tiny Isle, is really just a microcosm of what we all face in the future, so how they steer this ship could just be a snapshot of the worldwide problem we face.
Farmland acreage throughout the world continues to decrease as our populations create more urban sprawl. This growth rate continues to push out viable farmland turning it into shopping malls and housing. Clearly, something has to change, as oil shortages demand the adoption of alternate fuel sources.
Europe and Great Britain have already committed to slowly introducing bio-fuels into the marketplace for use with diesel engines. As gasoline becomes more and more expensive, farmers should simply replace their food crops with crops used to create bio-fuels. Seems simple enough.
China is now the world's second largest consumer of oil next to the U.S. Unlike us though, they are still a developing nation, so are far from reaching their full-potential in terms of industrial capacity. However, China, like several other nations, rely upon countries like Australia and the U.S. as a source for food as they are unable to produce enough to feed their own citizens.
The same could be said for Europe. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and a host of other nations simply don't have enough arable land in which to grow both crops for food and transportation. Something further than the simple adoption of bio-fuels must give way.
The relationship between food and oil will become synonymous,so as the price of oil rises, food costs increase.
Hybrid cars could help with further increasing fuel efficiency, but the truth is that even if future cars and engines get over 200 miles per gallon, there still won't be enough land to produce both commodities.
Unless properly regulated we could certainly see drastic food shortages in several county's including this one. And, of course, the poor will suffer first.
It is not entirely unrealistic to suppose that people could die of starvation because they can't afford to purchase food at such high prices so that others can continue to drive their sporty SUV's.
You could make a note blaming the consumer, but let's face it, it is the fault of the government who listen to corporations that control the worlds most valuable resource, oil.
Unless they begin to steer this ship in the right direction, we may all sink.
Farmland acreage throughout the world continues to decrease as our populations create more urban sprawl. This growth rate continues to push out viable farmland turning it into shopping malls and housing. Clearly, something has to change, as oil shortages demand the adoption of alternate fuel sources.
Europe and Great Britain have already committed to slowly introducing bio-fuels into the marketplace for use with diesel engines. As gasoline becomes more and more expensive, farmers should simply replace their food crops with crops used to create bio-fuels. Seems simple enough.
China is now the world's second largest consumer of oil next to the U.S. Unlike us though, they are still a developing nation, so are far from reaching their full-potential in terms of industrial capacity. However, China, like several other nations, rely upon countries like Australia and the U.S. as a source for food as they are unable to produce enough to feed their own citizens.
The same could be said for Europe. France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and a host of other nations simply don't have enough arable land in which to grow both crops for food and transportation. Something further than the simple adoption of bio-fuels must give way.
The relationship between food and oil will become synonymous,so as the price of oil rises, food costs increase.
Hybrid cars could help with further increasing fuel efficiency, but the truth is that even if future cars and engines get over 200 miles per gallon, there still won't be enough land to produce both commodities.
Unless properly regulated we could certainly see drastic food shortages in several county's including this one. And, of course, the poor will suffer first.
It is not entirely unrealistic to suppose that people could die of starvation because they can't afford to purchase food at such high prices so that others can continue to drive their sporty SUV's.
You could make a note blaming the consumer, but let's face it, it is the fault of the government who listen to corporations that control the worlds most valuable resource, oil.
Unless they begin to steer this ship in the right direction, we may all sink.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Keeping Tabs on our Government
Read this article that lists several great links that report on what our government is up to.
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Just Say No
I remember Nancy Reagan's famous words when she touted her cure for the millions of Americans using illegal drugs: "Just Say No".
Now, it seems the current administration is so convinced that Nancy's strategy worked they're willing to give it another try, except this time it's for everyone else who is practicing the "illegal" act of sex.
Backing off from teaching safe sex and the use of condoms if individuals wish to continue to have sex, this administration is saying we shouldn't be having it at all, unless we're married of course.
Not withstanding the mounting difficulties of getting birth control pills filled at the local pharmacy (see previous post), and the continued underfunding of Planned Parenthood, this administration is taking a hard stand against what they deem as immoral sexual practices. Unfortunately, they miss the issue of public health altogether.
Forget the risk for increases in the spread of communicable diseases and unwanted pregnancies, we should all just listen to the words of Nancy and simply say no to sex.
Who knows, they might even decide to pass the "Condom Stamp Act" making it illegal to manufacture condoms or any contraceptive without the permission of the federal government.
Now, it seems the current administration is so convinced that Nancy's strategy worked they're willing to give it another try, except this time it's for everyone else who is practicing the "illegal" act of sex.
Backing off from teaching safe sex and the use of condoms if individuals wish to continue to have sex, this administration is saying we shouldn't be having it at all, unless we're married of course.
Not withstanding the mounting difficulties of getting birth control pills filled at the local pharmacy (see previous post), and the continued underfunding of Planned Parenthood, this administration is taking a hard stand against what they deem as immoral sexual practices. Unfortunately, they miss the issue of public health altogether.
Forget the risk for increases in the spread of communicable diseases and unwanted pregnancies, we should all just listen to the words of Nancy and simply say no to sex.
Who knows, they might even decide to pass the "Condom Stamp Act" making it illegal to manufacture condoms or any contraceptive without the permission of the federal government.
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