Beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the Carthaginian leader Hannibal must once have said, "What's wrong with the Elephants?"
The question, even it's framing, is possibly relevant in modern America. The fact is that the Republican Party has been dealt a possibly mortal blow and they can't seem to figure out exactly why or even how it happened. Normally at this stage of a post I'd expound on those very questions. This time I'm going to cut to the chase: How do they fix it?
Step One: Get past the Bible. Religious zealots are patently irrational and will not allow you to negotiate, which is the very essence of the political process. They undermine your strength by driving away every other possible backer. This isn't to say that religious types don't have the same right of participation as anyone else, simply that you can't let people who eschew reason and logic by definition dictate the policies of a group of people who have to coexist peacefully. They only way a diverse group can coexist peacefully is within a framework of secular law, grounded in objective, demonstrable, logical precepts of evidence and universal applicability.
Step Two: Get past Darwin. The robber-baron mentality of frontier survivalism is not applicable in the modern world of complex, integrated systems. The social Darwinism of of those late 19th and early 20th century capitalists is no more functional than The Total State. Recognize that a system or institution of sufficient size and wealth, commanding and tied to sufficiently large and/or complex shares of the marketplace are too vital to the public interest to be allowed to simply rise and fall like so many tiny Empires. The Captains of Industry have made their fortunes by becoming indispensable to the Masses and now they just realized that the Masses aren't going to simply let them go. They may pay for elections, but they can't buy the electorate for anybody. You must strike a balance between the rights of the private citizen and the needs of the whole system.
Step Three: get past binary logic. The world is not a black and white, either/or place. There are always options that you can explore if you're willing to recognize that you and the opposition can both be right about something.
There is more to this I'm sure and I'll return to it later.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Temporary Mortality: Teh Seekwal!
So I've been dead again for a bit, which isn't all that bad as it means I've much to say and some of it might even be both new and/or original.
Again however, I never cease to be amazed at just how much I rely on the various streams of information to stay connected to the world at large. On the other hand, I have dropped the theory of my information addiction. What I have is an addiction to the sound of my own voice.
Yeeup...me an' Joe.
Normally this is considered a bad thing, but given my professionally mandated 14 hours of daily solitude, it's neither unsurprising nor particularly objectionable...provided I actually have something useful to say. Admittedly, it is often difficult for a speaker to know when he or she is being productive, or simply showing off.
Again however, I never cease to be amazed at just how much I rely on the various streams of information to stay connected to the world at large. On the other hand, I have dropped the theory of my information addiction. What I have is an addiction to the sound of my own voice.
Yeeup...me an' Joe.
Normally this is considered a bad thing, but given my professionally mandated 14 hours of daily solitude, it's neither unsurprising nor particularly objectionable...provided I actually have something useful to say. Admittedly, it is often difficult for a speaker to know when he or she is being productive, or simply showing off.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Spaceballs the FLAMETHROWER!
Let's take a minute to talk about advertising.
I hate it. The general thrust of modern advertising can be summed up in the statement, "You lot are too stupid to figure anything out for yourselves based on merits, so here's a picture of something emotionally charged so you'll feel better about buying something you didn't want ten seconds ago."
This is the basic thrust of the latest fad amongst sales persons, "suggestive selling." What a splendid idea, "Hey, spend money on this additional item or service you did not want a moment ago solely on the basis of my mentioning it just now."
Is there a big "sucker" sign painted on peoples' faces that I can't see?
There was a time in history when advertising wasn't like this, it wasn't a vapid emotional appeal designed to get people to buy things they neither wanted nor needed. Advertising was a fairly straightforward business with the goal of giving relevant information to interested parties so they could make an informed and mutually beneficial decision. There was a bit of flair sometimes, to attract the eye or the occasional play on words. The general approach though, was that interested persons would come looking for your product or service and you advertised to explain why your goods were better than the next guy's.
Then came Edward Bernays.
It would both entirely too easy and also unfair to lay the blame for all this at Mr. Bernays' feet. But it is extraordinarily tempting to simply vilify the man. Bernays' is the man responsible for, "Nine out of ten Doctors agree..." This kind of unqualified, implicit expert opining makes me want to hurt the people who sign off on it. Which nine of which ten? What was the exact phrasing of the question? How did they come to their conclusions? None of that ever comes to the fore, simply because, "Nine out of Ten Doctors agree..."
You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see two little laws put into places for advertising. First, you're not allowed to make statements of a statistical nature, explicitly or implicitly, without explicitly, plainly and forthrightly detailing how those conclusions were reached. Secondly, no more depictions of people or anthropomorphized animals, plants or objects. What would the net effect of this be?
Advertisers would no longer be able to make sucker-punch emotional pleas on the basis of sympathetic association.
Is it going to happen? Doubtful, but if it ever does, I'll do the Snoopy dance.
The Price of Tea in China?
Alright, time to address another one of those questions raised by my theory of energy-as-currency.
How do you transfer energy between landmasses?
This is an excellent point raised by my friend Michael. Sharp guy; he put it to me like this:
"OK, so let's say that Fiji controls X amount of US debt, be it private or public. How do you transfer energy-as -wealth to Fiji from the US?"
He then made some brilliantly snarky comments about stringing Christmas lights across the ocean. I responded at the time by going to the grocery for supplies, but I didn't forget and I'm now better prepared to respond than I was when I had a couple beers in me.
Currency. Purchase and shipment of goods and services using a global energy currency means that currency is freely, universally exchangeable for other goods and services anywhere, anytime. As a result, it isn't necessary to transmit power or ship chemically stored energy, unless of course what they want to spend the currency on is fuel, in which case you load up a ship with coal, oil, uranium or what-have-you and send it out the door.
The core of what Michael was getting at is the argument over what is called specie. In short, it is the requirement of the issuer of a given note (think paper money) to redeem it in a given quantity of a given commodity. Traditionally this entails fixed weights of gold or silver. However, we've already established that any commodity can be described in terms of the amount of energy required to extract, process and transport it; this is the crux of my argument for backing currency with the measurement of energy, the joule, rather than a particular material substance. We remove the middle man, getting straight to the energy-value itself, and then it doesn't matter what the commodity you want to deal in is, you have a hard and fast means of comparing values; it doesn't matter if you're comparing coal to uranium, oil to gas, camels to apples or steel beams to wicker baskets. You're free to either ship goods, provide services or simply apply currency credits because you always know what the energy-currency worth of it all is.
The more important issue raised is how do you determine what you're willing to expend for investments? As an example: it takes X amount of energy to build a ten story building in downtown Chicago. Every single person involved in this project is trying to earn a profit, and so wants to be paid more than the work done and resources they consume are absolutely worth in terms of energy-as-currency. So the party paying for this building needs to determine exactly what they're willing to spend on the front end, in excess of what amounts to the whole-sale on the project. The more they have to invest up-front, the longer it will take for them to recoup their investment and turn a profit over the long term, by way of lease fees.
How does this differ from the current system? It doesn't. Surprised? Don't be; we're not trying to change the theory of economics. We're trying to change the theory of wealth. Its subtle, but bear with me.
The current theory of wealth is that something has value because it is rare. Gold is the perfect example. Gold is very difficult to come by.
Gold is also next to useless.
With the exception of some very specialized, advanced applications in electronics, you can't do much that's useful with gold. Its too soft and too heavy for anything but ornamentation. In the more openly superstitious past it was credited with supernatural value, but the simple fact is that the very qualities that make it great as a currency also make it useless for pretty much everything else. So why does gold still command such economic power? So much that certain people still want to go back to using it as the backing of currency? Habit, mostly.
That said, let's examine the basic argument for the gold standard. The idea of having something behind currency is appealing. If nothing else it gives you a sense of having something stable and valuable, something tangible. On the other hand, if gold is essentially worthless, why would it be any better than fiat currency? Well frankly it isn't. In real terms, gold is only valuable because we've decided it is, much like we've decided that talking about sex in taboo. "Why? Because."
On the other hand, if you replace gold as a hard currency standard with energy (again, not a specific medium, but energy itself as measured in joules) you're not just putting a hard value under it, you're underpinning the entire economy on something that is not just generally useful, but universally required. No matter what your enterprise, you will expend energy and consume resources that can be described in terms of the energy needed for their production.
So where am I going with this?
The point, again, is that we're shifting the focus of wealth, of available resources away from scarcity to production. Since energy is the key requisite for all production and service, having more of it available drives down costs; at the same time greater energy production increases your wealth, allowing you to have more of it available for use. In short, its like printing money, except that the money is actually backed by real value and so printing more of it doesn't devalue the stuff already in circulation. What real value you ask?
Energy! The stuff we use for everything else; heating, cooling, making goods, driving, fueling those cars we drive, EVERYTHING. For example: You give someone a currency credit for, say, one million joules of energy. That's the equivalent of the contents of a glass apple juice.
Real value.
How do you transfer energy between landmasses?
This is an excellent point raised by my friend Michael. Sharp guy; he put it to me like this:
"OK, so let's say that Fiji controls X amount of US debt, be it private or public. How do you transfer energy-as -wealth to Fiji from the US?"
He then made some brilliantly snarky comments about stringing Christmas lights across the ocean. I responded at the time by going to the grocery for supplies, but I didn't forget and I'm now better prepared to respond than I was when I had a couple beers in me.
Currency. Purchase and shipment of goods and services using a global energy currency means that currency is freely, universally exchangeable for other goods and services anywhere, anytime. As a result, it isn't necessary to transmit power or ship chemically stored energy, unless of course what they want to spend the currency on is fuel, in which case you load up a ship with coal, oil, uranium or what-have-you and send it out the door.
The core of what Michael was getting at is the argument over what is called specie. In short, it is the requirement of the issuer of a given note (think paper money) to redeem it in a given quantity of a given commodity. Traditionally this entails fixed weights of gold or silver. However, we've already established that any commodity can be described in terms of the amount of energy required to extract, process and transport it; this is the crux of my argument for backing currency with the measurement of energy, the joule, rather than a particular material substance. We remove the middle man, getting straight to the energy-value itself, and then it doesn't matter what the commodity you want to deal in is, you have a hard and fast means of comparing values; it doesn't matter if you're comparing coal to uranium, oil to gas, camels to apples or steel beams to wicker baskets. You're free to either ship goods, provide services or simply apply currency credits because you always know what the energy-currency worth of it all is.
The more important issue raised is how do you determine what you're willing to expend for investments? As an example: it takes X amount of energy to build a ten story building in downtown Chicago. Every single person involved in this project is trying to earn a profit, and so wants to be paid more than the work done and resources they consume are absolutely worth in terms of energy-as-currency. So the party paying for this building needs to determine exactly what they're willing to spend on the front end, in excess of what amounts to the whole-sale on the project. The more they have to invest up-front, the longer it will take for them to recoup their investment and turn a profit over the long term, by way of lease fees.
How does this differ from the current system? It doesn't. Surprised? Don't be; we're not trying to change the theory of economics. We're trying to change the theory of wealth. Its subtle, but bear with me.
The current theory of wealth is that something has value because it is rare. Gold is the perfect example. Gold is very difficult to come by.
Gold is also next to useless.
With the exception of some very specialized, advanced applications in electronics, you can't do much that's useful with gold. Its too soft and too heavy for anything but ornamentation. In the more openly superstitious past it was credited with supernatural value, but the simple fact is that the very qualities that make it great as a currency also make it useless for pretty much everything else. So why does gold still command such economic power? So much that certain people still want to go back to using it as the backing of currency? Habit, mostly.
That said, let's examine the basic argument for the gold standard. The idea of having something behind currency is appealing. If nothing else it gives you a sense of having something stable and valuable, something tangible. On the other hand, if gold is essentially worthless, why would it be any better than fiat currency? Well frankly it isn't. In real terms, gold is only valuable because we've decided it is, much like we've decided that talking about sex in taboo. "Why? Because."
On the other hand, if you replace gold as a hard currency standard with energy (again, not a specific medium, but energy itself as measured in joules) you're not just putting a hard value under it, you're underpinning the entire economy on something that is not just generally useful, but universally required. No matter what your enterprise, you will expend energy and consume resources that can be described in terms of the energy needed for their production.
So where am I going with this?
The point, again, is that we're shifting the focus of wealth, of available resources away from scarcity to production. Since energy is the key requisite for all production and service, having more of it available drives down costs; at the same time greater energy production increases your wealth, allowing you to have more of it available for use. In short, its like printing money, except that the money is actually backed by real value and so printing more of it doesn't devalue the stuff already in circulation. What real value you ask?
Energy! The stuff we use for everything else; heating, cooling, making goods, driving, fueling those cars we drive, EVERYTHING. For example: You give someone a currency credit for, say, one million joules of energy. That's the equivalent of the contents of a glass apple juice.
Real value.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Too Many Rabbits
Here's a question I don't think I've ever heard anyone ask:
How many people is enough?
You might ask, "Enough for what?" That very question underscores my point though. At the beginning and throughout the majority of our history, population has not been a major concern for anyone except city planners, canvassers and tax collectors, except during times of war, when the recruiting sergeant would pop up for a bit, then slink away when the bleeding stopped and the burying started. So why would I ask this question?
There are too damned many people in the world. I am not being funny; while the resources currently available on a global scale are (if properly managed, which they never are) more than sufficient to go around, the current arrangement of various systems makes it impossible to get things made properly available. Worse, the population is growing. Booming. Bugger it all, "exploding" is almost not too strong a word.
It doesn't take a mathematician to understand that increasing demand for...well, everything coupled with a finite supply of that same everything is a recipe for disaster. The story is as old as the desert nomad culture, "Who controls the wells and how do you get enough water for yourself?" In the short term you need only exchange "water" for "oil" and you've got the tribal warfare brewing between China, India and everyone else in the bloody world.
Now that we've established population growth mightn't always be a good thing our course of action is fairly obvious and we're faced with only three questions; How many is enough, how do we get the number down, if need be, and how do we keep it at that level?
Well my answer to the first question is founded in my emerging theory of energy as currency; enough population to support a diverse, technological society and produce significantly greater amounts of energy than are consumed while also sustaining the liberty of persons to choose their own pursuits and compete for societal rewards. Please note that nowhere in there do you see the need to support a society of mass consumption.
Getting the number down is at once simple and enormously complex. Simply, you stop people from reproducing faster than they die off. More complexly; how, exactly?
Since its completely impractical to keep people from having sex (just ask the Catholic Church) you'll have to do two things; provide ready, convenient prophylaxis and strong incentive to use it. Well the first bit is pretty easy. Various barriers exist and there are several pills available and in the works. There is even a simple, inexpensive surgical procedure that men can have performed; it makes sense, men are usually then active pursuers and initiators of sex among our species.
Motivating people to stop having children is tremendously more difficult. I favor a financial goad. A substantial credit for having one child, revocation of that credit for the second and a penalty of some sort for the third.
Once population numbers drop to a desired range, you maintain levels by providing a credit for the second child and a substantial penalty for the third, of-set by social services for the child; children have no choice in getting born so there's nothing to be gained in punishing them for a parent's failure.
Now obviously I've described this in the context of a two-parent household arrangement. Since we all know that doesn't happen in every case, a better way to track it might be by counting children on a 1 for 1 basis against the parents, counting the father first and thereby leaving the decision primarily in the prospective mother's hands and leaving her options open in the case of multiple partners. A second or third child would count against the mother only if by the father of the first child and would spare the mother in the case of a child of rape, which would count against the father, if identified.
How many people is enough?
You might ask, "Enough for what?" That very question underscores my point though. At the beginning and throughout the majority of our history, population has not been a major concern for anyone except city planners, canvassers and tax collectors, except during times of war, when the recruiting sergeant would pop up for a bit, then slink away when the bleeding stopped and the burying started. So why would I ask this question?
There are too damned many people in the world. I am not being funny; while the resources currently available on a global scale are (if properly managed, which they never are) more than sufficient to go around, the current arrangement of various systems makes it impossible to get things made properly available. Worse, the population is growing. Booming. Bugger it all, "exploding" is almost not too strong a word.
It doesn't take a mathematician to understand that increasing demand for...well, everything coupled with a finite supply of that same everything is a recipe for disaster. The story is as old as the desert nomad culture, "Who controls the wells and how do you get enough water for yourself?" In the short term you need only exchange "water" for "oil" and you've got the tribal warfare brewing between China, India and everyone else in the bloody world.
Now that we've established population growth mightn't always be a good thing our course of action is fairly obvious and we're faced with only three questions; How many is enough, how do we get the number down, if need be, and how do we keep it at that level?
Well my answer to the first question is founded in my emerging theory of energy as currency; enough population to support a diverse, technological society and produce significantly greater amounts of energy than are consumed while also sustaining the liberty of persons to choose their own pursuits and compete for societal rewards. Please note that nowhere in there do you see the need to support a society of mass consumption.
Getting the number down is at once simple and enormously complex. Simply, you stop people from reproducing faster than they die off. More complexly; how, exactly?
Since its completely impractical to keep people from having sex (just ask the Catholic Church) you'll have to do two things; provide ready, convenient prophylaxis and strong incentive to use it. Well the first bit is pretty easy. Various barriers exist and there are several pills available and in the works. There is even a simple, inexpensive surgical procedure that men can have performed; it makes sense, men are usually then active pursuers and initiators of sex among our species.
Motivating people to stop having children is tremendously more difficult. I favor a financial goad. A substantial credit for having one child, revocation of that credit for the second and a penalty of some sort for the third.
Once population numbers drop to a desired range, you maintain levels by providing a credit for the second child and a substantial penalty for the third, of-set by social services for the child; children have no choice in getting born so there's nothing to be gained in punishing them for a parent's failure.
Now obviously I've described this in the context of a two-parent household arrangement. Since we all know that doesn't happen in every case, a better way to track it might be by counting children on a 1 for 1 basis against the parents, counting the father first and thereby leaving the decision primarily in the prospective mother's hands and leaving her options open in the case of multiple partners. A second or third child would count against the mother only if by the father of the first child and would spare the mother in the case of a child of rape, which would count against the father, if identified.
For A Freind
One "My Followers" (tremble, ye mighty) raises an excellent point about the times we live in. Go read her stuff, by-the-by; it's light, but then so is a good wine with tasty cheese and fruits. Mmm, satisfying.
A good break from my own fare of neutronium stew.
Fact: A cheif component of the current malfunction, in both economic and societal terms, is that too many people by half have become too convinced by three-quarters that they have an entitlement to live like the people they see on television. My freind Tyler has something to say about that.
Newsflash: What you see on TV? It isn't real. I don't mean that in some soapbox, Sarah Palin "real America" bull-shit kinda way. I mean its faked. Even the newsreels of the celebrities too many of you worship; not staged events, but the way it looks on TV? What you think you're seeing? First class, Grade A, Top Shelf, Number-One-GI Bullshit.
Let me give you an example: The singer Rihanna? People she'd never met in places she'd never been see this on the TV and suddenly they're experts on her life and relationship, full of sage wisdom and snickering quietly about the girl doing it to herself. Not one of them ever quite manage to make the connection between the beaten, bloodied pictures in the media and the young woman trying to figure out just what the hell she's going to do.
No. That's someone else, someone far, far away, living a charmed life; she got what she deserved, right? What do you think?
No, I'm not blaming "The Media", I'm blaming you. Every single last bleeding one of you who sit there, demanding to be entertained and paying the producers of the crap, because it just encourages them to keep it up. Why on earth would they stop showing a world of immediate super-indulgence? Of constant privilige and prolific material wealth? You pay them fot it!
Kite is right. Excessive materialism and unrealistic expectations are a huge component of what go us into this mess. So I hereby promote her from mere rank and file Follower to "Minion". Now go forth and beat some sense into someone deserving.
I suggest using a rock.
A good break from my own fare of neutronium stew.
Fact: A cheif component of the current malfunction, in both economic and societal terms, is that too many people by half have become too convinced by three-quarters that they have an entitlement to live like the people they see on television. My freind Tyler has something to say about that.
Newsflash: What you see on TV? It isn't real. I don't mean that in some soapbox, Sarah Palin "real America" bull-shit kinda way. I mean its faked. Even the newsreels of the celebrities too many of you worship; not staged events, but the way it looks on TV? What you think you're seeing? First class, Grade A, Top Shelf, Number-One-GI Bullshit.
Let me give you an example: The singer Rihanna? People she'd never met in places she'd never been see this on the TV and suddenly they're experts on her life and relationship, full of sage wisdom and snickering quietly about the girl doing it to herself. Not one of them ever quite manage to make the connection between the beaten, bloodied pictures in the media and the young woman trying to figure out just what the hell she's going to do.
No. That's someone else, someone far, far away, living a charmed life; she got what she deserved, right? What do you think?
No, I'm not blaming "The Media", I'm blaming you. Every single last bleeding one of you who sit there, demanding to be entertained and paying the producers of the crap, because it just encourages them to keep it up. Why on earth would they stop showing a world of immediate super-indulgence? Of constant privilige and prolific material wealth? You pay them fot it!
Kite is right. Excessive materialism and unrealistic expectations are a huge component of what go us into this mess. So I hereby promote her from mere rank and file Follower to "Minion". Now go forth and beat some sense into someone deserving.
I suggest using a rock.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Whatchamacallit!
Bloody hell I need a word. I need a word to describe the concept of energy-as-currency.
I made a joke and said "current-cy", obviously that doesn't pass muster.
The problem here is that I'm trying to invent/define what might very well be a new concept. The idea of a global, hard currency, backed by energy, measured in joules and not conflated with the stored form it takes. What the hell do I call it?
One idea I had, after a second's thought, was to steal a made-up word from a work of fiction. Tas. Its supposed be a physical measurement of "mystical force". On the one hand, the underlying concept of an underlying, intangible substance/motivator appeals to me. On the other hand, misappropriating even pseudo-mystical terminology will serve to undermine my credibility. Although, on the third hand (don't ask where I got it, just accept it as fact) the idea of drafting something from the superstitious types seems like simple justice; they certainly feel free to poach from the naturalist side of the fence.
The Greek "dunamis" (Roman spelling) comes to mind. It refers to the concept of "force that can be felt" and is the Greek root of "dyn-, dyna-, -dyne, -dynamic" in English. I need to be careful though. As I've said many times, beginnings are important; if I don't assemble this idea correctly, if I don't plan and define the parts in a coherent, cohesive and comprehensible manner...it mightn't hold together. Someone once said, "Ideas are fragile things. You have to be careful not to let them out too soon, before they're fully ready, or they'll die of exposure. On the other hand, if you build them up right, then the act of declaring them, merely saying them aloud causes them to suddenly seem possible, even inevitable."
So here I am, carefully laying things out, questioning my own thinking and answering those questions. Here I am defining things and looking for the proper words to communicate this idea. Its bloody painful.
I made a joke and said "current-cy", obviously that doesn't pass muster.
The problem here is that I'm trying to invent/define what might very well be a new concept. The idea of a global, hard currency, backed by energy, measured in joules and not conflated with the stored form it takes. What the hell do I call it?
One idea I had, after a second's thought, was to steal a made-up word from a work of fiction. Tas. Its supposed be a physical measurement of "mystical force". On the one hand, the underlying concept of an underlying, intangible substance/motivator appeals to me. On the other hand, misappropriating even pseudo-mystical terminology will serve to undermine my credibility. Although, on the third hand (don't ask where I got it, just accept it as fact) the idea of drafting something from the superstitious types seems like simple justice; they certainly feel free to poach from the naturalist side of the fence.
The Greek "dunamis" (Roman spelling) comes to mind. It refers to the concept of "force that can be felt" and is the Greek root of "dyn-, dyna-, -dyne, -dynamic" in English. I need to be careful though. As I've said many times, beginnings are important; if I don't assemble this idea correctly, if I don't plan and define the parts in a coherent, cohesive and comprehensible manner...it mightn't hold together. Someone once said, "Ideas are fragile things. You have to be careful not to let them out too soon, before they're fully ready, or they'll die of exposure. On the other hand, if you build them up right, then the act of declaring them, merely saying them aloud causes them to suddenly seem possible, even inevitable."
So here I am, carefully laying things out, questioning my own thinking and answering those questions. Here I am defining things and looking for the proper words to communicate this idea. Its bloody painful.
Tapping the Fountain
So now I realize I didn't spell out how you get the energy/currency into the system in an orderly manner. After all, one of the core ideas behind a hard currency is that the government only circulates enough markers to cover what's in the treasury. If you go to an energy backed currency, how do you determine exactly how much there is in the treasury? Well, you start by bringing on board a small army of math nerds...
The logical place to begin is by establishing your known energy reserves, i.e. coal, oil, natural gas, uranium and anything else that is a static, naturally occurring deposit of recoverable fuel. Common sense says you might not be able to establish the absolute supply because it extends beyond current detection. That's fine, you set a hard figure of what you can now and as new resources are revealed you adjust your tally upward.
Next, local governments begin investing in production of energy by constructing renewable energy capture projects (wind, solar, etc). Tax dollars are used to add to the amount of energy in the system, with revenues from production return to them on a monthly basis, minus tax on income from energy production. These returns add to the over all energy/currency value of the system, being stored as cash in banks (where it will earn interest and be used to finance various loans) while the tax revenue is deposited by the government. Obviously this plan works best in areas of fairly low population with plenty of environmental energy for capture. What about the large metropolitan cities?
Once the basic method described above is put in play, large population centers can participate by investing in larger scale production facilities, primarily nuclear in my mind. It may be possible to simply purchase previously existing plants, (which I too close to radical collectivism for my taste), but I prefer the idea of new construction; it both increase employment and provides a platform for improved technology. The same basic principle applies, tax dollars build production facilities which are used to generate revenues of energy/currency that get returned, minus tax, to the citizenry. At this stage, with the basic mechanism established, we turn to the matters of efficiency and productivity. Simply put: the citizens (consumers) are best served by being as efficient as possible in order to reap the largest possible rewards from production returns. Add to this the prospect of privately adding additional energy to the system in return for further reimbursement and you encourage even greater productivity.
"But K.P., won't that lead to everyone just generating energy instead of building goods and providing services?"
No, Bunky, it won't. Why? Supply and demand. Simply because a private citizen could sit back and do nothing but collect on energy production, does not mean that they will. There will continue to be a demand for food, clothes, houses, transportation and luxuries. Someone will meet these demands because it is profitable to do so. Even if we reach a point where energy/currency production far exceeds consumption and provides an essentially free pool of...whatever it is, (dammit I really need a word for this) there will still be demands that will need to be met, however little it may cost to do so.
On the other hand, a certain amount of mass-production may go out. With an abundance of energy/currency many people will prefer to go into smaller scale, craftsmanship oriented production. Since essentially anyone could create a generic, mass-produced product at little cost, I can easily imagine a renewed focus on the craftsmanship of a particular commodity. Anyone up for a renaissance of The Artisan?
The logical place to begin is by establishing your known energy reserves, i.e. coal, oil, natural gas, uranium and anything else that is a static, naturally occurring deposit of recoverable fuel. Common sense says you might not be able to establish the absolute supply because it extends beyond current detection. That's fine, you set a hard figure of what you can now and as new resources are revealed you adjust your tally upward.
Next, local governments begin investing in production of energy by constructing renewable energy capture projects (wind, solar, etc). Tax dollars are used to add to the amount of energy in the system, with revenues from production return to them on a monthly basis, minus tax on income from energy production. These returns add to the over all energy/currency value of the system, being stored as cash in banks (where it will earn interest and be used to finance various loans) while the tax revenue is deposited by the government. Obviously this plan works best in areas of fairly low population with plenty of environmental energy for capture. What about the large metropolitan cities?
Once the basic method described above is put in play, large population centers can participate by investing in larger scale production facilities, primarily nuclear in my mind. It may be possible to simply purchase previously existing plants, (which I too close to radical collectivism for my taste), but I prefer the idea of new construction; it both increase employment and provides a platform for improved technology. The same basic principle applies, tax dollars build production facilities which are used to generate revenues of energy/currency that get returned, minus tax, to the citizenry. At this stage, with the basic mechanism established, we turn to the matters of efficiency and productivity. Simply put: the citizens (consumers) are best served by being as efficient as possible in order to reap the largest possible rewards from production returns. Add to this the prospect of privately adding additional energy to the system in return for further reimbursement and you encourage even greater productivity.
"But K.P., won't that lead to everyone just generating energy instead of building goods and providing services?"
No, Bunky, it won't. Why? Supply and demand. Simply because a private citizen could sit back and do nothing but collect on energy production, does not mean that they will. There will continue to be a demand for food, clothes, houses, transportation and luxuries. Someone will meet these demands because it is profitable to do so. Even if we reach a point where energy/currency production far exceeds consumption and provides an essentially free pool of...whatever it is, (dammit I really need a word for this) there will still be demands that will need to be met, however little it may cost to do so.
On the other hand, a certain amount of mass-production may go out. With an abundance of energy/currency many people will prefer to go into smaller scale, craftsmanship oriented production. Since essentially anyone could create a generic, mass-produced product at little cost, I can easily imagine a renewed focus on the craftsmanship of a particular commodity. Anyone up for a renaissance of The Artisan?
What you mean "we", pale face?
I read an interesting thing in the paper today: apparently the natives are getting a bit tired of being the poorest people in the country. Totally unreasonable of them, isn't it?
There is a debate currently, on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. It revolves around the economy, as one might guess; specifically the debate is between those that want to extract and develop the energy resources on their land and those who want to not, preferring to preserve the traditions and the land. As you might guess, the whole thing is being addressed as Hobson's choice. Normally I'd wax on about the various options between the extremes but today I'm more inclined to address it in relation to my own recent interest in...well, whatever it is. Words as yet fail me.
Other tribes in other places have elected to tap into other resources. The Northwest Band of Shoshone Nation is tapping geothermal power for instance and there various projects in the pipeline for the Nations in Minnesota and the Dakotas. Here, then, is where I suggest we begin with domestic development of my idea. Simply put, here is a group of people who stand to gain immediate benefit from the development of domestic energy resources in a broad sense and who would gain enormously from that energy being used to back a new, hard currency. By partnering with the Federal Government (I'd suggest a 50% split) the people of the reservations could be provided first with jobs building facilities for solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy production, then with energy/currency (I really need a word for this concept) revenues they will be able to develop a more diverse economic base.
There is a debate currently, on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation. It revolves around the economy, as one might guess; specifically the debate is between those that want to extract and develop the energy resources on their land and those who want to not, preferring to preserve the traditions and the land. As you might guess, the whole thing is being addressed as Hobson's choice. Normally I'd wax on about the various options between the extremes but today I'm more inclined to address it in relation to my own recent interest in...well, whatever it is. Words as yet fail me.
Other tribes in other places have elected to tap into other resources. The Northwest Band of Shoshone Nation is tapping geothermal power for instance and there various projects in the pipeline for the Nations in Minnesota and the Dakotas. Here, then, is where I suggest we begin with domestic development of my idea. Simply put, here is a group of people who stand to gain immediate benefit from the development of domestic energy resources in a broad sense and who would gain enormously from that energy being used to back a new, hard currency. By partnering with the Federal Government (I'd suggest a 50% split) the people of the reservations could be provided first with jobs building facilities for solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy production, then with energy/currency (I really need a word for this concept) revenues they will be able to develop a more diverse economic base.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Show Me The Money
A major part of the current economic problems we're faced with are derived from the current uncertainty of the worth and ownership of various real estate backed debt packages. In short, there is no shortage of doubt about how much things are presently worth, actually. I've mentioned before that money is a placeholder for the amount of energy in the social system. Borrowing from one of Ron Paul's campaign planks, I wonder if it might do any good to simply reestablish a hard currency and take the ambiguity out of the situation.
Obviously we can't go back to the gold standard, there just isn't enough to actually cover all those T-bills. So what do we put in it's place? It has to be a universally valued commodity and it would be better still if this standard was one that could be adopted universally. While I'm not an economist, I have this sneaking suspicion that the situation would be further helped if said commodity, like the concept of wealth itself, didn't exist in a strictly finite supply. That supply should be finite at any give moment, but subject to increase with proper application of effort. So what fits the bill?
Energy.
No, I'm not talking about petro-dollars; hydrocarbons (oil, coal, etc.) are just a storage medium, the same as carbohydrates (sugar) or lipids (fat). I'm talking about the basic unit of measurement of energy; the joule.
All goods and services, as I've said before, can be described in the amount of energy required to produce/provide them to the market. From the amount of inherent energy to the cost of extraction and processing to transportation and possibly even advertising, everything can be described in terms of what it takes to make it happen and get to the consumer. Differences in processes will result in tremendous motivation to pursue the greatest possible efficiency in order to provide at a lower cost than competitors.
All nations have access to energy resources; some are richer than others, due to variables such as territory (sunlight exposure), climate (wind strength) or reserves of stored fossil fuels. Each has access to a continuing supply of new energy each day however, and that energy can be tapped just like gold, then used to engage in global commerce.
Advantages of an SGC.
By combining the benefits of an SGC with the stability of an energy backed hard-currency we remove uncertainty, establish universal value standards and eliminate the iniquities created by various exchange rates. Everyone has got the same money and even if their production varies, the basic unit remains the same.The point here being that productivity becomes the sole defining factor in creating wealth. An otherwise impoverished nation, resource poor, can still tap freely available energy to directly create wealth for itself. That wealth can then be used to build an infrastructure to support a more diverse economic system.
The obvious push back on such an initiative would be from persons who benefit from wealth based on scarcity. While anyone might have oil or gold on their land, the quantity will be limited by definition. Wind and sun, on the other hand, never run out; tapping energy freely from the environment would be tantamount to printing your own currency, with the exception that, being backed by real energy, it would have exactly the same worth in the system.
But doesn't scarcity define wealth? If the amount of energy available is effectively limitless and everyone can tap it, would the currency then be rendered valueless by abundance? A built-in inflationary loop?
Not necessarily. In the first place, the amount of energy is going to be constantly consumed, as well as generated. In the second, while energy cannot be created or destroyed, a certain amount of it will bleed out, due to inefficiencies in systemic use and storage. Finally, while even a small net gain would result in an inflationary progression, continual acquisition and storage of energy will reduce the cost of production and thus the cost at point of sale. How? Simple supply and demand; plentiful energy reduces the cost of production.
Now we draw it together: energy as the medium of wealth causes an abundance of energy to inflate the energy backed hard currency, while that same abundance also continually drives down the cost of production, thus reducing prices at the point of sale.
Holy crap. I think I just changed the world.
Let me get back to you.
Obviously we can't go back to the gold standard, there just isn't enough to actually cover all those T-bills. So what do we put in it's place? It has to be a universally valued commodity and it would be better still if this standard was one that could be adopted universally. While I'm not an economist, I have this sneaking suspicion that the situation would be further helped if said commodity, like the concept of wealth itself, didn't exist in a strictly finite supply. That supply should be finite at any give moment, but subject to increase with proper application of effort. So what fits the bill?
Energy.
No, I'm not talking about petro-dollars; hydrocarbons (oil, coal, etc.) are just a storage medium, the same as carbohydrates (sugar) or lipids (fat). I'm talking about the basic unit of measurement of energy; the joule.
All goods and services, as I've said before, can be described in the amount of energy required to produce/provide them to the market. From the amount of inherent energy to the cost of extraction and processing to transportation and possibly even advertising, everything can be described in terms of what it takes to make it happen and get to the consumer. Differences in processes will result in tremendous motivation to pursue the greatest possible efficiency in order to provide at a lower cost than competitors.
All nations have access to energy resources; some are richer than others, due to variables such as territory (sunlight exposure), climate (wind strength) or reserves of stored fossil fuels. Each has access to a continuing supply of new energy each day however, and that energy can be tapped just like gold, then used to engage in global commerce.
Advantages of an SGC.
By combining the benefits of an SGC with the stability of an energy backed hard-currency we remove uncertainty, establish universal value standards and eliminate the iniquities created by various exchange rates. Everyone has got the same money and even if their production varies, the basic unit remains the same.The point here being that productivity becomes the sole defining factor in creating wealth. An otherwise impoverished nation, resource poor, can still tap freely available energy to directly create wealth for itself. That wealth can then be used to build an infrastructure to support a more diverse economic system.
The obvious push back on such an initiative would be from persons who benefit from wealth based on scarcity. While anyone might have oil or gold on their land, the quantity will be limited by definition. Wind and sun, on the other hand, never run out; tapping energy freely from the environment would be tantamount to printing your own currency, with the exception that, being backed by real energy, it would have exactly the same worth in the system.
But doesn't scarcity define wealth? If the amount of energy available is effectively limitless and everyone can tap it, would the currency then be rendered valueless by abundance? A built-in inflationary loop?
Not necessarily. In the first place, the amount of energy is going to be constantly consumed, as well as generated. In the second, while energy cannot be created or destroyed, a certain amount of it will bleed out, due to inefficiencies in systemic use and storage. Finally, while even a small net gain would result in an inflationary progression, continual acquisition and storage of energy will reduce the cost of production and thus the cost at point of sale. How? Simple supply and demand; plentiful energy reduces the cost of production.
Now we draw it together: energy as the medium of wealth causes an abundance of energy to inflate the energy backed hard currency, while that same abundance also continually drives down the cost of production, thus reducing prices at the point of sale.
Holy crap. I think I just changed the world.
Let me get back to you.
Okay...one other thing to be mentioned: How do you store the energy entering the system? You can't rely on batteries, they bleed too fast. Chemical storage is out too, it wouldn't be effective to synthesize hydrocarbons. This is where currency enters the picture.
As energy is captured/produced and used to back additional currency, you have to put that currency directly into the hands of the producers. In short you have to make sure that every extra joule put into the system gets banked, where it in turn accrues interest and gets loaned out.
With large amounts of energy being captured and stored at all times, a continually growing supply of stored energy driving down costs and the power of compound interest acting as a force multiplier, an economic system based on an energy backed hard currency would become supercharged; a pool of almost freely available energy/wealth, underpinned by constant production, provided that production exceeds consumption as the general rule.
Using this model, we can easily imagine a society, on a global scale, where eventually anything becomes possible simply because the energy/wealth is available to be thrown at it. Inefficient, cumbersome beginnings aren't prohibitive and open the door to costly scientific and technological R & D.
This is more than a little frightening. Either I've finally gone stark raving bonkers...or I may have just created Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future.
Monday, March 2, 2009
A Re: to an Email
The following is the response to an email I was forwarded from the office of Rep. Duncan Hunter.
My own thoughts on the financial crisis lead me to believe that, left to their own devices, the markets can adjust, but not without paupaerizing the better part of the country. This is not because everyone is somehow guilty of monetary shenanigans but simply because the institutions in question have stakes all across the board both here and abroad and they don't know exactly who owns what. So unless we can quickly establish exacting who owns what debt with the highly securitized properties, we're going to have to take broad actions that wind up sweeping good assests and people along with the questionable.
Crisis managaement: first establish what the most damaging problem is and cut it off before it can continue to spread. In this case we're talking about bad real estate debt; everything else is being fed by that. The fact is, many people aren't able to meet their obligations because they're bankrupt, in the technical sense. How this came to be is not immediately relavent so don't waste time wringing hands over slippery slope moral arguements. The practical problem to be solved is getting the housing crisis stabilized. let these people go the bankruptcy court and have a judge write down the principle. Yes the lenders are going to lose money in most all if not all cases but, keeping in mind that a great deal of that loss is money that was invented anyway, we are forced to acknowledge that this is necesary. Until we can get a real sense of what exactly is worth what, we're going to continue fueling the other problems with uncertainty. We have, as the saying goes, taken strong poison; strong medicine is called for.
After getting a floor under the housing market, what's next? In short, people have to be able to meet these newly modified obligations and that's difficult if not impossible when the economy is shedding jobs. In the short term, we need to have extended unemployment benefits so that poeple have time to get into new jobs and careers. That will help in many cases but, only if new jobs are available. So, we need to make sure jobs are there to be had and there is only one employer that we can, as a nation, force to hire: The Federal Government.
The idea that the government should be the employer of last choice has been a toxic, debilitating philosophy responsible for a crippling brain drain in the public sector. Now we are in a situation where it is possibl the only choice many people have. Nobody likes the idea of wasting money but there is a great deal of work in the public interest that can be used to keep people employed and earning an income until the economy fully turns around. The pay can be kept comparatively low in order to encourage people to move back into the private sector later, but public employees are infinitely preferable to unemployed entitlement collectors. In short, we can get somehting for our tax dollars or we can get nothing.
Once people have a stabile situation where they can meet their obligations, know they'll have a job in the morning and can save a little the banks will start to relax credit restrictions. We won't see the kind of massive consumer debt financing we did previous to the bubble and strict regulatory steps need to be taken to ensure it doesn't happen again. Still, once the banks see that the general public has a stabile income and a savings base, they'll be willing to provide the loans needed to finance new business and that will, slowly, lead to increased hiring in the private sector.
My own thoughts on the financial crisis lead me to believe that, left to their own devices, the markets can adjust, but not without paupaerizing the better part of the country. This is not because everyone is somehow guilty of monetary shenanigans but simply because the institutions in question have stakes all across the board both here and abroad and they don't know exactly who owns what. So unless we can quickly establish exacting who owns what debt with the highly securitized properties, we're going to have to take broad actions that wind up sweeping good assests and people along with the questionable.
Crisis managaement: first establish what the most damaging problem is and cut it off before it can continue to spread. In this case we're talking about bad real estate debt; everything else is being fed by that. The fact is, many people aren't able to meet their obligations because they're bankrupt, in the technical sense. How this came to be is not immediately relavent so don't waste time wringing hands over slippery slope moral arguements. The practical problem to be solved is getting the housing crisis stabilized. let these people go the bankruptcy court and have a judge write down the principle. Yes the lenders are going to lose money in most all if not all cases but, keeping in mind that a great deal of that loss is money that was invented anyway, we are forced to acknowledge that this is necesary. Until we can get a real sense of what exactly is worth what, we're going to continue fueling the other problems with uncertainty. We have, as the saying goes, taken strong poison; strong medicine is called for.
After getting a floor under the housing market, what's next? In short, people have to be able to meet these newly modified obligations and that's difficult if not impossible when the economy is shedding jobs. In the short term, we need to have extended unemployment benefits so that poeple have time to get into new jobs and careers. That will help in many cases but, only if new jobs are available. So, we need to make sure jobs are there to be had and there is only one employer that we can, as a nation, force to hire: The Federal Government.
The idea that the government should be the employer of last choice has been a toxic, debilitating philosophy responsible for a crippling brain drain in the public sector. Now we are in a situation where it is possibl the only choice many people have. Nobody likes the idea of wasting money but there is a great deal of work in the public interest that can be used to keep people employed and earning an income until the economy fully turns around. The pay can be kept comparatively low in order to encourage people to move back into the private sector later, but public employees are infinitely preferable to unemployed entitlement collectors. In short, we can get somehting for our tax dollars or we can get nothing.
Once people have a stabile situation where they can meet their obligations, know they'll have a job in the morning and can save a little the banks will start to relax credit restrictions. We won't see the kind of massive consumer debt financing we did previous to the bubble and strict regulatory steps need to be taken to ensure it doesn't happen again. Still, once the banks see that the general public has a stabile income and a savings base, they'll be willing to provide the loans needed to finance new business and that will, slowly, lead to increased hiring in the private sector.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Rush to War
After giving Rush's CPAC speech the once over...*sigh*
I hardly know where to begin. This man used to be my hero; I'm not ashamed to admit that. This is not the man I knew in my youth. The Rush I saw tonight and read a bit later is, frankly, a vehement and bellicose monster, spewing hate, arrogance and a no small amount of purely poisonous resentment. The message tonight was pure intransigence, embodied Reactionary rhetoric.
Let me start with something comparatively light, the basic hostility the man has towards the president;
"Barack Obama portrays America as a soup kitchen in some dark night in a corner of America that's very obscure. He's constantly telling the American people that bad times are ahead, worst times are ahead." -Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
The spirit of this statement is utterly corrupt. The president is being honest with us, realistic. Yes, there are bad times on the way; there have been bad times for better than a year now. the president has also told us that there is light at the end of the tunnel, explained what action he has taken, how that action will work and how we, the voters, can check on it.
"But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth."
-Obama, Feb. 24, 2009
The next thing I want to point out is an example of malicious demagoguery, with no perceivable purpose beyond inventing a character flaw to then be attacked;
"How did the United States of America become the world's lone super power, the world's economic engine, the most prosperous opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever known? How did this happen? And why pray tell does the President of the United States want to destroy it?" -Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
How, "pray tell", does Rush reach the conclusion that the president wants to destroy America? There is no reasoning given, no logic outlined. The wording of this section first builds a sense of national pride, of empowerment, then immediately proclaims it to be under active assault by the president. In the absence of any explanation, I have to assume the motivation lies well outside the bounds of reason.
"...the Barack Obama administration is actively seeking to expand the welfare state in this country because he wants to control it."
-Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
I almost hesitate to mention this, as it seems obvious. As I've noted elsewhere however, I can't let my assumptions of what is and isn't obvious stop me from making a point clear. As the president notes below, the historical precedent flatly contradicts Rush's prophesy.
"History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle class in history. (Applause.) And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world.
In each case, government didn't supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive. " -Obama, Feb. 24, 2009
The baseless accusations continue, all the worse for the inherent hypocrisy, right into the budget. Now nobody is thrilled with the current deficit mess, but it was Limbaugh's own team that created the mess that necessitated a massive spending package.
"They don't care about paying for it. All that's just words." -Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
"In this budget -- in this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusiness that don't need them. We'll eliminate no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use.
We will root out the waste and fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier. We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Now, let me be clear -- let me be absolutely clear, because I know you'll end up hearing some of the same claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: If your family earns less than $250,000 a year -- a quarter million dollars a year -- you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. " -Obama, Feb. 24, 2009
Rush likes to talk about class warfare, but its worth mentioning that the expiration of the tax-breaks the president is talking about here will only return taxes on that 2% to what they were under Clinton; a time in which the wealthy were doing pretty damned well, by all accounts. Let's also not forget that Rush himself falls into that bracket. I empathize (but not much); nobody likes to see their taxes go up.
"...bipartisanship occurs only after one other result, and that is victory. In other words, let's say as conservatives liberals demand that we be bipartisan with them in Congress. What they mean is: We check our core principles at the door, come in, let them run the show and agree with them. That's bipartisanship to them. To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we politically have cleaned their clocks and beaten them."
-Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
I don't even have words to describe this. Apparently, forcing your agenda is abhorrent and unprincipled if you're on the left, but absolutely justified if you're on the right. Better yet, you don't have to demonstrate any reasoned arguments or logical processes, you just have to, "politically have cleaned their clocks."
From this point things just get screwier. You want to know why these people shouldn't even try negotiating with the people they live and work along side?
"Where is the compromise between good and evil? Should Jesus have cut a different deal? Serious. From the standpoint of what we have to do, folks, this is not about taking a policy or a process that the Democrats have put forward and fighting around the edges."
-Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
What in the name of George Washington's ghost is this? I know I've covered this before but, what the hell happened to the loyal opposition? It used to be, "I'm right, your wrong and we can have a debate about that." This sort of rhetoric comes down to, "I'm right and you're evil, and that's the end of it."
I could go on. I'm not going to. It's late (early) I'm tired and you can certainly read for yourself. What I am going to say is that if I had any lingering doubts about whether or not Rush had allowed himself to become a caricature, they are now dispelled. This speech was a classic piece of in-group mass-manipulation and propagandizing. Yes I know he was preaching to the choir and yes I know neither he nor his audience will ever consider that maybe they are rather further to the right than they think; at this stage however, I don't honestly think I can stand listening to it long enough to attempt building a dialog. How could I? These people are proclaiming themselves beyond compromise, beyond the need to negotiate for a peaceful coexistence with their neighbors. "God and Right are the side of Wales", after all.
One thing Rush does get right is that there is factionalism on the right. Like a good conservative, he denounces the need for the movement to change or restructure and looks backwards to Ronnie-Raygun for his answers to new problems. "If it was good enough then..."
For the time being the war drums will pound and the political blood will flow. We can only hope that when all is finally done and said that the extremists will quiet down and cooler, moderate heads will prevail.
I hardly know where to begin. This man used to be my hero; I'm not ashamed to admit that. This is not the man I knew in my youth. The Rush I saw tonight and read a bit later is, frankly, a vehement and bellicose monster, spewing hate, arrogance and a no small amount of purely poisonous resentment. The message tonight was pure intransigence, embodied Reactionary rhetoric.
Let me start with something comparatively light, the basic hostility the man has towards the president;
"Barack Obama portrays America as a soup kitchen in some dark night in a corner of America that's very obscure. He's constantly telling the American people that bad times are ahead, worst times are ahead." -Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
The spirit of this statement is utterly corrupt. The president is being honest with us, realistic. Yes, there are bad times on the way; there have been bad times for better than a year now. the president has also told us that there is light at the end of the tunnel, explained what action he has taken, how that action will work and how we, the voters, can check on it.
"But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth."
-Obama, Feb. 24, 2009
The next thing I want to point out is an example of malicious demagoguery, with no perceivable purpose beyond inventing a character flaw to then be attacked;
"How did the United States of America become the world's lone super power, the world's economic engine, the most prosperous opportunity for an advanced lifestyle that humanity has ever known? How did this happen? And why pray tell does the President of the United States want to destroy it?" -Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
How, "pray tell", does Rush reach the conclusion that the president wants to destroy America? There is no reasoning given, no logic outlined. The wording of this section first builds a sense of national pride, of empowerment, then immediately proclaims it to be under active assault by the president. In the absence of any explanation, I have to assume the motivation lies well outside the bounds of reason.
"...the Barack Obama administration is actively seeking to expand the welfare state in this country because he wants to control it."
-Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
I almost hesitate to mention this, as it seems obvious. As I've noted elsewhere however, I can't let my assumptions of what is and isn't obvious stop me from making a point clear. As the president notes below, the historical precedent flatly contradicts Rush's prophesy.
"History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle class in history. (Applause.) And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world.
In each case, government didn't supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive. " -Obama, Feb. 24, 2009
The baseless accusations continue, all the worse for the inherent hypocrisy, right into the budget. Now nobody is thrilled with the current deficit mess, but it was Limbaugh's own team that created the mess that necessitated a massive spending package.
"They don't care about paying for it. All that's just words." -Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
"In this budget -- in this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusiness that don't need them. We'll eliminate no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use.
We will root out the waste and fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier. We will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Now, let me be clear -- let me be absolutely clear, because I know you'll end up hearing some of the same claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: If your family earns less than $250,000 a year -- a quarter million dollars a year -- you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. " -Obama, Feb. 24, 2009
Rush likes to talk about class warfare, but its worth mentioning that the expiration of the tax-breaks the president is talking about here will only return taxes on that 2% to what they were under Clinton; a time in which the wealthy were doing pretty damned well, by all accounts. Let's also not forget that Rush himself falls into that bracket. I empathize (but not much); nobody likes to see their taxes go up.
"...bipartisanship occurs only after one other result, and that is victory. In other words, let's say as conservatives liberals demand that we be bipartisan with them in Congress. What they mean is: We check our core principles at the door, come in, let them run the show and agree with them. That's bipartisanship to them. To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we politically have cleaned their clocks and beaten them."
-Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
I don't even have words to describe this. Apparently, forcing your agenda is abhorrent and unprincipled if you're on the left, but absolutely justified if you're on the right. Better yet, you don't have to demonstrate any reasoned arguments or logical processes, you just have to, "politically have cleaned their clocks."
From this point things just get screwier. You want to know why these people shouldn't even try negotiating with the people they live and work along side?
"Where is the compromise between good and evil? Should Jesus have cut a different deal? Serious. From the standpoint of what we have to do, folks, this is not about taking a policy or a process that the Democrats have put forward and fighting around the edges."
-Limbaugh, CPAC 2009
What in the name of George Washington's ghost is this? I know I've covered this before but, what the hell happened to the loyal opposition? It used to be, "I'm right, your wrong and we can have a debate about that." This sort of rhetoric comes down to, "I'm right and you're evil, and that's the end of it."
I could go on. I'm not going to. It's late (early) I'm tired and you can certainly read for yourself. What I am going to say is that if I had any lingering doubts about whether or not Rush had allowed himself to become a caricature, they are now dispelled. This speech was a classic piece of in-group mass-manipulation and propagandizing. Yes I know he was preaching to the choir and yes I know neither he nor his audience will ever consider that maybe they are rather further to the right than they think; at this stage however, I don't honestly think I can stand listening to it long enough to attempt building a dialog. How could I? These people are proclaiming themselves beyond compromise, beyond the need to negotiate for a peaceful coexistence with their neighbors. "God and Right are the side of Wales", after all.
One thing Rush does get right is that there is factionalism on the right. Like a good conservative, he denounces the need for the movement to change or restructure and looks backwards to Ronnie-Raygun for his answers to new problems. "If it was good enough then..."
For the time being the war drums will pound and the political blood will flow. We can only hope that when all is finally done and said that the extremists will quiet down and cooler, moderate heads will prevail.
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