Sailing around the world

In a couple of days, on October 4th, the 2008-2009 running of the Volvo Ocean Race Round The World begins.  This is ‘life at the extreme’, sailing around the world in the most advanced yachts in there are.  People have died during this race, and boats have been lost.  The race covers much of the globe, from Spain to South Africa, Australia, Brazil, the United States, and back to Europe for the finish.  From dodging iceburgs in the Southern Ocean to standing watch in shorts, the crews experience a wide range of weather.  In-port races provide action up close, while videos are recorded and transmitted from the boats during the 5and 6,000 mile long open ocean legs.

The race began as the the Whitbread, in 1974, the result of a challenge thrown down in an English pub.  Run every 4 years until now, the race is considered the Himilayas of sailing.  The boats are now built specifically for the race, at a cost of millions of dollars.  They are constructed almost entirely of carbon, using techniques developed in the aviation industry.  In order to allow sailing even faster, they have keels which can be moved from side to side.  The last race saw 25 whole days subtracted from the previous record, with boat speeds of 25 to 30 knots being common.  One boat covered 562 miles in a 24 hour period, setting a mark which still stands.

You don’t have to be into sailing to get excited about this race, because it is flat out, balls-to-the-wall action from start to finish, apart from the occasional windless days.  The crews come from all over the world, and are the best of the best at what they do.  This race is about using a knowledge of Nature, advanced technology, and the power of the human spirit to challenge the deep blue sea.  Check it out at www.volvorace.com.  They even have a web TV site, with highlights of past races.  I think that it is a lot better than watching cars burn up gas.

No more IOU’s, just cash from now on.

It cracks me up to hear the presidential candidates saying that they won’t raise taxes.  We are so deep in debt right now that we are probably going to see a longer work week sometime soon, just so that we can have something to take home after taxes.  Bailing out the greedy and the lazy will push us much deeper into the red than anyone thought possible just a few months ago.

What happened to the American work ethic?  When did it become disrespectful to work?  A great deal of the economic woe that we are facing now is because so many Americans were trying to get wealthy without having to work.  Not to mention the impact that having to pay a cash dividend every year has had on our industries.  Even when business is horrible, big companies have continued to hand out hundreds of millions, even billions, in cash to people who own their stock.

It used to be that buying stock was considered an investment in the future, because the payoff would take a few years, as the company gradually grew.  Somewhere along the line, somebody realized that they could sell a lot more stock if they promised to pay the people who bought that stock a cash payment every year, just for owning the stock.  In today’s world, large sums of cash can be hard to come by, resulting in companies having to get loans to pay the stockholders their dividends.

Even when that doesn’t happen, the profits that the company make are not being reinvested in the company, they are going to the shareholders.  Instead of developing new products, and more efficient methods of producing existing ones, companies are ‘outsourcing’ much, if not all, of their production.  This looks great on the balance sheet, but in the long term, it is suicide.  Who is going to buy the products that the company makes if everyone is out of work?

Everyone is getting all hot and bothered about the completely unrealistic levels of compensation that many executives have been getting, but all of their salaries and bonuses together would hardly be a drop in the bucket compared to the billions and billions that are paid out in dividends every year.  Those dividends are the future of our nation, the ability to grow, to innovate, to improve.  We are throwing those things away so that a bunch of lazy idiots can sit around doing nothing.

If the work week ends up being 50, or even 60, hours, than I think we should make it illegal to pay stockholders in cash any kind of dividend.  Make their shares worth more, so that all of us will be worth more.  The growth that we thought we were enjoying has turned out to be an illusion, a bubble that all of us helped to create.  Wealth is once again going to be measured by tangible things, not pieces of paper.

No matter how much the government gives the banks, the banks are not about to start loaning money out, because the bankers know that we are all broke, and they don’t want to lose any more of the so-called value that they are responsible for.  Because they will have to pay their shareholders with cash, not IOU’s.

Words for the season

HARVEST KING

AND

THE FESTIVAL OF AUTUMN

I am the Harvest King.
My colors are brown and yellow, orange and black.
I am the bounty of the land.
The death which brings life.
I am Change, and Sacrifice for the Future.
I am that which makes space for new life.
I will come for you.

In Death, we celebrate new beginnings,
As we cherish that which has passed on.
The Harvest King reminds us of the sacred nature of life,
And drives us together,
So that we may face the coming Winter.
The Life Force withdraws from the land,
And we gather to draw strength from each other,
And the memories of those who have gone before us.

We celebrate the Life Force which has died,
Cherishing the sacrifice made for the living.
We glimpse the full cycle of the wheel,
Life emerging from the residue of Death,
Growing, creating more Life, sharing in the harvests,
And then, joining the slumbering pool of Life,
Waiting to be reborn.

Scott P. Holman

Hey, buddy, can you spare a billion?

A landlord once told me that he was worried where he was going to get his next 1,000 dollars, which kind of put my problems in perspective.  For many major companies right now, figuring out where they are going to get their next billion dollars is a major concern.  America has become addicted to easy credit, from the Federal government down to the folks next door.  The term ‘bridge loan’ has nothing to do with bridges, but instead is an industry term for short-term financing to get through until expected funds become available.  It is kind of like a payday loan, but at much lower interest rates.

The state of California was used to getting bridge loans, a few billion to tide it over until tax revenues start coming in next spring.  Many companies borrow for a day, a week, or a month, at low interest, to cover payroll, for instance.  But it wasn’t always like this, which is why things are so messed up right now.  It used to be, companies kept cash in bank accounts to cover any conceivable expense, because credit was hard to get, even for multi-million dollar organizations.  States would borrow money, but only through bond sales, which were usually long-term instruments, often 20 years.  They had to keep their accounts in the black to cover day-to-day expenses.

Homeowners had savings accounts that often represented a year or more worth of income, to protect against a water heater going bad, or having to buy a new car, or somebody getting really sick.  The only way to get the equity out of a house was to sell it.  But most people had enough in the bank to see them through, so they didn’t need to borrow against what they had paid on their home.  Then, something changed, something which was a fundamental shift in thinking.

When people had spent all of their extra cash, they quit buying stuff that they really didn’t need.  This seems logical enough, but it meant that consumer spending began to decline, which hurt the profits of many big corporations.  In order to keep people buying stuff, an new idea surfaced.  Easy credit.  The credit card.  A homeowner was a sure bet, because their house would be their collateral for their debt.  Enter Monster Card, and its brethren.  In an amazingly short period of time, the United States went from being the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation, as easy credit spread from homeowners to big corporations to states.

Borrowing money used to be looked down upon, because good people paid cash.  Little by little, that stigma was erased, and replaced with a belief that we deserved what we wanted, right away.  Instant gratification became the standard operating procedure of not just teenagers, but adults, executives, and elected officials.  Of course, lending out money is a profitable enterprise, so everybody jumped on the bandwagon.  And, an obscure rule of accounting made it even easier.  If someone owes you money, it increases your net worth.  Accounts receivable are counted as an asset on a balance sheet.

The more money that is owed you, the wealthier you are, irregardless of the ability of the debtors to pay you back.  On paper, you can be worth millions, even billions, but not have two dimes to rub together.  Say, buddy, can you spare a billion?  I’m a little short right now.

Future shocking?

It amazes me that we are not hearing any straight talk about what lies ahead, as if things could somehow go on as they have before. Even though I have only a small education in economics, it seems obvious to me that the United States is going to have a huge amount of debt to pay off. This can only be done by working together to create things of lasting value which can be used by large numbers of people. Infrastructure. Trade cannot pay off debt, because nothing of lasting value is created in trade.

Consumer spending is based almost entirely upon trade, so consumer spending will have to decline. But how could consumer spending continue at previous levels if people are all broke? Something is going to have to replace consumer spending as the engine of the economy, and it will have to be big. Instead of building roads, though, maybe we should consider some new kinds of infrastructure. Like fiber optic cables to every home, and a combination data terminal/videophone in every house. A national high speed rail network. Upgrade the electric grid, and run transmission lines to areas where wind is plentiful. Insulate every structure in the nation. Not just spending money, but actually increasing our efficiency as a nation.

Demand for resources can easily outstrip supply if developing countries begin large-scale consumption. The resulting supply-side shocks cripple the economy, pushing up inflation at the same time that wages become stagnant. Greed overwhelms the markets, and a herd mentality emerges, where any profitable strategy is immediately copied, over and over again. One sub-prime mortgage is not a problem. Several million of them are. So markets will have to be guided into spending a portion of their capital on long-term projects, which will dampen the volatility in the short term, while providing guidance for investors as to where long-term growth will be.

Our future economic expansion must be based in increasing our net worth, not financial manipulations of value. Paying for this increase will mean working longer hours, so that the tax burden is spread over more earnings. The payment of cash dividends has got to be discouraged, so that corporations can invest their earnings into new means of production, training, and research. Military spending has got to be reduced, as that is money that disappears from our economy after one pass through it. Spending on space exploration needs to be increased, because it generates new wealth at a rate nearly unequaled, while engaging the high-tech military-industrial complex.

Saving has got to be encouraged, so that the government will have access to money to use for these programs. Payroll accepted in the form of U.S. savings bonds should be tax free, and the payroll value calculated in immediate redemption value, not the face value at maturity. Interest on savings accounts should be tax free. We are going to have to stop relying on foreign countries to carry our debt, because we are making our money worthless. Only by working together, and sharing the sacrifices, can we have any hope of coming out of this economic meltdown.

Better than term limits!

Do you ever get a little miffed that the person that is supposed to be serving you in some public office is instead spending their time campaigning for re-election, or, even worse, another office?  Both of the current candidates for president hold the office of U.S. senator, which should be their primary focus, in my opinion.  How has their candidacy affected their votes on the Senate floor?  If elected, would either person put the needs of the country ahead of their re-election?  Would either person be willing to take unpopular action, knowing that it would probably eliminate their chance for a second term?

How often have you heard that passage of critical legislation is unlikely during an ‘election year’?  If a person has choosen to make their career in politics, won’t they consider keeping their job the most important goal?  Many people have become disgruntled with the advantage than an incumbant has over a challenger, and various attempts at limiting the number of terms that can be served in a given office have been put forward.  Most have failed, because there is no agreement on the limits.

When this country was founded, getting people to serve in public office was a huge problem.  Often, it meant being away from one’s farm or business for months at a time, which could lead to financial ruin.  Now, we have legislators who have been in office for decades, who have hardly spent any time in the areas that they represent, who have developed close relationships with lobbyists.

I say, force people to step down when their term of office expires, and don’t allow anyone holding elected office, even if it is at the local level, to run for another office.  I am sick of mayors running for state representative, or county commisioners campaigning for state senate office.  I don’t want to see any more governers using their office as a stepping stone to higher office, because they have been elected to do a job.  When an office holder is campaigning for re-election, or election to another office, how focused are they on their job?  How likely are they to do what is right, even if it means displeasing the public initially?

No term limits, for any office.  But no incumbancy, either.  You serve your term, then you are out.  You can run as many times as you want, but, if elected, you have to step down when your term is up.  This is the only truly fair way to insure that we get proper representation in our government, as well as the only way that I can think of that important decisions will be made with the interests of the country in the forefront.  The term ‘career politician’ offends me, because a career politician is someone who has made staying in office their primary goal, not serving their country.

What is ‘normal’ for markets?

Over and over again, in reading about the financial/economic crisis, I come across the expression “when markets return to normal,” Do people really believe that we are going to go back to the dividend-driven, supposedly risk-free, immediate return seeking ways of the last few years? Doesn’t anyone realize that the wealth that was supposedly created in those years never really existed, it was just an illusion to allow a few people to benefit hugely at the majority’s expense? We artificially inflated our net worth, by bidding up the prices of everything, and paying ourselves huge bonuses for being alive. The money that was zooming around, being loaned out again and again, was a fantasy, with nothing to back it up. Just because someone claims that something is worth a certain amount does not make it so, no matter how hard we wish.

So we had better start adjusting to a new reality, one where wealth is again hard to come by, and is only created by work, not by manipulating numbers. We must accept that we cannot live off of our investments alone, because they are not going to provide the steady stream of money that so many have become addicted to. Stock dividends are going to become extremely rare, because the companies will be too hard pressed to come up with cash. Credit default swaps are not going to prevent risk, because too much has been invested under the false belief that it cannot be lost. The government cannot hand out trillions of dollars to keep investors from losing when the slowing of the economy stops the payment of debt.

The entire premise that being owed money increases one’s worth will have to be jettisoned, because too many accounts receivable are not going to be collected. A bank holding company may claim that it worth large sums of money because of all the debt that it holds, but how much of that debt will be converted into cash cannot be known in advance. Those companies that do not re-invest their profits into reducing debt and improving efficiency will not see their stock increase in value, unlike in the past. We have gotten used to believing that we were wealthy because we could easily borrow money. We never were wealthy, and we sure aren’t now.

Games people play

Want something new and different to do during the downtime at work, or when you are sitting around wishing that there was something worth watching on TV?  Try the Volvo Ocean Race Virtual Game!  Over 70,000 people have signed up to run a virtual sailboat in this ’round the world’ race, which follows the same course as the real Volvo Open 70 boats.  You don’t have to be a sailor, or even know anything about sailing, just be interested in participating in an online game.

http://www.volvooceanracegame.org/play.php  is the URL that will get you to the sign up page.

For those of you who are into sailing, the new 24 hour record for a monohull boat was set during leg 1, at 602 miles.  That is by a sailboat, folks, not a power boat.  Maintaining an average of about 25 knots, or 30 miles per hour, for 24 hours is quite a feat.  This is the Formula One of sailing, with boats built entirely of carbon, huge sails, and a special ‘canting keel’ which allows the boats to go upwind.  This is not NASCAR, with things going around and around, this is not football, with people hitting each other,  this is not any sport you have ever seen.  People have died during these races, and boats have been lost.

In an age when burning gasoline is becoming less than politically correct, sailing is a clean, green sport.

I’m so confused!

Here in the United States, we use a celebration of Death to kick of the celebration of Life.  What am I talking about?  Thanksgiving and the Christmas Shopping Season.  Although Thanksgiving is dedicated to the Pilgrams landing at Plymouth Rock, it is really a harvest celebration, just a little late in the year.  (I for one never believed that people ate outside at Thanksgiving ever! Especially in Massachuesetts.)  The roast beast, the trimmings, the goodies, the pies, the whole production is a celebration of the bounty of the land, and the sacrifice made so that Life can go on.  Everything on the table will be dead, and that is what the celebration is all about.  We give thanks to that which has died so that we can continue.

Unless you live in some place without electricity, you will probably notice that the sky glows at night a lot more than usual in the days after Thanksgiving.  Some people already are burning their Christmas, or Yule, lights, and the day after Thanksgiving in the ‘official’ kick off of the Christmas Shopping Season.  The Yule Tide was a celebration of Life, of re-birth, of renewal.  It started a few days after the Winter Solstice, and ran for days or weeks into January.  (What else is January good for, except partying?)

Because merchants want us to buy our gifts, instead of making them ourselves, as was done in the old days, they sponser concerts, public events, lighting displays, and anything eles that they can think of to get people out shopping.  Gradually, the Christmas season has swung around from the weeks after the Winter Solstice to the weeks before the Winter Solstice.  Inadvertantly, we have moved a festival of Life into a time when the LifeForce is ebbing from the land, leaving nothing for when the days begin to get longer.

To make things even more unsettling, late autumn has always been a time when people tried to conserve their resources as much as possible, by staying close to home, eating very little, and sleeping a lot.  For thousands and thousands of years, what food we had would have to last until Spring, at the earliest.  So, getting out and being extra active in late autumn just feels wrong somehow.

We must remember our instinctual heritage, what cultures practiced before written history, when analyzing our motivations and emotional responses to modern societie’s demands.  There are ample reasons for feeling confused and out of sorts in the weeks ahead, and some we don’t even acknowledge.

Have a wonderful Harvest Festival!

Saving a little money

Now that folks are starting to realize that it is not just them, we are all broke, maybe we can start changing some wasteful practices.  Such as paying one set of people to take care of our elders, and another set of people to take care of our children.  Both functions were part of the family experience up until about 60 years ago, the elders taking care of the children, teaching them culture, history, manners, and social skills, until the children were old enough to start taking care of the elders, when they became infirm.  Today, we seperate these two groups, so that many young children never get to know really old people, and our elders pining their days away wishing that they could spend time with children,  Any children.

Many of the people who have been placed in assisted living or nursing facilities are alert, active, and interested in what is going on around them, they simply are in need of care which family members can’t, or won’t, provide.  They are capable of spending an hour or two a few days a week helping to watch over a group of children.  Not by themselves, of course, but with the assistance of young, able bodied people.  And not in the common room of the facility catering to the elders, but in a special, home-like setting, perhaps not even on the same grounds.  Elders could be compensated for their time, and the proceeds used to help defray the cost of their care.

Somehow, a way should be found to utilize the free time, culutural knowledge, and historical background of our elders in socializing our youth.  Very young children love to please elderly people, and elderly people love to spend time with very young children.  When these two populations are allowed to interact, the results are often far more positive than when either interacts with any other age group.  It is a waste to keep them segregated.

You can keep Christmas, I’ll celebrate the Yule!

Many folks don’t realize this, but Christmas is a distorted echo of an ancient pagan, or witchcraft, celebration of the Winter Solstice.  The Yule, or YuleTide, was begun on or about December 25th, which is the first day that it is always possible, no matter which day the solstice falls upon, to measure the shortening of a shadow cast at noon.  The celebration lasted weeks, or even months, as the primitive people of Western Europe gathered together to face their greatest enemy, the winter.  The evergreen tree was a symbol of Life carrying on through the Death of winter.  Candles were symbols of the Sun, which made life possible.

In a time when nothing was taken for granted, and gods peopled the heavens and earth, the idea that the Sun could just keep going South was not uncommon.  To believe that the world could end up in eternal night gave great cause for celebration when it was determined that the Sun was coming back.  Because people had lots of spare time during the months of Autumn, they could make handycrafts, which they shared with each other when they gathered for YuleTide.  An animal would be slaughtered, the thinning of the stock to ensure that some survived the winter, and a feast would be held.

Thus, the traditions of the Yule have been passed down, but the celebration has been distorted by Greed.  In order to get people out shopping, buying the things that they can no longer make, decorations go up early, special occasions are held, and people are encouraged to spend money on their loved ones.  A countdown to the day is held, and the anticipation builds, aided by commercials.  When the day finally arrives, it is a let down.  Soon, people are unhappy with the whole thing, and decide to take down the festive lights.

Killing a tree every year was never part of the Yule celebration, only decorating one outdoors.  For one thing, there was no room in the huts that families shared for a tree, and the idea of killing an evergreen at that time of year was like heresy.  Gift giving was not a given, (ha ha) but no one was expecting anything.  An article that someone has worked on for hours has that persons energy in it, and it has power emotionally.  Simply handing out gifts would have diminished the impact that gifts had, I believe.

because the celebration of the Yule was so deeply ingrained in the native population of Western Europe, the Christian church gave up trying to stop the celebration, and incorporated it into the Christian calander.  Because the populous believed that the Sun was reborn at the solstice, the church held that the Son was born at that time.  (This in spite of it being generally believed by scholars at the time that Christ was born during the Spring or Summer.)  The emphasis was placed on the religious meaning of the Christian celebration, and the Yule was not mentioned.

To me, Christmas has come to represent the worst of American culture, with Greed being the major offender, followed by Materialism.  People have been lead to believe that the celebration goes on before the fact, not after, so that they will buy more.  I embrace the Yule, because it does not have the materialistic trappings, and it spans the time when it is first noticeable that the days are getting longer.  That is the promise of another Spring, and Life returning.  That, to me, is the Reason For The Season.

What kind of person are you?

Do you think of labor in a factory to be a resource, or an asset?  Do you believe that it should be ‘every man for himself!’ or do you believe in community being worth investing in?  A pure capitalist would view labor as a resource, to be exploited to the utmost.  A civic minded person believes that the community is valuable, and well worth investing in.  Pure capitalism is self-destructive, as we have witnessed, because all of the wealth ends up in the hands of a few, and the economy comes to a halt, because no one can buy anything.

Part of the reason that the government has grown so large is because the community has had to band together to deal with the consequences of our capitalist society, which aims to use people up and throw them away.  If employers took care of their employees as if they were an asset, an investment in training, experience, and knowledge accumulated over time on the job, than government would not be needed to redistribute the wealth through taxation.  Health care, retirement, housing, all would be affordable, and available to all.

Every one wants a bigger slice of the pie.  Even though the pie is not getting larger, and there are more people wanting a slice.  Taking some from somebody else to have more for yourself is called greed.  Greed has betrayed capitalism in the United States, pushed rational thinking aside, and driven us right over the edge.  Instead of investing in the future, to assure that the future is the one that we desire, we have been enticed to spend everything, and more, right now.  In return, our jobs have been outsourced overseas, our taxes are buying less and less services, and everything is horribly expensive.

Only huge, economy-wide growth, on a scale never seen before, can pull us out of an economic implosion.  Asset deflation is likely to set in, as prices drop, values decrease, and people have no money to spend.  Deflation scares the wealthy more than anything else, because it steals away their wealth even through locked vault doors.   To avoid another Great Depression, a new set of rules are needed.

Investment has got to be with the intent of value increasing over the long term, not in order to pay today’s bills.  Cash dividends to stock holders is the single most damaging policy of all modern business practices.  It robs the future to allow luxury for a time, and corrupts the process of management.  Stock should increase in value, and be split, to reward its owners, as the company becomes more and more valuable.  But that can’t happen when the profits are being funneled into cash to pay to stockholders.

 

Losing the race to survive

The United States, the most technologically advanced nation in the world, is surrendering its access to outer space.  With the retirement of the space shuttles, the U.S. will be totally dependent upon Russia for getting people into space.  Only the refusal of the U.S. government to fund NASA adequately can be blamed for this debacle.  The shuttles have many more missions in them, they are safe when operated properly, and they are the first of what I hope will be a long line of reusable space planes.

Getting people into space is the biggest challenge we face right now, one which the U.S. has decided to avoid.  In spite of doing all of the work necessary to build a safe, reliable, economical way of accessing space, the U.S. is not taking the next step.  Outer space is the key to the survival of the human race, because only there can we find the resources and the energy to lift the human race out of poverty, disease, and eventual extinction.  Everything that we need is out there, in vast quantities, just waiting for us to come along and make use of it.  We can process materials out there without fouling our air and water, or putting more strain on our energy production system.

Getting into space means accelerating to 17,500 miles per hour, or 5 miles per second.  Every pound that goes into orbit requires large amounts of energy to reach that velocity.  Coming back to Earth, that same energy must be dissipated somehow, so that the vehicle is slowed enough to land.  We are going to give up landing on a runway like an airplane for landing in the ocean, like a rock falling from the sky.

Because the space shuttle was vehicle designed by Congress, it was horribly expensive to operate.  But the basic principles that it pioneered are sound, and should be the basis for the design of our next space vehicle.  But we must avoid the problem that the space shuttle faced, and that was trying to do too many things with one vehicle.  We need a space plane that is designed to carry about 10 to 15 people, and only people, into orbit, and to bring them back and land on a runway at the place where the vehicle takes off.

We also need to get beyond vertical launching.  We now have the technology to build an aircraft that would serve as a first stage, taking off horizontally, and carrying the space plane to an altitude where most of the atmosphere is below it.  This would utilize the oxygen in the atmosphere for burning the fuel, instead of having to carry it onboard, and it would take advantage of the thick atmosphere to provide lift.

Building such a system would take less than 100 billion dollars, and could be accomplished in a few years.  We already know everything that we need to now, all of the science has been proven, all we need is the wherewithal to make the future possible.

Puritan Pilgrims Day

Today marks the arrival in North America of a group of intolerant religious fanatics, who fled Europe because they believed that the society there was becoming too permissive.   These fanatics would have starved and frozen to death had it not been for the kindness and generosity of the local heathens.

This holiday is the result of the efforts of a single woman, who organized a campaign to convince President Lincoln to declare a ‘day of thanks’ for the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.  This holiday has nothing to do with celebrating the bountiful harvests the land has yielded, coming long after all harvests are in.  Today, it is used as the kickoff for the Christmas Shopping Season, as well as being clothed in sentiment for home and family.

Holidays, or sabbats as they were called by many in Europe in ancient times, used to mark the turning of the Wheel of the Year.  They were tied to the astronomical calender, falling on the solstices and equinoxes, and the days halfway between.  These sabbats represented the periods of the year associated with renewal, growth, and harvesting, as well as worship of the ancestors.  Their meanings were timeless, beyond everyday life, immutable.

Thanksgiving falls during a time which was thought by many to be a dormant time, a period when conservation of resources was critical.  Winter is just beginning, and one’s stocks of food and fuel had to last for months.  Our genetic heritage is telling us to keep our activities to a minimum, to stay home, to endure the darkness.  We are goaded into action by advertising sponsored by those who want us to spend our money, even if we have none to spare.

Thanksgiving is a totally artificial holiday, having no connection with Nature and the world around us.  Its meaning is being lost in a blitz of advertising and promotions.  More and more, it is merely a celebration of consumption, of spending which keeps the rich getting richer.  Ignore the countdown which starts now, find another way to celebrate the harvest, save your money for more important things.

Childhood? What childhood?

Yesterday, I was at a local convenience store, and there were two children there.  One was a girl of about 8 or 9, and the other was a boy of about 5 or 6.  The girl was talking on a cellphone, and the boy was waiting furiously.  I overheard the girl say something like, “Mom, your Visa card didn’t work.”  Then, she told the little boy to run home and get the Quest card.

These children were dealing with things which  some adults had difficulty dealing with not too long ago; using a credit card, having it rejected, and making a call on a cellular phone.  The little girl was very adult sounding, but the little boy was still being a little boy.  I saw him as I was walking home.  He was playing with some friends, who were outside the apartments that he lived in, all thoughts of a mission gone.  Then, he must have remembered, because he turned away from his fellows and started walking towards the house.

I  was happy to see that he had not succumbed entirely to responsibility

The Blame Game, Gulf oil spill version.

There is a lot of finger-pointing going on right now over who is to blame for the horrible disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which is already the largest oil spill in U. S. history.  Suppose we find the person(s) responsible.  Will that change what has happened?  Will affixing blame prevent what has happened from happening again?  Probably not, in both cases.  And the real blame lies with American consumers, who steadfastly refuse to give up driving by themselves everywhere that they go, paying any amount for the gasoline they need, and turning a blind eye to the future.

The only reason that BP was drilling a well nearly a mile under the surface of the ocean was because they stood to make a profit from it.  With gasoline selling for nearly 3 dollars a gallon, oil companies are willing to try to extract crude oil under any conditions.  The hot new area for oil exploration right now is off of the coast of Brazil, in 10,000 feet of water.  The oil deposits lie nearly 3 miles beneath the sea floor, which means having a stick of pipe nearly 5 miles long.  The oil that is recovered is going to be very expensive, but the demand is so great that profits are assured.

The only way to stop this insanity is to reduce our consumption of petroleum products.  As long as huge profits are in the offing, people will do anything to be part of the gravy train.  More regulations won’t help, tighter supervision won’t help, greater accountability won’t help.  In many ways, this is very similar to the war on drugs.  All that we have accomplished by cracking down on drugs is to make selling and producing them even more profitable, which means that someone is ready to step up every time someone else gets busted.

The oil companies are like pushers, trying to get us to use as much of their product as possible, while trying to keep the competition from making any gains in their turf.  We could reduce our dependence on oil substantially, but that is the last thing that the oil companies want us to do.  They want us willing to pay any price for a gallon of gas, willing to stand in long lines to purchase this miracle substance, willing to buy vehicles which get poor mileage.  They don’t want us deciding to ride the bus or the train instead of driving, or carpooling, or riding our bicycle, or walking, because the oil companies can’t make a profit on those activities.

Big business wants the government to do everything possible to keep energy cheap, even if it threatens our survival.  We will do almost anything, pay almost any price, for the illusion of freedom that comes with owning a car.  So we created the demand for oil that induced BP to drill for oil in 5000 feet of water.  We are the ones who are pressuring the government to open up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil production, not the oil companies.  We are the ones who are willing to buy oil from people who want to destroy us.  Changing our lifestyles to ways that are sustainable, which do not degrade the planet, is the only way to stop the oil companies from creating more disasters.  The government can’t do it, special interest groups can’t do it, religion can’t do it.  Every time that we drive a car, we are voting for more exploration, greater acceptance of risk, higher gasoline prices.

All we have to do is to leave the car at home when we commute to work, or to school, and we would reduce the demand for oil considerably.  And we should do so anyway, just to get ready for the days when we can no longer afford all the gasoline that we want.  Because things are going to change, and we will have to change in response.  It is much easier to make a change willingly than it is to be forced to change.  We need to have alternatives in place for when gasoline is just too expensive.

Spaced out

Recently, three Apollo-era astronauts, including the first man to walk on the Moon, attacked the new program of space exploration proposed by the Obama administration.  They contend that terminating the Constellation program to build a new rocket for carrying Americans into space is wrong, and that the proposed reliance on private space companies to send astronauts into space is flawed and unworkable.

The United States is on the brink of an abyss, a time when there is no American spacecraft to carry our astronauts to their work.  This happened before, during the 1970′s and early 1980′s, between the Apollo spacecraft and the space shuttle.  The space shuttle is being grounded, because NASA does not have enough money to fly it and to do anything else.  The costs have not increased, the money that Congress gives the agency every year has stagnated, and inflation has reduced the ability of the dollars to buy what they used to.

When President Bush announced the Constellation program, it was expected that the new rocket would be ready by 2015, so there would only be a 4 year gap in our space faring ability.  But, because of the new kind of rocket that is to be used in the Constellation program, delays have mounted, and the earliest that it would carry people into orbit had been pushed back to 2018.  Plus, the capsule that was supposed to ride the new rocket into space, the Orion, had been too heavy to begin with, and so the number of people it was supposed to carry shrank from 5 to 3.

The Constellation program had become so expensive that NASA was considering shutting down the International Space Station 5 years early to free up money for Constellation, something which our partners in the space station were not likely to agree to.  NASA was proposing to build a rocket that would have nowhere to go, at least until the year 2020, when a new, larger rocket was supposed to make it possible for people to go to the Moon.  But there had been no money in the budget for developing the equipment needed to explore the Moon, so we would again have a rocket with nowhere to go.

What the three Apollo astronauts did not say was that we are not spending enough on space exploration.  They avoided mentioning budgets, and focused on prestige and scientific standing.  But the sad fact is that we are losing our ability to go into space, unless we reconsider the decision to stop flying the space shuttle.  The Constellation program would not have solved that problem, because there would still have been nowhere to send the rockets once they were finally built.  Our current budget for manned space exploration, including development of new spacecraft, is about 7 billion dollars.  We could double that amount and still not approach what we spend on the War on Drugs, for instance.

Without space, the prospects for the human race are bleak, because we will be trapped in a petri dish, stuck in a closed system, more and more of us competing for a finite amount of resources.  Without space, our consumption of energy will eventually destroy our environment.  Without space, the pie that everyone wants a bigger piece of cannot grow.

We want to inquire about your greed.

Congress can never be said to avoid taking action, because every crisis and major decision sees some form of commission, committee, or dog and pony show created do provide guidance.  The congress itself is too busy running for re-election to actually study the issues, so they delegate someone else to do it.  This tactic is especially popular when unpopular decisions are needed, because the legislator can always say that they just followed the recommendations of the body which was responsible for that action.  This is, of course, out and out denial of the congress members duty to take responsibility for their actions.

Responsibility is what the commission that sparked this diatribe is investigating;  who can get the credit for the American economy collapsing around the remainder of Wall Street.  Somewhere, there has got to be a person or persons whose decisions were instrumental in causing tho worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, or so the thinking goes, apparently.  The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission is charged with establishing just what caused the best party the rich had enjoyed in centuries to come so suddenly to an end.

But, over and over again, executives state they were following sound business practices, and that it was unstoppable market forces which overwhelmed them.  They had no responsibility for all the bad things that happened.  We should not be surprised, because it would take some too dim of wit to survive on Wall Street to stand before a commission and say, “We were greedy, and got in over our heads.”  Which is what the whole crisis amounted to; greed distorting the judgment of everyone from home owners to heads of multinational banks.

How ‘sound’ is a business practice which is based on the market continuing an unprecedented surge, or the willingness of others to loan money?  It sounded great when the money was rolling, but people were so busy putting it in their pockets that they didn’t set any aside for an overcast day.  The smallest disturbance could threaten multi-billion dollar companies with extinction, it worked out, as dominoes fell one right after another, until the whole thing went right off a cliff.  How can you expect to see a cliff when you are driving 100 miles per hour?  The profit taking was so supercharged that no one even considered easing up on the gas a little.

Well, it was nice while it lasted, and some people made a lot of money, but most of us ended up with less.  Is it our money that those people got?

Crawling off to die?

Many animals will seek a secluded place to pass on from this life, which indicates a possible foreknowledge that their time has come.  Amazingly, many elderly people have an urge to leave where they are and to wander about in confusion.  This was a prime way to get killed for our ancient ancestors, as many predators, some of them animals, would attack a dazed, elderly person.  Dogs, raccoons, rats, and many other carnivores have been known to attack infants and elderly people.

What I am about to say seems off the wall, and very morbid, but I believe that there is some evidence that this widespread ‘disorder’ in elderly people is a survival trait of the race, not of the individual.  Extremely old people are a difficult burden on a small tribal group, because compassion will force the others to help provide for them, as well as to care for them, cleaning them up, feeding them, cleaning them up, putting them to bed, cleaning them up… well, you get the picture.

Commonly, elderly people talk of ‘wanting to go home,’ even when they may be living in the only home that they have ever known.  Wandering out on a January night in much of the Northern Hemisphere is going to be a quick way of solving the problem, because hypothermia will take the very elderly in short time spans.  Perhaps, on some deep level that is beyond expression with words, elderly people don’t want to be a burden on the ones that they love anymore, and decide that it is time to go ‘home’, back into the pool of Life.

I can imagine that everyone would always put themselves at risk by flying out into the night, the woods, the snow, to look for that loved one who had wandered off, but I would bet that many times the person was not found in time, or even for a few days.  So the living are hesitant to put themselves at great risk for someone who is about to pass on anyway.  All of this means that when the spark of life is dim and flickering, when every thing takes somebody to help, when the pain won’t go away, there was a way to end it.

This seems so contrary to our instincts, which goad us to keep on struggling, to believe in the future, to know that things can get better.  But we will not survive forever, and somehow, some of us know that the way to get home is to leave where we are.  When people display a trait over a broad range of cultures, geographic area, and ethnicity, you can bet that that trait is something that has been bred into our genes.  It is called evolution, and it selects for survival traits which express themselves over thousands of years.

Crawling off to die may be a survival trait, similar to jumping into a river to save a child.  Removing a burden which will not go away without loss can be a means of  increasing the chances that the descendants will survive.  What is considered ‘dementia’ may be ‘instinct’ instead.  Decoupling the urge to survive from our actions requires extreme measures, so fogging the thinking might be the way that evolution has made it possible for the elderly to wander off to help the children while they look for home.  It is not lying down and dying, or throwing yourself into a butter churn, but it is a way to possibly shorten your life.

The future by default?

Attention is focused on Greece right now, as efforts to prevent the country from collapsing into bankruptcy rise to a crescendo.  Such a bankruptcy might bring about a cascade of additional implosions, if investors shun sovereign debt from Portugal, Spain, and Ireland.   Iceland is already in bankruptcy, the result of wheeling and dealing by two Icelandic banks.  The United States is running unprecedented deficits, which are only partly a result of the economic crisis.  The only country which seems to have its economic house in order is China, which has been financing the American economy for nearly 10 years.

Why is it so difficult for countries to live within their means?  How can governments expect to borrow money endlessly, without ever having to pay back the loans that keep them afloat?  Is it fear of losing power that drives officials to promise what cannot be afforded?  The consequences of continuing the path that we are on are growing steadily more dire, yet no one seems to be suggesting that we change our course.  World trade stands in jeopardy, because who will sell goods to a bankrupt country?

The people of Greece have been living an illusion, fostered by governments which were willing to extend every possible luxury to stay in power.  Civil service workers could not be fired, most workers received 14 months of pay every year, and retirement benefits exceeded the income made while working.  But Greece is only the tip of the iceberg.  Nearly every developed country coddles their people, sheltering them from the true costs of living.  Budget deficits have become standard operating procedure around the world, not just in the U.S.

Even amidst widespread unemployment, some people are gaining more wealth.  Are we all being hoodwinked so that a few can continue to rake in the dough?  It seems like it.  Consumer spending has been the engine that keeps the world economy growing, yet consumers have been borrowing to spend.  If consumption were to decline to sustainable levels, who would suffer the most?  The people who have to put up with a 10-year-old car, or the car companies?  If we were forced to buy shoes that could be repaired, instead of spending nearly a week’s wages on disposable shoes, wouldn’t we be better off?  Probably, but the industrialists who have been getting rich selling us shoes over and over again would not be.

Most people have not seen their income increase for nearly ten years, yet the wealthiest people have been getting wealthier the whole time.  Consumer debt is at unprecedented levels, while income growth is ground to a halt.  If taxes are raised enough to pay the costs of government, consumers would be unable to consume.  Instead of raising taxes, governments have resorted to borrowing to meet their costs, trying to keep consumption going.  But it cannot go on.  Consumption is going to decline, tax revenues will follow suit, and then governments will be forced to default on their debt.

We are all headed for the poorhouse, because some people have been getting rich while the rest of us are just scraping by.  Wages have not even come close to growing in proportion to productivity.  Instead of paying shareholders cash bonuses, corporations should be paying their workers wages that reflect the value of the work that they do.  Then consumers would have the money to pay higher taxes and still be able to buy new goods.  But greed has blinded the boards of corporations, and the wealth that the workers create goes to people who do nothing to help create it.

American workers are so productive that they could be paid full-time wages for working half days, allowing full employment.  But that would mean that the wealthy would not get wealthier as fast.  So, the workers are earning what they did when they were much less productive, and unemployment is widespread.  Workers who cannot work don’t buy things that they don’t desperately need, which means that consumption declines, and tax revenues diminish.

We could have avoided all of this pain, but doing so would have cut into the profits that a small number of individuals have enjoyed.  As a result, all of us, wealthy and poor, are going to suffer.  Maybe we can get it right next time.  If there is a next time.

Oil forever, but at what cost?

Not so long ago, drilling a well in the floor of the ocean in 5,000 feet of water was unheard of.  Most of the oil platforms in the Gulf Of Mexico stood in less than 1,000 feet of water, which still required advanced engineering to work.  But the easy oil is almost gone, the oil that lies close to the surface, or in shallow water.  Not only are wells being drilled in deeper water, but the depth of the wells themselves have grown substantially.

Drill ships have to be able to maintain their position over the well without being anchored to anything, which demands advanced electronics, and huge motors that can spin in 360 degree circles, called thrusters.  Much work must be carried out by remotely controlled robots, working on the sea floor, and the drill ships have to stay on station irregardless of the weather conditions, or else the pipe to the well will break.

To drill a hole over a foot in diameter thousands of feet into the earth takes huge amounts of power, and hundreds and hundreds of pieces of pipe, threaded together.  The work goes on around the clock, seven days a week.  Workers must live on the rig, spending weeks at a time hundreds of miles away from land.  Shift rotation is usually by helicopter, with supplies coming out on barges.

All of this means that the oil that is pumped out of these deep underwater wells is going to be very expensive.  And plans are in the works to drill in much deeper water, in some cases up to 10,000 feet of water, and wells going 3 miles into the earth.  The areas that President Obama wants to open up for production are in much shallower water, closer to the shorelines.  They have been protected from drilling because of concerns over environmental damage due to accidents.

The technology has advanced enough that such wells are fairly safe, because of a great deal of experience with them.  The well that is now leaking into the Gulf is one of the newest wells, in an area which has been undeveloped because of the costs of producing oil in such conditions.  But the steadily increasing price of crude oil has made deep ocean wells profitable, in spite of the costs.

We will never run out of oil, but at some point it is going to be too expensive to use as fuel.  When that point arrives depends on what actions we take to supplement oil as a source of energy.  What we are paying now for oil would have been more than enough to subsidize the development of high speed rail, mass transit, and more fuel efficient vehicles.  Our government believes in letting the market decide what is too expensive, which is fine, except that the market makes no provision for when oil becomes too expensive.

It is not the responsibility of energy companies to ensure that we make a smooth transition to alternate sources of energy, and it would be bad business to do so.  Maximizing profits means maintaining the status quo as long as possible, and then switch to the new source of energy as quickly as possible.  But who is going to assist the consumer, the business person, in making that huge switch?  Changing energy sources can be horribly expensive, especially if it must be done in a short period of time.

So, we are likely to see energy costs related to crude oil rise steadily, until they reach the point of causing economic breakdown, and then, suddenly, a new source of energy will replace oil, which will require new kinds of engines, new kinds of cars, new methods of using the energy, just when the economy is in shambles because energy costs have been so high.  Allowing more off-shore oil production will help keep energy costs down,  for a while, but they are still going to rise.  Will we use this time to prepare for the change to new sources of energy, or will we continue to pay whatever it costs for oil?  It is up to the government to prepare us for this, and the government is avoiding doing so, in order to help the oil companies be as profitable as possible.

Is this how capitalism is supposed to work?  Do we have to drive off a cliff before we realize that the direction we are traveling must change?  Is economic chaos the only way progress can occur?  Stay tuned to this station, because we will find out in the coming years.