Covid-19 Economic Damage (now with citations)

EDIT: now with citations!

The economy is wrecked no matter what.

We lock down and don't pay anyone: half the country starves (1).

We don't lock down: half the country gets hammered with HUGE medical bills that bankrupt them for life (5).

These are the two extremes and any variation of flattening the curve with releasing all restrictions to have another controlled wave of infection is only cycling between these two; it doesn't SOLVE anything, it just minimizes some of the damage and stretches the rest out from the initial indeterminate period to a longer indeterminate period.

So, we have to be truly honest right up front: there is no escaping economic devastation.

To stem the tide of massive starvation die-offs during the Great Depression the government spent HUGE volumes of cash it did not have. Creating these jobs was more expensive than just giving hand-outs but the psychological effect of working for the earnings rather than receiving charity was deemed more valuable than the extra cost.
The government INVENTED money and generated the work projects to get people out of their starvation trajectory (2).

That's what we have to do here. Will it cause massive inflation? Yup. It will. That's a future-us problem... but there will BE a future us to handle it. (3)

With an up-to 12% serious condition rate (6)(7) we are looking at half the country (4) is saddled under permanent medical care debt then there is no economy for them (5).

They won't be able to afford anything more than the most meager subsistence and that leads to individual economic ruin (8). What drives the economy as a whole? Consumerism (9)(10). With half the populace being able to buy anything due to crippling medical debt there is no consumerism and, therefore, no economy. It crashes. Inflation doesn't matter when all the businesses are going under because no one can buy their crap.

That's the thing about this situation - the rational, zero-sum math is now irrelevant.

So, tax the shit out of the billionaires whose entire fortunes are built on exploiting their workers. Tax them AND deficit spend to keep people alive. It's the least-costly way through this.

For example... let's use the worst-case estimates for deaths (because, if we just stop all measures and open everything for business, as usual, that is plausible)...

The mortality rate is 2-3% barring complications if people actually get the care they need (7). If we take the 2.5% mortality rate and multiply it against the US population (330million) we have a death toll of 6.6M people (11). That's assuming we are able to treat all of those who are sick properly. To do that requires flattening the curve (12), otherwise, the system will be overwhelmed and many more will die (13).

That's up to 6.6M deaths in the first go-round of this pandemic; there is evidence that reinfection can happen(14) and each new generation will have no inherent immunity.

59% of Americans have life insurance of some form(15).

It's estimated that most are under-insured(16) so let's guess REALLY low for the average insurance amount and call it $25k (16).

That means the life insurance industry, alone, will take at LEAST a $29.5B hit due to this pandemic.

Now, let's look at the bills for medical care. Reports of uninsured people getting hit with HUGE bills are popping up. They're in the $20k - $100k range (17). For the sake of minimizing the impact and easy math, let's call this $25k per person.

If 6.6M (2.5%) are DYING that means about 4x (2.5% x 4 = 10%; 10% + 2.4% = 12.5%) that amount are getting ill and recovering. So, for easy math, let's round that down to 33M having a serious illness that requires significant medical interventions.

For easy math let's also assume that the price tag is the same for the insured and uninsured (it's not).

That means that ~$25k * 33M people is the economic impact on the combination of people and the health insurance industry. So that's an additional $83T of economic damage. At an uninsured rate of 11%(18) that's more than $8.3T hitting the poorest people in the country and the rest bankrupting the health insurance industry. I have left out the additional medical cost of the people who died... but they will have incurred expenses, too... so keep in mind that these numbers are incomplete.

This is without even trying to calculate the impact of having massive labor shortages due to people being unable to work (the best-case scenario for those infected who get sick seems to be 2 weeks of intense misery with a two week recovery time; with some as many as 6 weeks of illness).
So let's do that... 33M people getting sick for 5.2 weeks (on average). The year has 52 weeks so 5.2 weeks is the easy math point to make it 1/10th of a year. The workforce in the USA is about 160M (20) and the virus does not discriminate between those who work and those who do not so let's do some more rough math and divide out the proportions. 160M / 330M is 48% of the population. 33M people is 20% of the workforce but only 10% of the overall population so lets do some more easy math and call the workforce half the population so we can cleanly halve the 33M to determine the economic impact of those people being out of work. So, 16.5M people afflicted out of 160M - roughly 10%.
10% of the workforce for 10% of the year is 1% of the overall output of the workforce as a whole.
On top of the previously stated economic damage due to the illness, we are looking at a 1% retraction of the GDP as a result of the illness. That's roughly $205B in economic damage. (21)

Now let's look at the huge cost of the funeral industry. This, like medical costs, is a sunk cost. It does not return anything of value to the economy as a whole; all of the products are one-time use and are, literally, buried or burnt up. No reclaiming value. Only the wages of those working in the funeral industry help drive the velocity of money, the rest is all a literal drain on the overall movement of cash. 6.6M ADDITIONAL deaths. Let's just go with the rock-bottom $1k per body (22) cost of processing each body (as an average) and ignore that the rich will spend WAY more and the middle class often spends 10x that amount. That's ANOTHER $6.6B hitting the economy... and that assumes that we have the mortician throughput to handle the deaths... which we don't.

So, let's round back on our options:

1. Lockdown and presume everyone has to fend for themselves on their savings. We incur massive starvations and deaths and economic collapse. With 50% (1) of people living in a situation where missing two paychecks means utter and complete disaster, this WILL be a problem. Let's say only half of those people die. That's 82M left in serious trouble and $207T of economic damage due to life insurance payouts and processing costs. It also means a reduction in the overall GDP of at least 25% as a quarter of the people stop consuming, which is another $50T.

2. We do NOTHING and let everyone get sick as fast as possible. This is the basis for all of the above. 6.6M dead, 4x that many needing medical care. A hospital system that cannot accommodate them all, leading to more deaths.

3. We flatten the curve through incremental openings and closings. This leads to all of the above as well, but over a 2-3 year period instead of in a single year. It does manage to reduce the peripheral deaths and the deaths of people due to being unable to get the necessary care so that ONLY the predictions above are valid.

OR

4. We suck it up and pay people to stay home, taking the economic hit to subsidize the lockdown, thus reducing, but not eliminating, the GDP hit AND the medical and insurance devastation and the vast funeral industry boom... at a cost of $5.7T (23) direct cash outflow (that goes directly into the velocity of money so it keeps the economy humming where it is working).


Super short options version:
1. $257T of economic damage, 25% population loss, economic ruin for everyone who lives.
2. Worse than option one in every way.
3. Same as option 1 but spread out in time instead of all at once.
4. $5.7T in direct damage and an indeterminate level on indirect damage that is less than $207T, population loss at 12% or less.

Lots of people think the rational choice is to open up and let the economy go but it is NOT. Will debt-financing the general support of everyone crippled us for a couple generations? Probably. But it is still less damaging than the alternatives... it, literally, costs less and saves lives.

---------

1. The number is uncertain as it is not a trackable metric due to a variety of factors but 50% of families being unable to cope with two lost paychecks is a reasonable, LOW-BALL, guess based on the evidence. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-shocking-number-of-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-2020-01-07
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2019/01/11/live-paycheck-to-paycheck-government-shutdown/#5cb260194f10
2. Multiple stages of economic intervention were implemented in an effort to prevent the total collapse of everything during the Great Depression. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Emergency_Relief_Administration
3. General wisdom, and all evidence, indicates that established monetary theory rules the value of cash that is not backed by anything tangible. Our cash is not backed by anything tangible so creating new cash to face this crisis WILL deflate the value of the existing cash - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy
4. This is speculative. Medical debts don't vanish when someone dies, they pass into the estate. So, based on the disease rate, we have 12% of the population incurring MASSIVE debts, which spills over to affect their family and generate pockets of collective financial ruin. If each medical debtor has 3 others (typical family of 4) they drag down with them that is 4*12 = 48% of the population that is financially destroyed.
5. Medical bankruptcy is a very real, very American problem - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/14/health-insurance-medical-bankruptcy-debt
6. Up to 88% of people may be carriers without having symptoms.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-data-suggest-the-coronavirus-isnt-as-deadly-as-we-thought-11587155298 https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2020/03/02/asymptomatic-coronavirus https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/coronavirus/1586872199-study-over-80-of-pregnant-women-with-covid-19-in-nyc-asymptomatic
7. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6915e3.htm
8. Really? You need a citation for this? Google it. There are volumes and volumes and volumes on how too much debt and bad cash flow can utterly destroy an entity. But, if you need a citation - I cite myself as someone who has a Management degree and an MBA and who has climbed back from the pit of bankruptcy through careful application of sound policies.
9. Just one example. There are so, so many examples of this. That we measure out economic health using GDP is, itself, an indicator. https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-consumer-spending-rose-sharply-in-july-11567168319
10. The fundamental concept for economic growth based on money moving around is, appropriately, called "the velocity of money." This is the concept that has been usurped by "trickle-down economics" and implemented incorrectly so as to make many doubt its truth. But it is real. The economy is NOT money, it is the MOVEMENT of money.  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/velocity.asp
11. Flattening the curve: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-flatten-the-curve.html
12. Here is an estimate that is much more optimistic than my rough math; it predicts only 2.2M deaths.
13. I cannot find a good source to outline how much worse it will be if we don't do anything.
14. Reinfection is real. https://time.com/5810454/coronavirus-immunity-reinfection/
15. Life insurance market penetration https://www.insure.com/life-insurance/life-insurance-underinsured.html
16. Average life insurance amounts - https://www.accuquote.com/other/interesting-life-insurance-statistics/ - note, they say the average is $125k, which multiplies my figure by 5.
17. Covid medical bills: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/got-coronavirus-you-may-get-surprise-medical-bill-too-n1187966 https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/490168-the-threat-of-coronavirus-medical-bankruptcy - I have seen more but cannot currently find them.
18. Uninsured rate - sources vary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_coverage_in_the_United_States
19. Corona virus recovery time: https://www.webmd.com/lung/covid-recovery-overview#1
20. Us workforce - https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2015/article/labor-force-projections-to-2024.htm
21. US GDP https://www.google.com/search?q=us+gdp
22. Minimal death costs - https://personalfinance.costhelper.com/embalming.html
23. $2k / month for everyone in the workforce for 18 months - hopefully we can have an effective vaccine developed by then

Anti Bernie Meme

Today I encountered a meme designed to make my chosen candidate, Bernie Sanders, look like a communist. I have been meaning to write on the topic of candidates and why I am supporting Bernie for some time but I have been lazy. Now is the time to invest the effort.

Here is the meme:

You'll note that it has nine points of comparison. I will cite Bernie's website for many of the responses and I will not bother to find too many external sources to validate them. My reason for this is that Bernie has carried a consistent message for his entire career and his voting record aligns with it. If you prefer to not accept his website, because it is a curation of his statements that he controls, you are welcome to do your own research to verify that he has, in fact, maintained consistency.

1. I have no comment on Stalin's opinions of big government. I don't care. What I do care about is that this is grossly misleading. Bernie doesn't want BIG government, he wants NECESSARY government. He has, repeatedly, worked to create efficiencies and leverage money in the most responsible manner possible, starting from when he was Mayor of Burlington. He was elected by the people with a completely obstructionist set of Aldermen and he STILL managed to accomplish many reforms and get re-elected. His performance was so fantastic that the citizens of Burlington elected another independent Mayor to follow Bernie. Read more here.  Moreover, if you read the list of issues that Bernie cares about you will see that the majority of them do not generate massive government. His health care reform, if he can make progress on it, will; and it will migrate a massive number of people and bureaucracy from an inefficient private sector nightmare to a less problematic public sector nightmare. Healthcare is  nightmare in countries where it is socialized but it is MORE of one here and at twice the price.

2. I have no thoughts or comments on Bernie's alignment with Marxist thoughts. I don't care. I am not going to bother to research this one.

3. Bernie has been a career politician. This, in itself, is neither good nor bad. Nearly everyone who attains the Presidency, or a Senatorial seat, or is a member of Congress is a career politician. To use this to isolate Bernie to make him look bad is ridiculous and hypocritical.

4. Stalin DID protect his people. He led the revolution to overthrow the monarchy in an effort to protect the people from the economic oppression that they were in. He signed a pact of non-aggression with the Nazi's to keep them away (they later invaded anyway). Stalin managed the USSR into a victory against the Eastern front of the Nazi war machine. Stalin protected his people from many things. What he failed to protect them from was the corruption of the USSR government and the failures of communism in a human society. Bernie wants to protect the people, too. His website states “We live in a difficult and dangerous world, and there are no easy or magical solutions. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I will defend this nation, its people, and America’s vital strategic interests, but I will do it responsibly. America must defend freedom at home and abroad, but we must seek diplomatic solutions before resorting to military action. While force must always be an option, war must be a last resort, not the first option." It's RIGHT THERE. We wants to protect his people from foreign aggression through diplomacy until that has failed. He wants to avoid wars, thus protecting all of the young people who would be sent to war, by preventing them. He wants to build coalitions to protect EVERYONE from threats that cannot be reasoned with. This is the OPPOSITE of not wanting to protect his people. This point is a flat-out lie.

5. I did a half-hearted search for college kids' opinions of Stalin and all that I found were a variety of conservative sites that all claimed college kids think some Republican Presidents were worse than Lenin and Stalin. Given the extreme bias in those sites I cannot begin to consider them remotely valid and I was unable to find anything that was not extremely biased to corroborate their claims. That, of course, is irrelevant. College kids have loved nearly all candidates. College kids span the political spectrum like adults do. Only when there is a HUGE divergence between the choices made in different age groups should there be consideration given to what that means. Bernie is VERY popular among college kids. There is a reason for this; it's because he is advocating for them and the future. A quick google search yields a ton of articles that outline this. Bernie will not live long enough to benefit from the things he is proposing; he is just too old. People who are under 40 WILL benefit from Bernie's philosophies and, the younger they are, the more they will benefit. That is why college kids love him: the establishment, which has been sold at wholesale pricing to the rich, has destroyed their future: Bernie wants to give it back to them. They are voting for THEIR FUTURE.

6. This one is TERRIBLY misleading. A violent revolution happened and Stalin was at the helm of it. Bernie wants a revolution in the way we handle our country. Bernie wants to preemptively repair the damage BEFORE the wealth inequality topples our society. Bernie wants a quiet revolution that is implemented by a few laws that stop wealth from hemorrhaging to the rich and crippling the middle class. This is an important topic: watch for a future post entirely about it. It may be a few days before I finish it.

7. I'll not dig into Stalinist thoughts on freedom, liberty, and the support of government control. I don't need to. Bernie is the one this meme is trying to put on trial so I will, again, be his defense. Nowhere in any of Bernie's philosophies is there a curbing of liberty or freedom EXCEPT the liberty and freedom of corporations to underpay their employees and give that money to their executives and ownership as bonuses. Nowhere does he outline a desire to restrict freedom in any way; rather he wants to increase the wealth and prosperity of the middle class and provide tools for the poor to escape their poverty. He wants to provide the tools necessary for EVERYONE to enhance their own personal freedom. That is the entire point of every aspect of his philosophies. EVERY SINGLE POINT is based on the idea of making freedom greater and more accessible by making it possible for everyone to succeed in our capitalistic society by working hard.

8. This is a flat-out lie. Bernie is very against the idea of the gun control laws that many other politicians favor. The only gun control laws he wishes to strengthen are point of sale background checks. This is such a non-issue for him that it is not even listed on his issues page. It is also worth noting that he is from a state which has some of the lightest gun control laws out of any state (note the second link is a pro-gun law site which is why the ranking is an F), which is an important reality for his constituents.

9.  Bernie does not hate capitalism. Bernie hates unchecked capitalism. Bernie hates the capitalist ideals that allow the, aforementioned, hemorrhage of wealth from the middle class and the poor into the rich. Bernie hates unequal pay for the same work. Bernie finds the current wage gap between the average worker and the CEOs to be absurd and obscene; let alone that this gap is GROWING. Bernie is opposed to capitalism that runs unchecked so as to poison an entire city's water supply, killing people and giving permanent brain damage to all of the children such as what is currently happening in Flint, MI. Bernie is opposed to the reality that large corporations can get away with underpaying their lowest employees so that they have to resort to government assistance, effectively pouring additional money into the company's profits... which ends up as bonuses.

Bernie sees that the government's role is to protect a country and facilitate prosperity for its people. His socialist ideas and policies are in place in countries that do better than the USA in freedom, in quality of life (we actually place fairly well on this one), in health care quality, in per capita health care cost (the not-us countries have 100% coverage, the USA less than 90% coverage even after implementing "Obamacare"), in education (we rate below Poland, Estonia, Vietnam, etc), and in general happiness.

It's about time to stop lying about which parties has the best interests of the people at heart and start looking at the ONE individual who really does. Bernie Sanders wants the future to grow; he wants YOU to succeed. The only people he wants to limit are those who are parasites on society; people who contribute NOTHING and earn massive amounts of money by manipulating the money they already have. Bernie wants to curb the ability of those people to steal from the poor and then spread the cost of subsidizing those poor across everyone. Bernie wants to stop them from making YOU pay for their theft.

For reference - here are the Political Compass ratings of various people. Note that Sanders is the farthest from Stalin of all the candidates on the vertical axis; which is the one that deals with freedom and the closest to the center when it comes to economic ideas.

And here are two important videos you need to watch if you are still not convinced about the rich being the problem:

It is your civic duty to vote.
I won't tell you how to vote.
But I will tell you that if you want a better future you'll do the requisite research to see that a strong economy comes from a strong middle class and that Bernie Sanders is the candidate who will bring that.

Liberalism vs Conservatism

I appreciate reasonable conservatives.
I appreciate reasonable liberals.
I appreciate reasonable people.

When people cease being reasonable I get angry which makes me unreasonable. I dislike being unreasonable.

The United States of America is NOT a Christian nation; it's a secular nation. Freedom of and freedom from religion. The state is, by law, supposed to be completely atheist.

The country was founded on very old ideas that were considered ridiculous by the ruling people of Europe when the US was made. Democracy and a representative Republic are both VERY liberal ideas.

The base laws of this country are a liberal experiment.

The Amendment process was designed with the idea that times change and, therefore, the core foundation of the government may require updates. THAT is a liberal idea that puts forth the idea of continuing change; which is a liberal idea.

With all of that, though, there are core concepts of the far left that over-step the foundational ideas of freedom and liberty. These ideas almost invariably slide into the realm of protecting the overall good at the expense of the individual; what makes them over-stepping is when they are unsustainable.

"To promote the general welfare" is an important liberal idea, and exact passage, in the core foundational documents that can sometimes be at odds with the core ideas of personal liberty.

The reality, though, is that we cannot protect the needs of the many by sacrificing the needs of the few in an unsustainable manner. That is no better than protecting the needs of the few at the expense of the many.
Reasonable Conservatives can see the benefits of protecting the many enough to allow them to all be individual contributors. The reasonable Liberals can see the needs of the individuals and discern where the burden placed on the individuals exceeds the ability of contributors to contribute.
I look at the current political climate and I see a splintering of ideals. I see the growing trend of fright-based neoconservatism that uses the language of the country's foundation in a warped and perverted manner to put forth an agenda of fear and hatred and exclusion rather than the core idea of "all men are created equal."
I want the conservative party that stood for minimalist government where all the government served a purpose that benefitted all. A conservative party that celebrates freedom for all. A party that supports freedom of, and from, religion such that it embraces ALL people from all beliefs. I want the conservative party that examines the bottom-line impact of social programs and implements them when the "safety net" has a net financial benefit to society
- Tiny homes for the homeless rather than shelter? It saves money per person? DO IT.

- Decriminalizing drugs decreases the number of users and abusers AND reduces violent crime AND reduces prison expenses? DO IT.

- Spending more on education shows economic growth and a reduction in prison expenses? DO IT.

- Keeping people from losing their homes when they have an economic hardship prevents them from having to use many more social services and allows them to become a productive member of the economy again faster? DO IT.

- We suspect people on social assistance are abusing the program in mass numbers and using the money to buy drugs so we want to test them. DO IT.......

- Umm. we found that 2% of the people tested actually had drugs in their system and the testing program costs significantly more than eliminating those benefits.... STOP IT.

- Rehab programs allow people to get off drugs and remain functional members of the economy? FUND THEM

- Tax funded healthcare costs less per capita than our current system and has superior performance on a maintenance level of care in every country it is used in? DO IT.

- Banking regulations being lifted causes a siphon that pulls capital out of the middle and lower classes and causes the consumer economy to shrink on a per-person-hour basis? BRING BACK THE REGS.

- Making free and compulsory high schools boosted the economy overall and we need college educations in today's world to move forward? MAKE IT HAPPEN.

- Kids are graduating college with 5-10 years' pay in school debt, crippling their ability to make a living and contribute to the economy? DON'T MAKE IT HAPPEN LIKE THAT, DO BETTER

- Guns are a major drain on the economy? LET'S WORK TO REDUCE GUN VIOLENCE


All of these ideas are NOT liberal when examined from a fiscal view. EVERY idea, when examined fiscally and without regard to whether or not someone is going to "get away with it" can be examined from the VERY conservative view of "show me the data."

When we make data-driven policies and laws we make progress that is responsible. We make the lives better for everyone. We follow the core ideas of making "the American Dream" a reality for everyone. Data-driven ideas and policies are how we temper our ethics, morality, and desire to help against our collective ability to actually help.

I'm glad that most of my friends get this (even when we tend to bicker over some of the specific points); I wish EVERYONE did.

SOME references on these topics:

Tiny Homes:
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/real-estate/tiny-houses-big-idea-end-homelessness-n39316

Decriminalizing drugs:
http://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decriminalized-all-drugs-here-s-what-s-happening#.jBvMUMwJ8

Education prevents prison:
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_25771303/schools-v-prisons-educations-way-cut-prison-population

Keeping people in their homes:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/10/09/3577980/end-homelessness/

Welfare drug testing:
"The statistics show that applicants actually test positive at a lower rate than the drug use of the general population. "
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/26/3624447/tanf-drug-testing-states/

Rehab to cut prison costs:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/inmates-194495-prison-programs.html

Health care expenditures:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/

Banking regulations:
http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/gutting-regulation-may-help-the-banker-but-harm-society-1057323-1.html
http://www.history.com/topics/great-depression
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Creating public high schools improved the economy:
Citation Needed

College education is needed:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/why-college-is-necessary_b_6215668.html

College debt is crippling:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/specialfeatures/2013/08/07/how-the-college-debt-is-crippling-students-parents-and-the-economy/

Cost of gun crime:
http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-violence-costs-america-more-than-229-billion-every-year-2015-4

I AM the Credible Hulk

White Male Privilege

My first attempt to write this post was abysmal so I decided to rewrite it.
The core concepts presented are the same as the original but without the multiple distractions that killed my ability to construct prose of sufficient quality the first time.

This post will still upset a lot of people. Any time something is presented that disrupts one's view of the world it will make one uncomfortable and, if successful, this post will disrupt the world view of some people.

Imagine, if you will, a party.
Everyone who is not invited wants to come to this party; the people at the party just see the party as the way of life.
There are two ways to get to the party: be specifically invited or win the invitation lottery.
Once you are in the party it is very hard to get kicked out of the party and, even if you do, there is a fast-track to getting re-invited because you know the people in the party already.

Now imagine the lottery system that goes into party invitations. Each time there is an open space in the party that is not filled by a direct invitation from someone in the party a lottery is held. The lottery works very much like the lotteries we see on TV. The person associated with the ball that comes up is extended an invitation to the party. There is also a rider on lottery winners that they can be kicked out of the party at any time if a number of people at the party choose to dislike them. The longer they are in the party the harder it is for them to get kicked out and the easier it is for them to get reinvited after being kicked out.

EVERYONE can enter the lottery. Entering the lottery has one simple criteria: you must exist. Some people, through a variety of options within society earn the right to enter the lottery more times but each entry has the same chance of winning as any other entry. No one is favored in entering the lottery.

This is a very simple analogy to the way that society works. The 1% are the ones already at the party and they have the ability to invite others and pass along their invitation to their families, etc. The rest of the population sees the life of ease in the party and strives to attain it, but there are only so many invitations to be passed around. On the surface EVERYONE can move toward winning this lottery. The rules say so and the procedures for entering agree.

No imagine that the lottery has three manufacturers of the balls for the lottery. The provide specifications for how each ball. Each manufacturer hits the specifications within the accepted tolerance for diameter and weight. Now imagine that one of the manufacturers consistently creates lottoballs that are at the heaviest end of the acceptable tolerance range and the other at the lightest end of the range. The third manufacturer always hits the middle exactly. This means that 33% of the population has a slight advantage over the other 66% and that 33% has a disadvantage compared to the other 66%. For the sake of simplicity the lottery commission decides to only use two of the manufacturers for the lottery and is not aware of the minute weight differences in the manufacturing process. Now imagine that each manufacturer has a variety of colors they can introduce to the mix to make the lottery a bit more interesting. Each color introduces a new weight variant for the two ball manufacturers on either end of the spectrum but the one in the middle can make them without a weight variance.

For the sake of clarity I will label the three manufacturers A, B and C. A makes the balls that are slightly heavier than average. B makes the balls that always hit the average weight for the specifications regardless of color. C makes the balls that are somewhat lighter. A and C both have variances within their process for the colors they use.

Our society is much like this lottery. Anyone CAN win the lottery and make it to the party but there are inherent defects in the system that stratify the chances of the people who enter. Statistically EVERYONE has the same chance but it is a series of defects in the system itself that edge some people ahead and push some behind. The system can be fixed.

Imagine now that it comes to the attention of the lottery commission that some of the balls have a weight variance and, thus, they investigate and find that they should have been using manufacturer B the entire time because they are the only one with no variances. They begin the slow rectification process of making every new entry into the system a ball from this manufacturer and correct the old entires as they are able. Correction is a slow process. It is MUCH easier to make new entries with the new balls. Each corrected entry makes it harder to locate the next entry needing correction.

This scenario is much like our society as well. Originally there was a stratification of workers and opportunities. The system was blatantly biased against anyone who was not male and of the predominant color; the system favored manufacturer C's plain balls and disadvantaged manufacturer A's colored balls the most. Over time, though, the system's favored category shrinks to be replaced with a more egalitarian, and mathematically equal system. Differential equations shows us that a contaminate will decrease in an inverse exponential curve. This means that the concentration will go down more slowly with each particle of contaminate that is removed. Eventually, it becomes nearly impossible to remove the remaining contaminate because it cannot be found among the overall volume of material.
As the balls are replaced with balls from manufacturer B it becomes harder and harder to find the ones that have a variance from the statistical average weight among the overall population of balls.

This metaphor creates a new question: how did the broken system go on for so long without anyone noticing that the balls were not equal in weight? If you map it to society you will find that societal pressures caused the number of entrants to be widely uneven: they were almost all, for a long time, white men. Anyone else COULD enter the lottery but their society pushed them not to. If they did they ended up with disadvantaged entries.

We've reached a point in time where the ball problem has been discovered and new entries are being generated that are equal. Some people still earn additional entries and some people do not.

My evidence for this is that the wage gap, while still existing, is eroding (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/09/30/a-closer-look-at-the-pay-gap-in-charts/ for reference).
Additionally the number of people who are in the workforce and generating additional entries into the lottery (through hard work and opportunities to advance in their jobs) is leveling out to match the general population's composition. It's not there yet but it is happening. Read more here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/07/12/11938/the-state-of-diversity-in-todays-workforce/

What this says is that white male privilege is a myth. Social forces created the a situation in which it was NOT a myth and perpetuated that for generations but the evidence show that it is no longer the case. The evidence shows that the advantages are eroding for that demographic and, therefore, the legacy status is turning into a myth. This is how it should be. Everyone should have an equal opportunity. Do we still have a lot of work to do? Absolutely. But the only privilege that truly remains is wealth. The people IN the party have the privilege. The people trying to get there are all just trying to survive. By observing that the lottery was once rigged, and still has defective entries floating around in it, WE have created a mechanism to help us fix the broken system. At the same time WE have created a perceived enemy amongst ourselves. WE have created a means to direct attention away from the actual problem. The people who are the actual problem must be finding solace in this and are happy to allow the illusion to spread, and even enhance it by their demographic makeup, because the longer we focus on "white male privilege" as the core of the problem the longer we ignore that the real problem is that the ultra rich simply don't want to share. They like their exclusive party. They only allow the lottery to exist because it sells us hope. Hope keeps us believing we can escape our situation and become like them when, in reality, the odds are simply not in our favor.

If you look at the last link it will show you a chart showing the distribution of CEOs in the country. They reflect the myth of the white male privilege.... but, more importantly, they ALL earn and sequester more money that the people who work for them.

If you question that the enemy is the top 1% and that they benefit by us squabbling among ourselves over a problem we are already shown to be fixing (with their help) then you need to watch this video:
http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2

Do we still have a long way to go? Absolutely.  Our progress is not done until ALL of the old balls in the system are gone.
While our work is ongoing the people are the party are laughing that their system still exists and they have been steering the ENTIRE economy to put more and more of the wealth into their pockets; leaving less for the rest of us to fight over.

Excessive wealth is the ONLY privilege that truly exists. The rest of any advantages or disadvantages are simply derivatives of it. White male privilege was a reality and it is what led to the variance among the super rich being so low; but, that privilege is being eroded (as it should be) leaving behind the true origin of wealth discrimination: the wealth owners themselves.

Here are a couple more links:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/20/264241052/oxfam-worlds-richest-1-percent-control-half-of-global-wealth

http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/fact-sheets/inequality-facts/

Global Climate Change

I think we're missing a lot of aspects of contributing factors because it is easy to fight over the two big arguments:
1 - whether it is man-MADE or not
2 - whether CO2 is the cause or not.

Sound is, essentially, the same as heat but at a MUCH lower frequency. Humanity makes a lot of noise. That HAS to have an effect.
Car engines, light bulbs, computers, etc all generate HEAT. It is an undeniable side-effect to what they do. That has to have an effect on things.
Furnaces generate heat. That is their core purpose. That has to affect things tremendously.

Our process of making CO2 generates a lot of HEAT and then traps that heat. It's not just the CO2 but all the things we do (per capita) multiplied by the number of people.

Also - the earth's natural equilibrium is for the northern sore of Canada to be a tropical rain forest. So says the paleontological evidence..... so on top of what we are doing the planet is still recovering from the last ice age to bring itself back to its normal.

In short - unless we figure out how to make the earth's equilibrium match OUR needs or figure out how to move underground / under the ocean - we're screwed on this planet.

200,000 years of human history is nothing next to the 80,000,000 that held the northern tropical rain forests and the 65,000,000 that held the tropical-temperatures around the globe before the impact prior to the Chicxulub impact... and all of the other epics prior to that one were also HUGELY larger than the time humanity has existed and all show the same thing - tropical temperature in the moderate and cold zones of this planet.

Is global climate change happening: yes, absolutely
Did we cause it? Nope.
Are we a contributing factor: certainly.
Are we a significant contributing factor: probably.
Do we ignore a lot of the ways we are contributing: this is as certain as the change itself.
Can we do anything about it: yes, but only if we, as a species, can accept the scientific truths about it and dedicate the resources to modeling ways to change the energy output of our industry and residences as well as figure out a way to properly sequester excess CO2 (secret: there are a lot of simple answers to the latter... some of them are even relatively easy to do).

For starters we need to accept that this is a very complex problem and stop outlining it as simple to the mass populace. We need to stop saying that we know, with certainty, that we CAUSED it. Many of the climate change naysayers are fighting back because they don;t believe humanity is so powerful that we could cause such a problem. Whether this view is ignorant of them or not we can stop their counter-arguments by eliminating the causation argument from the climate-change-is-happening camp.

From there we can focus our efforts on solar and wind technologies like several other "1st World" countries have done. Their usable lands for such energy sources are a fraction of the land available in the US for this and their capture rate is MUCH higher.

We could also engineer our buildings to support rooftop gardens and preserves to reduce the conversion rate of biological heat absorbers and carbon sinks into heat sinks that do not absorb carbon.
We could convert streets in cities into tunnels and cover the roofs of these tunnels with plant-supporting ground to do the same.
We could build buildings that allow for pockets of plants to grow on the sides of the buildings. This would provide additional insulation and further absorb carbon from the air.

These are just some things we could do to lessen our contributions to this problem.

Is Equal Pay an Inherent Right?

One of the items that the Occupy Wall Street movement is the notion of fair pay for all and equal pay for equal work.

This is a derivative concern of the movement and it comes from the main concern of the people losing net wealth to the ultra-rich at an increasing pace.

The inherent economic force created by wealth inequity is what makes motivation for work to be completed. Without that motivating force there is no incentive for people to work for income.... and with equal distribution of all the stored wealth of the world then all of it becomes devalued to the point of being useless.

These abstract concepts bring the question forth of whether fair pay for fair work is a human-level concept or whether it is an inherent concept that "lesser" being can understand.

The video below clearly outlines that the idea of equal pay for equal work is something that transcends the boundaries of humanity. It is something that "lesser" animals understand. It is something that they can demand.

Why, then, is the idea of fair distribution of wealth according to work performed a concept that is so hard to accomplish among the humans of the world?

Why is it that we cannot figure out how to make the wealth inequality stay static so that the forces that make our economy work are present but limit the gross and unfair leveraging of that wealth to take more wealth from the less-than-wealthy and delivering it to the wealthy for virtually no work being performed?

I am not a socialist - I understand the power of capitalism and I understand how it can help everyone. I also understand that the capitalistic pressures that aid wealth accumulation are not sustainable - they will lead to an imbalance that will topple the wealth tower and destroy those at the top. It has happened before, it will happen again. History proves it to be a valid cycle of economic forces that will continue until a sustainable equilibrium is reached.

Here is the video that shows that monkeys understand this concept, too:


If you disagree please make comments below.

A review of In Time

Last night I watched the movie "In Time."
The core premise of this movie is one that is sound - that time is valuable.
In this movie we see a future in which our aging has been stopped and everyone is permanently 25 years old.
When they hit 25 a clock in their arm starts ticking. Everyone starts with one year on their clock. Time on that clock is the currency that the world runs on. There is no money; only time.
This is where the movie diverts from a raw concept into some serious philosophical commentary on socioeconomic policy and morality.
The phrase "for some to be immortal many must die" comes up several times within the movie. It outlines the capitalistic message behind the upper class in this movie. That message is also mirroring the way we handle money today - the few aggregate wealth and use their wealth to aggregate more wealth while perpetuating the suffering of the masses.
In short this movie touches on the topics that frame out the Occupy Wall Street movement. It shows both sides of the lifestyles that are made possible by a divergence in wealth and hints at the conflict that would occur if the wealth were evenly distributed. It hints that even distribution of wealth will collapse the economy that depends on the movement of wealth. It hints that there is no replacement for that system that has been shown to work better than the system of economic imbalance created by wealth disparagement.
This movie was entertaining and it does have multiple elements including a dash of Romeo and Juliet stirred in with adventure and a dash of Bonnie and Clyde. There is also a hint of a standard detective story for flavor.
One of the beauties of this film is that it hints at larger philosophical and moral conversations without treading on them too deeply.
It also served to fully infuriate Harlon Ellison, who has created a number of fantastic stories and concept in his day but who is rabid about defending anything he feels is his intellectual property and who demands unreasonable compensation for use of anything he feels he created.

It does leave several questions for me to ponder - and I expect others will also ponder them:
What would happen if the infrastructure that controls the economic transactions that rev up or spin down he personal clocks were to fail?
Why doesn't anyone have a cell phone?
And, of course, why do electric cars have mufflers?


These, of course, are my thoughts on the film as expressed without outlining any specific spoilers. As always, I welcome other thoughts.



The DVD & Blu-ray can be purchased from Amazon -

The Pendulum Swings.... Always

Economics is an interesting social "science."

It has few hard rules and a complex feedback mechanism that makes nearly every mathematical function for prediction and modeling a circular reference.

The one hard and true thing we know about an economy is that it is based on the MOVEMENT of money. If one outlines that reality on a spectrum it looks something like this:

The very nature of an economy makes it very hard to predict how an economy will run and even harder to steer an economy where one might want it to go. All that we know is that we want the economy to be as close to the green zone as possible for maximum growth and earnings potential for everyone living within the economy.

The unpredictability of how to steer an economy is at the heart of the current issues with the economy.
It is at the heart because the lack of predictability makes it very difficult to determine how much government is needed to regulate the economy and in what areas.

Too much regulation will stifle the economy (at best, choke it completely at worst) but not enough regulation leads to a completely free market with no controls.

Governmental structures vary from completely oppressive regimes that micromanage EVERYTHING to a complete lack of government (anarchy) all exist. We have, throughout history, discovered one true and steadfast fact about the differing governmental structures: neither end of the spectrum works. Extremism in managing the government is destined to be a complete and total failure.

This same realization regarding extremism also exists in the managing of the economy. On one side of the spectrum above lies a shrinking economy and on the other lies complete prosperity. The spectrum model above, however, is not the only way to view the economy. One can easily convert the economy spectrum above into a pendulum that aligns with the political viewpoints of "liberal" and "conservative."

That new chart looks like this:

When one does this it becomes apparent that pushing an economy too far in either direction bring catastrophic effects to the economy as a whole. If the government generates too much interference then the economy suffers and, as a result, so do ALL of the people who depend on it. The opposite is also true; if the government does NOTHING to regulate the economy (or simply not enough) then the anarchistic free market will consume the forces of economic development and generate new controls that end up limiting the growth (or even generating shrinkage) in the economy.

The current situation, where the government regulation has been allowed to relax on many financial transactions and policies, has allowed the top 1% and the megacorporations and megabanks to direct monetary policy in such a way as to direct raw capital into the control of people whom already possess more than enough. When their aggregation of wealth exceeds their growth in expenditure they generate a situation of economic shrinkage by sequestering wealth.

As was stated above the economy depends on the MOVEMENT of money. If the money hits a savings or investment account and stops moving then it generates a shrinkage in the economy. This means that ALL savings damage the economy of the time in which the savings are saved BUT the aggregation of super-wealth creates a permanent level of damage because the money rarely comes back out. With the average person the savings eventually come out (emergency spending, retirement spending, buying that long-sought-after-thing, etc) creating a boost to the economy equal in scale to the original damage. As the population distribution is mostly flat (there are a couple of significant variations that can affect this) the saving in compared to savings out levels across the majority of the lower 99% are fairly steady... the problem occurs when the savings in of the top 1% starts to grow because their savings out levels rarely go up.

I think I have made my point on this. Excessive wealth accumulation is as damaging to the economy as governmental controls. It is as damaging to the free market as regulations. It is the root cause of the current economic crisis. It removes economic opportunity from everyone who is not accumulating wealth.

More on Occupy Wall Street

There has been a lot of discussion on the facebook pages of friends of mine regarding the core reasoning behind the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I appreciate it when people challenge my views because they force me to reinforce my ideas with critical analysis and research.

I have one friend who is obviously very much against the entire movement and believes that the root causes that people are upset about are manufactured. This friend has challenged many of my positions on the movement and, as a result, I have done more research including crunching some solid numbers.

This post is all about those numbers.

One of the major tenants of the 99%'s complaints is that the value of their income is decreasing with each passing year.
One of the major counter arguments against this opinion is that in the past 20 years the minimum wage has gone from $4.15 to $7.25 an hour. This amounts to a raw 75% INCREASE in the raw number value. The people who disagree with the OWS movement demand an explanation about how a 75% increase in the raw figure can possibly be considered a decrease in effective wages.

Here is how:
The first thing that one must acknowledge is that $4.15 in 1994 is equivalent to $6.25 in 2011 money (You can check for inflation-corrected values here). $7.25 is higher than $6.25 so it still APPEARS that the minimum wage is a better deal to those confined to it for their incomes.

But they are not better off because the costs of living NOT rolled into the CPI exceed the increase in pay.

Here are the core comparison points that need to be considered when examining the minimum wage differences between 1994 and today:

1. The number of people on minimum wage in 1994 for whom the minimum wage was their primary household income is different from the people today for whom that is a reality. There are more people today trying to earn a full living for their families on minimum wage and fewer trying to merely supplement the household income on that pay scale. Lower pay works great for supplementary jobs (and jobs of people whom are not supporting themselves) but it is hardly a means to generate wealth for the primary "breadwinner" of a family. I will readily admit that I have not done the research to back up this perception, but I do believe that research will support the assertion that more primary incomes are on minimum wage now than ever before.

2. In 1994 there were still many companies that provided pensions for people who had worked for them for the duration of their careers. This was a no-cost benefit that the companies provided as a reward for loyalty. This was in the age of people working for a single employer for their entire career. Those days are gone. Pensions are almost entirely extinct and people must contribute to the retirement plan in order to get anything out of their employer toward retirement. This means that a benefit has been removed from the base pay of 1994 and it has been turned into a cost. This affects the effective pay on both ends: decreasing compensation AND increasing cost of living.

3. Health care costs have risen far faster than many other things in this country. The CPI accounts for some of this change, but it does not account for other aspects of it. The raise in the cost of health care is an added adjustment for many. Furthering this is the growing trend for employers to provide smaller and smaller percentages of the healthcare package as a benefit. If one includes ALL increases in cost of healthcare as part of the CPI-adjusted purchasing value of the dollar one still must consider whether or not a particular subject had full coverage provided for them in 1994 but must pay a portion of it now.

4. New costs that are considered essential have appeared in society. In 1994 the idea of going without electricity or a home phone was ludicrous. People assumed that everyone had both of these items and to NOT have them meant you were excessively poor or truly eccentric. Today the home phone has migrated to a cell phone, electricity is just as important as it was in 1994 (more so) but there is a new core utility: internet service. Many people can still get by without this new utility but children in school are finding that their schools are relying more and more on internet-based tools and content to save money on supplies and textbooks. To have a school-aged child in 2011 without home internet access is just as irresponsible as having no telephone was in 1994. This is a NEW expense and, therefore, the CPI does not incorporate it into the adjusted buying power of the dollar.

5. A budgetary affect that occurs only for people who have children is that of school supplies. When I was in school there were a great many supplies supplied by the school. In 2011 economic conditions have forced many schools to scale back on the supplies that they have available to students at no charge. Each and every piece of paper, pencil, pen, etc that a family has to purchase for their school-aged-children that they did not before is a new cost that is not included in the CPI. This new cost varies widely by school district and age group so it cannot be a standardized item that is applicable to all.

6. Additional government fees and regulations applied to the individual. An example of this is the state in which I live. In this state there is a car inspection. There has ALWAYS been a car inspection for the entire duration of my life. I currently possess a vehicle that will not pass inspection this year. The estimated repair cost is $2,000 for one of the problems and an unknown amount for the other. in the mid 90s I drove cars that were in worse condition that the one I am referring to now. I drove them and they passed inspection each and every year. The inspection criteria have both gotten stricter AND been more highly enforced. The reasoning for this is that each inspection attempt generates a fee (which has more than tripled in size since 1994) regardless of the pass or fail status. Each failure generates a list of work that MUST be completed to pass inspection. That work generates a sales tax. The net story is that the state has increased the fee AND made passing more difficult in a way to force more business to automobile service providers AND generate more tax revenue. The end result is that many people are driving cars without valid inspections because the "bogus" safety violations are NOT a danger to anyone and are too costly to fix. This is a cost that is NOT rolled into the CPI because it is an increase in the volume of car repairs required and not simply an increase in the cost of the car repairs themselves.

7. There is also the factor of the average debt load of the average college graduate. Those entering the work force from college now are bringing an average debt load of approximately $23,000 with them. Compare that to the rates of approximately 10 years ago and you see a nearly 77% increase in the volume of debt that people START their professional lives with. That increase in debt means an increase in debt payments which, in turn, is a decrease in the available money for other living expenses. At 5% interest for 15 years this increase in debt load translates to an increase of $79 in monthly payments. This alone is approximately equal to $.49 / hour in pre-tax income. That, alone, is nearly half the surplus generated by the new minimum wage as compared to the equivalent buying power of the minimum wage in 1994.

When you add up all of the factors listed above it rapidly becomes apparent that the $.90 hourly discrepancy between the effective $6.25 per hour and the actual $7.25 per hour is completely consumed by new expenses and items not covered by the CPI adjustment.

I am a solid example of this situation. I checked the factors listed above (salary, retirement planning, healthcare provision, etc) along with the expected time at work for the job I held in 2003 and the job I hold now. I did the inflationary adjustment on the 2003 figures. The end result is that my post-healthcare, post retirement planning, post taxes current income is a 49% reduction in buying power as compared to that of the position I held in 2003. Is my current gross pay higher? Yes but the effective purchasing power of my money is significantly less after all of my critical expenses are adjusted for.

One of my friends who is critical of the movement directed me to a "fact checking" article that did its best to normalize all of the tax revenue data for all income earners in this country. The end result of that article was the claim that the top 1% (who own 40+% of all the wealth) pay their fair share of the income taxes at 32.1% of the taxes and that that means that they are only earning 32.1% of the income. That article, at best, is reporting the figures on the IRS-labeled taxable income; at worst it is blatantly warping the data to misrepresent the wealth distribution. Either way, the math is just-plain-WRONG. In a situation where there is a volume of wealth and a means to both increase and decrease that wealth (income and expenditures) each and every year the net volume of wealth of any population group will asymptotically approach the income value for the group. If the income is below the wealth holdings then the holdings will decrease over time until they equal the income level and vice-versa. I believed this to be true and then I build a spreadsheet to prove it (the non-pretty version is here). If you adjust the starting amounts (currency, not percentage) for each of the population group's starting cash, income and outflow you will quickly see that if the income % is above the owned percent then the owned percent rises and if it is below the owned percent the owned percentage falls. You will also see that for any one group's net ownership to go up another group's wealth must fall by an equal amount. This is a VERY simple model but it is effective at demonstrating the core principles at work.

These are the reasons that the bottom 99% are unhappy. These are the seeds that led to the OWS protesting. These seeds have been properly cared for and watered to germinate into the full protest movement against the upper class because the actions of the upper class over the last decade have generated a greater squeeze on the already tightening budgets of the middle class. When pensions are being cut and life-savings are being drained from corporate holdings while the CEOs are taking multi-million dollar bonuses there is a HUGE problem. When bankers are developing schemes to trick (yes, stupid) investors into borrowing more money than they can afford to pay back and then foreclosing on their homes and making them homeless there is a problem. When corporations are making bad business decisions and losing all of their customers only to receive a handout from the government because they are "too big to fail" while smaller companies have to make it on their own there is a problem. When mega-corporations are receiving bail-outs from the government and the executives in charge of the companies are still collecting salaries that are many times that of the average worker there is a problem. When one of the richest men in this country (Warren Buffet) is stating in no uncertain terms that the loopholes in this country's tax codes allow him to pay a much smaller percentage of his income in income taxes than ANY employee he has while he has the greatest level of disposable income in the company there is a problem.

I am not advocating that all of the wealth be evenly spread out for that would result in a larger problem than we have. I don't care if the top 1% own 40% of the wealth. I care that the remaining 99% be able to live and survive on what they have. I want the taxation to be applied equally for all, regardless of what income bracket they are in. I want everyone to have their chance to work hard and save and make their own lives better. I want an end to people getting further behind the harder they work because that leads to a self-perpetuating system of poverty that the masses CANNOT escape without a violent revolution (see the French Revolution and half the current conflicts on the African continent for details). I want to avoid a situation where the ultra-wealthy have sequestered money above their threshold of being able to reasonably spend it because that capital gets locked away and ceases to power the economy. The economy requires money MOVE. Once people reach a threshold where they cannot spend all of their income their savings rocket upward and the volume of money that is poured back into the economy decreases.

When greed runs unchecked the problems of society get magnified and destabilization occurs. Greed has been running unchecked in this country since about 1986. It has finally caught up with us.

There are MANY historical examples that closely mirror the current situation that all lend support to the feelings behind the OWS movement. The times leading up to the Great Depression, Germany after WWI, the economic crunch in the mid 1800s in the US (broken only by the HUGE inrush of capital from the gold rush in the Rockies), the economic conditions that led to the revolution in Russia (allowing communism to take root), the economic conditions that led to the French Revolution, the banking crisis in the 1300s that destroyed the European economy so completely that we suffered the 400 years of the Dark Ages.... the list continues onward. All of these historical events have economic forces that drove them, all of them have similar scenarios to where we are today in this country.

Wealth Accumulation

Society is geared for wealth to accumulate.
It's almost like wealth has a certain gravity about it that pulls other wealth to it such that the lumped wealth gathers yet more wealth. The bigger the wealth gets the more quickly it gathers more wealth.

This appears to be how society has ALWAYS worked. The cycle of wealth has been repeated over and over again.

It is thus: everyone starts out equal until someone works smarter AND harder than everyone else and gets more for their efforts. That individual eventually accumulates wealth at a rate faster than they consume it. They pass the leftover wealth on to their children when they die. Those children use that wealth to leverage their work to gain more wealth at a faster pace. Eventually the most wealthy 1% have more than 99% of all the wealth in the world. Then something disrupts this and the wealth situation resets to a much more equal state only to start over again.

Here's the kicker on this: we, the poor, not only LET it happen but also HELP make it happen.

We do this in many ways that are forced upon us such as by buying food from a company with the lowest prices and clothing from larger companies whose profits line the pockets of their CEOs.
We do this in ways that are convenient to us such by buying internet service from large corporations whose profits line the pockets of their CEOs.
We do this without knowing we're doing it by having a political system where politicians can become rich through listening to lobbyists for special interest groups.
We also do this willingly through many of the luxuries that we partake in. I am a Star Trek fan. Every time I purchase anything with a Star Trek label on it I am contributing to the wealthy people behind Paramount (and it's parent company) having greater wealth while decreasing my own wealth. Any time someone purchases a ticket to a professional sporting event they, too, are doing this.

This is something to think on. The next time you purchase anything you are contributing to the inherently unbalanced system that aggregates all the wealth at the top until the top is too wealth heavy to stay where it is.

When will the next collapse be?

They do happen: that's how we ended up with the USSR. That's the root cause of the French Revolution and the seed of WWI (WWII was, really, just a continuation of WWI after recovery from the economic sanctions imposed on Germany at the end of WWI).

Road Reformation

The next big revolution in industry will be the "green" revolution.

We're running out of non-sustainable energy sources so we will HAVE to make the renewable sources work for us.

The sun is the biggest source of energy we can possibly tap into.

One of the problems with harnessing the sun is the lack of efficiency in converting the EM radiation it sends our way into electricity. HUGE leaps and bounds are being made in that area.

The other is surface area. Where can we put panels that will absorbs the sun without further destroying out oxygen factories (e.g. plants)?
One answer is the roads.

I'm not the first person to think of this: http://green.autoblog.com/tag/tarmac+2.0/

Another answer is our houses.
I'm also not the first person to think of this: (a quick google search for "photovoltaic paint") and that's a different topic to the idea of reforming the roads.....


I often wonder what the total cost of roadways are. The cost of the "game fences" that keep animals off the roads; the cost of collisions with animals and the resulting cleanup. The cost of accidents from inclement weather. The cost of dropping telephone poles in the ground to run lines along the roads, the cost of guardrails, etc. The total cost of roads is MUCH more than the actual cost of installing them. In IT we call this "total cost of ownership" or "TCO" but it applies to everything. What is the TCO of an interstate highway? Is leaving the traveling on the surface the most efficient way to accomplish the goals of having such a system?

I'm not a civil engineer who specializes in roads so I don't know for sure and never will. But I do think that the idea of creating underground conduits is a good one to explore the TCO of. If the TCOs of underground conduits are similar to that of highways I am certain a case could be made to use them instead of above ground highways.

Here's a REALLY rough drawing of what I envision:

I envision this being placed in such a way as to have the upper part of the oval enclosure being about 2 feet above the surface. We could then run solar panels down the entire length of the highway that are angled both ways for maximum collection. The solar energy collected would power the lights and ventilation system as well as dynamic signs AND reserve power would be pumped into the grid.

The benefits? No more collisions due to inclement weather or wildlife on the road.
The drawbacks? Collisions due to driver error would be harder to clean up and a power failure would make the road unusable. Combine this with automated cars and we would only need to worry about power failures, which would be VERY localized if the entire surface is a solar array and there are proper storage mechanisms (batteries) to power lighting, etc during the night.

Just a thought.

A Quick and Easy Fix for the Anti-Business Environment in My State

I'm not a politician.
I never will be.
I will never run for public office because I know I would not accomplish anything.
Getting elected would simply be a waste of my time.
It would be a waste of my time because the career politicians would try to block any changes I would try to make that threatened their power base. The stupid people would try to undo any changes I tried to make for the long-term good that threatened a short-term benefit. Both entrenched political parties would try to stop me from accomplishing anything useful because it would make their inability to do so look bad.

Because I cannot accomplish anything if I were ever to get elected I will not try.


This, of course, frustrates me beyond all comprehension because I have some good ideas that are incredibly simple which would improve things in this state. They might even be applicable elsewhere to improve things in this country.

One of these ideas for this state is a way to make it less hostile to business.
This state has a reputation for VERY aggressively collecting any and all taxes that it thinks anyone owes it. It has aggressive taxation for the residents and more aggressive taxation for businesses. This has to change if it is ever to bring more business and more employment here. The way things are at this moment it is driving away good jobs and leaving the remainder to pay higher taxation on the services being applied.

Here's a quick and easy way to increase business presence (and thus, jobs) in this state:
Offer a five year 50% tax reduction for any company that creates new jobs (only applicable on the percentage of their company that the new jobs reflect). If they have employees and hire a tenth they get 50% tax cut on 10% of their profit. If they have no presence in this state and they open a factory or call center or retail outlet they get 50% tax break on the entire facility that they open. Attach a rider to this tax break: any company opting into this break MUST retain the affected positions for a total of 10 years. Failure to retain the positions for 10 years means the company must pay back the discount PLUS INTEREST.

The state government is unable to see past the "lost revenue" created by the cut to see why this is beneficial even though it is VERY SIMPLE.
Its simplicity is its beauty: some money is better than no money.
The newly created jobs will, usually, generate more taxable income for the company. That additional income will be taxed at a discounted rate, but if the company had not expanded then it wouldn't have any new revenue to tax in the first place. Some new revenue is better than no new revenue.
The newly created job will go to a person. That person will have income. That income, which did not exist before, will be taxed by the income tax. Some revenue is better than no revenue.
The newly created job will have income. That income will be used to purchase more goods and services in the state. Those goods and services are taxed. Some revenue is better than no revenue.
The person who holds this job may or may not have been unemployed before. If they were they no longer will be. This means that they will be earning their money instead of receiving an hand-out from the state while they seek a new job. No negative revenue is better than some negative revenue.
Locking in a new job for 10 years is a boon to the general economy. The tax cut is a boon to the companies that are on the edge of creating a new job but who can't quite afford it right now.
Locking in the new jobs for 10 years locks the employers into the state for that time. It makes it easier to get in and get started but harder to exit.

Since what we need is to reverse the trend of it being easy to exit and hard to start we should examine this.

Any politician is welcome to use this idea so long as they openly admit it is not their own and direct people here if they are asked whose idea if is.
Any politician who likes this idea is free to comment on the post. I am happy to share many other ideas that I think would improve the quality and diversity of available services while holding costs steady OR reducing costs while holding the quality and diversity of services constant. It's REALLY hard to reduce costs AND increase services but I even have a few ideas about where that can be done.

Yes, I think to much about everything.