the defeatists!

Conscious and Conscience...

Paul Krugman should probably be Secretary of the Treasury. I don't think he'd accept it, or Commerce, or the FED, but he's probably the best example of a Conscious Economist with a Conscience operating in the public view these days. He's not a "maverick," whatever the fuck that is that's worth having. In the west, a Marverick was a steer without a brand. Steers are castrated bulls. Get my point?

Anyway, Krugman is a mainstream economist, in the tradition of Heller, Samuelson and JK Galbraith. He writes well, which is rare for an economist and guy who first got wealthy in the textbook writing scam. However, he has a rare gift for a Nobel Laureate in the dismal psuedo-science of economics. (All Social Science is Psuedo-science, in that the conditions can never be totally replicated and the results always have more than random variation, or else the experiment is probably rigged. However, that's a rant for another place.) He has some humility. Today's column is an exemplar, sort of...It's also an evisceration and a call to arms. He begins with humility...

He begins with a confession, and although he gives some credit, before damning the bastards for being corrupt, stupid, stupidly corrupt or corruptly stupid. I think those are the only available choices. Of course, delusional is another option...he skips that one. Blind and ignorant are also skipped. They are distinct possibilities...

When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.

And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.

But he’s a rare case. Just how rare was demonstrated by what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.

He then does a marvelous job summarizing how we got where we are, and belling various cats. He remains somewhat hopeful, although guardedly. The welfare of the Republic and its future now rests on the ConservaDEMS who are perfectly capable of going DIXIECRAT on the mess and refusing to play. Do a Liver-man on the whole deal. (Does Joe Lieberman have a place to sit in the caucus after that display this weekend? Do Connecticut voters have access to the recall? Why is Ben Nelson still a Democrat? Seriously, there could easily be a third party in the Senate. The far right nutcases, the hypocrites, and the Democrats. Lieberman and Nelson and a few other sellout to insurance and banking and financial fat cats would be a great starting place to sell out on the road to a new economic serfdom...if we were to dig up JP Morgan and Jay Gould, we'd be better off than today.) However, Krugman takes off the gloves and lays into the conservatives in their bizzaro world and that alone is worth the price of admission. Which, since it's on the webs, is really just time. A shame, I guess but still...

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

In part, the prevalence of this narrative reflects the principle enunciated by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Frankly, as a guy who prides himself on having that understanding, it can be damn near fatal. None the less, Krugman nails it, them and us -- we the people elected those idiots -- and leaves the denouement to the imagination. Back to the future...barter. 

Bob and Maureen's Incredible Adventure....and the end of the world slouches closer

Crusader AXE is reaching new heights of wondering what the hell is the matter with the world...for some ungodly reason, I ordered sushi tonight in a little Japanese place 30 miles south of the crossroads of opportunity. I'm not that fond of sushi, but what the hell...anyway, the California roll was tasteless, they had a heated spicy crab role that was ok and then there was what I thought was spicy tuna roll which turned out to be red snapper roll. Ok, I admit it. I dislike sushi. I've been trying to like it for a couple of reasons, but forget it. Sushi sucks. I'm not that fond of fish to begin with, a heritage of meatless Fridays and fast days. But raw fish is tasteless, and wrapping it in eel skin and tossing in a dollop of something doesn't work. It's disappointing. Frankly, I prefer to roll the fresh ginger in the wasabi. That may not have much bulk, and damn little protein, but you know it's there.

However, culinary issues aside, as I was driving into the burg because Mrs. AXE wanted more cat food -- the monsters turned up their noses at the leftovers, showing cats are smarter than people -- and a brownie pan, when the phone went off. (I have a lengthy bitch about the inability of my phone to permanently link with the damn on-board blue tooth, but we'll let that pass.) My buddy the GINORMOUS quality guy wanted to let me know that one of my old team's six month old grand daughter had died in her sleep. My partner knew that would bother me a lot -- the gal had doted on the grand daughter, and when the husband and wife were having strife, actually offered to take the child and raise her; she had moved into the spare bedroom and was working full-time and being a live-in baby sitter. The child was happy, healthy and well loved. I now have someone who used to work for me, and is now in a lot of pain. And me, I'm eating sushi and complaining about it. Somehow, perspective approaches us and then walks away...

Which leads me to the trip that Secretary of Defense Gates just finished up to Iraq and Afghanistan. HuffPO  has a piece on it as well as Dulcinea Dowd's coverage. Gates is really looking like possibly Twitsheet de la Dweeb's sole intelligent move as President. Unfortunately, he and the president he now serves seem to have been dealt a really horrid hand. And, in this game of poker, the option of folding is just not there. Yet, the Iraqis and the Afghanis seem to be making that option more attractive daily. As she puts it, "Puppets just aren’t what they used to be. Or maybe a trillion dollars doesn’t buy the same felicitous level of obsequiousness it once did."

First of all, Karzai undercut Obama's surge than leave strategy with this...Afghanistan is like the Hotel California, boys...you can check out, but never leave. As Dowd explains, "Needling his American sugar daddy, the Afghan peacock observed: “For another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources.” Well, the Iraqis at least have oil to fight over. Afghan's have one realistic cash crop -- opium poppies -- and no alternatives. Left to their own devices, they'd have gone back to butt fucking each other, playing a version of rugby on horseback with a dead sheep, and stealing from each other. But, the Russians, the CIA and the Taliban screwed up that paradigm. There is no other -- as the Romans learned with their tame barbarians in the late empire, once they get used to being paid off and defended, they expect it to continue. Ms. Dowd describes it this way..."Gates and his generals in Afghanistan talked a lot last week about “partnering” with and “mentoring” the Afghan Army and police. But given the Flintstones nature of the country, it’s more basic. Americans have to teach the vast majority of Afghan recruits to read and write before they can get to security training. It’s hard to arrest people if you can’t read them their rights and take names..." We need to remember we're talking about central Asia here. Baksheesh is as much a part of the culture as thuggery, buggery and illiteracy. Dowd notes that Gates discovered on this trip that the Afghan army is the low bidder on salaries with the Taliban. Since I suspect that to Omar the tribesman trying to figure out how to feed his family and sheep, the Afghan government and the Taliban don't seem that much different, and in fact, he probably feels more comfortable with the Taliban given their attitude toward women, and praying five times a day, and so on. It's really pretty simple...

Then Mullah Malaki skipped a meeting with Gates. Seems he's having a security crisis. The AXE has noted the various bombings and revenge killings going on in Iraq, and has failed to comment on it because " WHAT THE HELL DID WE EXPECT TO FUCKING HAPPEN?" Dulcinea points out that the Iraqi Prez did agree to a 0730 meeting on Friday, which was spun like a bunch of reused cotton batting used to make your next shirt from India to seem like a victory. Malaki likes to sleep late. Stress. And hookers, I expect.

Mainly hookers.

Now, Dulcinea appears to like Gates, and frankly, so do I. Compared to Rumsfeld, Homey the Clown would be an improvement by several orders of magnitude, but sheeeeeiiiiitttt, this guy knows what he is talking about. Although, anyone who would leave a gig like running Texas A&M to pick up the pieces has the sense of duty and responsibility that I can only admire. I've commented before that I like Obama because he's undoubtedly brilliant and has a sense of irony that he can't help but show. Gates appears to be somewhat similar..."His form of ego is not to show ego. When a much-anticipated trip to see an Army Stryker brigade in Kandahar was canceled because of fog, he dryly told us: “As Clint Eastwood said, ‘A man’s got to know his limitations."  He says that what he thinks he brings to the table is common sense, according to Ms Dowd; he isn't trying to prove anything. More to the point, he says something that strikes me as very true, and thus likely to be ignored: “Anybody who reads history has to approach these things with some humility because you can’t know,” he said. “Nobody knows what the last chapter ever looks like.”

Personally, I think I know how it all ends for us, the Afghans, the Pakistanis and the Iraqis...poorly. The details remain to be fleshed out, and people like Obama and Gates will try to minimize the damage, but ultimately this just sucks. And, as I put the macro into perspective and the micro into perspective, my dislike of sushi is so trivial that for penance I should force myself to eat more of it. But, I won't. My friend's loss will trouble me and I will continue to reflect on just how lousy things are, but I will not do penance for not eating sushi. Again.

By the way, on Saturday Gail Collins addressed the contracting mess, that really irks me. First of all, my work for GINORMOUS was as a member of a well-honed contracting project, and we generally did what the government wanted us to do very well. However, there is a problem with the changing model that probably had something to do with my leaving and undoubtedly will have a lot to do with re-structuring that paradigm. Contractors don't really make sense. She explains why, very graphically indeed.

Do you remember the scandal about the U.S. Embassy guards in Kabul, Afghanistan, who got naked and held wild hazing rituals? ...I am bringing this up because I want to talk about government contracting. When you venture into topics like that, it’s always a good idea to try to begin with an orgy.

She and the Times have uncovered a real boondoggle here that won't get a lot of attention but is very close to reality, and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. As clusterfucks go, this one is amazing, and not just the nonsense with the guards. Turns out there were a number of professional soldiers in addition to the clowns who went through the drunken games of ass-licking and body shots...Gurkhas. Well, I got to meet a few Gurkha officers and I'd trust them over any of our home grown mercenaries. However, only the officers generally speak English. The average Nepalese tribesman doesn't learn English unless he gets shipped off to one of the Royal Regiments. So, this allows a small additional income stream for Nepal, but they don't freaking speak English. The Americans appear to be a bunch of incredible rejects. The company has been threatened with the loss of the contract, and a new contract will be bid and let in 2010. June, 2010. The Gurkhas still don't speak English, and there's no reason to assume the guards have gotten any better. They're just quieter...

Ms. Collins sums up the entire "war by private contractor" better than just about anything I've read; the only thing that does it better in my mind is the John Cusack/Maria Tome tour de force called War Inc.  ( I seldom buy movies, and as I get older I have fewer I want to see again. However, that one is well worth it. Grosse Point Blank grown up...and taken to a whole 'nother level.)

When did we decide this was a good plan?...Let’s pretend for a minute that it is not stupendously irresponsible to let private contractors stand in for our military in wildly sensitive and dangerous situations abroad.  Even if it was a terrific idea, we would still have to ask whether huge government agencies, which frequently have a difficult time finding cost-effective ways to order a hammer, know how to purchase services that actually work...These days, there’s virtually nothing the government doesn’t contract out. At the height of the war in Iraq, there were 190,000 contracted personnel taking part in the effort — 23 times the number of allied troops who were lending a hand..."This is the real surge, with a dwindling number of overseers riding herd." There’s no reason to believe the government has the capacity to determine how well all these private contractors are doing their jobs. And it’s doubtful that if the government did know, it could do much about it.

Yeah, the lack of a plan B should really bother people. Oh, the DOD has no plan B. Or if they do, they sure aren't telling the contractors. Which is fine, I guess...maybe they think the contractors will figure it out and do what's necessary to keep their work. However, my experience makes me think probably not. As the poet says, "Some of them were dreamers, and some of them were fools/making plans and talking about the future..." with a heat seeking missile headed up our butts.

At least it doesn't take the skin off your ass...quickly

If you visit American City...How does that lyric go again?

That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.

So, we're watching our infrastructure crumble around us. In China, you don't drink the tap water unless you have a death wish. Here, we brag about our water and air and wonder why we have to clean things up...and, that e coli might be headed for you, not from Jack in the Box, but the water company. We're not aspiring to China's growth rate; we're aspiring to China's standard of living.

It used to be common to compare states and for local politicians to say, "At least we're not Mississippi." Well, Cletus, Mississippi has a lot more going for it's civic society these days than California. We used to brag about our technology and our infrastructure. Shanghai has a Magleev train. California has a plan that's been scrapped. Ten years or so ago, my boss' husband who was in his 70s came down with a terrible case of e coli...from the local water. It didn't shorten his life appreciably, since he died in his late 80s. But still -- we weren't in Calcutta, damn it, they were in Olympia, Washington. Absurd.

Oh yeah, this is how it goes.

Not a lot to say...

When the spouse came home this evening, she informed me that the Marines were laying off over 350 people at a local logistics center -- 350 "accelerated hires" that they desperately had to hire this past summer. Ouch. Effective date of layoff is...tomorrow. Interesting approach; she coordinates Workers Comp at this place, and I told her expect a lot of people to claim they were hurt today, yesterday and tomorrow. For my friends who are thinking about the WARN notices that should have gone out, I'm not sure they apply to the government. Civil Service HR is weirder than regular HR. So...who knows.

Had to drive out to the installation to pick up drugs -- old soldier drugs, not fun drugs -- and get mail. Post office decided to make the installation post office a one person station at the front. Poor gal was going insane. I get out there about every ten days, and I could see she was being slammed. Hospital was done to one person at the pharmacy, and no supervising pharmacist. Seeing a trend here?

And, although I planned on not watching "the speech" it was the most interesting thing on and I had a headache, so reading wasn't really an option. It was a logical and rational discussion, the sort of logical and rational discussion that should have happened years and years ago. I notice that the upper classmen in the audience, the TAC Officers and NCOs, and folks in civvies were all pretty intently following what he had to say. They got it. The guys with bare blouses or 1 ribbon only, the lower classmen, were the ones who were having trouble staying awake. Frankly, given the West Point regime, most of those kids are either up to their noses in homework at 8PM or asleep. Or, doing push-ups. I was struck by the number of Combat Infantry Badges I saw -- indicated that the wearer had gotten shot at. For real. Probably went to the West Point Prep School after an enlisted tour. In general, good quality.

But, the speech made a lot of sense, starting from the point of view that Afghanistan is critical to our national interests. Is it? Not sure. I do know that the last 8 years haven't been terribly successful. I also know that the cost is beyond reason. Granted, the repayment by BOA of $45 billion in TARP money is nice, but I don't feel a lot better about things based on that.

Well, we'll see. Unfortunately, a modern Army can't ditty mao out of a country overnight. I'd hate to be the last guy to try and get out of Bagram. Or Kabul. Or across the bridge into AZERBAIJAN, if it still exists. I'm just tired of posting gloomy Russian soldier ballads and thinking about Afghanistan. What's happening in Iraq? Same thing that happened in Vietnam in 1973-75. Some other set of assholes are running the place, but it's still run by assholes fighting other assholes about money, power and religion. Afghanistan will ultimately go the same way, I suspect. We'll stabilize it, declare victory, get out relatively unmolested and it'll go to shit in 2014 or so. And so it goes...

Enthusiasm gap? How'd that work in Berlin in 1928?

The revealed truth appears to be that the Obama administration and the Democrats are doomed, doomed, doomed because a lot of self-identified Democrats aren't going to the polls in 2010 because they lack enthusiasm. I would have thought the futility of the Obama administration and the president's inability to recognize that you can't get people who don't want to reconcile to reconcile or people who want to be disruptive and uncivil to be constructive and civil by listening might have a bit more to do with it.

It is always easier to get people to be against something as opposed to for something...and, Democrats in today's political cess-pool are in fact far less ideologically pure than Republicans. Who appear to have annointed  Sister "Gosh darn it, I'm special! Not Like Trig is Special, but Special!" as a spokesperson.

If there ever was a time to run a "give 'em hell, Harry" style effort, this is the time. However, while his name doesn't come up all that much, Obama is tied to Marshall McLuhan's view of media. Television is a "cool" media; the internet and blogosphere is a hot media. One of the aspects of a cool media is a certain level of dispassion; the blogosphere is nothing if not passionate. In addition, the administration in particular and the congress as well isn't able to respond. I'm not thinking Bush, I'm thinking Weimar...the mainstream politicians and press became irrelevant while the Nazis and the Commies and the various nutcases became the mainstream.

Well, outside of running Springsteen for New Jersey governor, how the hell do the Dems connect? They need to have a bit of party unity, and they need to scapegoat the Republicans where they bastards are vulnerable -- like Maine, for example. Rural health care in Maine is a joke, but Snowe and Collins have blown the chance to make history. Joe Lieberman needs to be invited out of the Democratic caucus, immediately, with Lincoln, Landrau and Nelson to follow. Let them be ideologically pure...somewhere else.

If they Dems pass health care, 2010 will not be a debacle. If they don't, or what ends up passing is a disaster, then a lot of Dems won't show up. In 1934, the Nazis showed up. They were evil, wrong, and totally unconnected to reality. But, damn, they were enthusiasm personified. What I suspect happens in 2010 is that who ever wins, we lose.
Kurt Weil and Berthold Brecht and the new decadence...

They're either incredibly stupid or incredibly stupid...or retarded.

Pity the previous president. His sycophants are already forgetting the high point of his reign, besides T-Ball... Ok, there was the 9/11 thing but that happened only 9 months and change after inauguration, so what the hell? And then there was the anthrax stuff, but what the hell; bio-terrorism doesn't really count, does it?

I've been wanting to write something about the Senate vote on health care but I'm finding I really am unmotivated about it. I tried to rise to a level of indignation over Beckenbaugh's comparison of Mary Landrau to a whore, but shit, she's a politician from Louisiana. At least she's only a metaphorical whore, although her family has been kingmakers in Louisiana since before the Kingfish himself and Jimmy Rogers. She comes from a long line of whores and pimps and thieves and such. However, her vote counts. And, she'll get something for it. All Davvy Vitter will bring back to the Bayou is going to be a paper bag over his head and several bails of Pampers.

Back to Landrau and Glrush Beckenbaugh. In a state where finding a Mojo woman who'll take food stamps is what counts as health care, a few more free clinics in the outlying areas and the arrival of a van with vitamins for rickets and pellagra and pills for intestinal worms will be really popular. I'm not sure I see how this works out, but I keep thinking about the Churchill line, when a woman at a party told him he was drunk. " Yes, and you are ugly. Tomorrow, I'll be sober, and you'll still be ugly."

But, back to the lead. Dana Perino or Perrino or Perrier or whatever her name is not only hasn't taken her husband's name, maybe because he's British. And thus, either a football hooligan or an illegal alien. Or gay. Or all three. Probably in the Taliban. She is not following the Wingnut way, the whole subservient to man thing. Of course, according to Wikki, she hasn't bred yet, which is a good thing. I was wondering where she went to school, and while I nothing nothing at all about her undergraduate school which has rebranded itself as something else, she has a Masters. In Communications. From a real school in a real state. Granted, she's originally from Wyoming, but she grew up in Colorado. She has no excuse for being this goddamn dumb.

Fuck people. Incrementally.

Nothing says false comfort like a minimum wage rule. Tying a minimum wage rule to inflation seems like the way to keep it helpful to the average employee who is at the minimum wage, but it really is not. So, the Colorado decision to knock three cents an hour off the minimum wage is kinda, sorta a gratuitous insult. Legally it is definitely what they have to do, but as that great legal scholar, Charles Dickens, had a character put it in the UK version of The Federalist Papers, "The Law is an ass..."

Assuming a 40 hour week, which is more than a lot of minimum wagers get, the decrease will amount to  a roaring $1.20 a week. Roughly $64 a year Before taxes, which are probably irrelevant, except payroll taxes like FICA and Medicare. The impact on income in real terms, a can of coke a week from the vending machine down the hall next to the furnace where they shovel the coal to drive the engines of industry.

Merle Haggard - Mama's Hungry Eyes

Jeffery Allen Cropper - ( Personal Friend Page )|MySpace Videos
Now, I have been privately speculating about salary freezes and rollbacks for a while. This particular issue is probably a sign of something, and not being Paul Krugman , I'm not sure what. (By the way, the post I've linked to is pretty arcane, but take the time to do the math and think. Not a bad motto...) However, if wages drop then demand drops for shit because people have less to spend on shit; if demand drops, production drops; if production drops, people get laid off. Getting that flushed down the toilet of economics feeling yet?

Here's my thought: Mandate a living wage which will be based on the local median minus 20%. The only way to get out of this downward spiral is to sell stuff; the only way to sell stuff besides food and minimal housing is getting more, not less money into disposable income which largely comes from wages in the spending as opposed to the investment class. Bill Gates net worth decreases by 10%, he's still fucking wealthy; increases by 10%, he's still fucking wealthy, and I doubt that it'll have that much of an impact on his spending patterns. Give me a 10% negative swing, and I slow down and do little except pay down debt; increase it by 10%, and some of that will go to spending. Granted, some of that will go to paying down debt, but if I increase my after tax income by $5K, I probably won't buy another car, but I might buy a new Amp and maybe a better layout of office furniture for my home office. Just a thought; but, that would keep struggling musicians, the Line 6 company, furniture stores and Weyerhauser going a bit longer. Just doing my part...

Now, for gratuitous, unwarranted optimism...


Were that it were so, but as former Rosicrucian adept and car salesman Crispin Sartwell once plagarized, "Life is 60/40 against."

Tripping over facts while drinking your own Kool-Aid...

I've watched a lot of great ideas go south as a result of reality. The eight years between January 2001 and January 2009 are an example; Cold Fusion is another. Tom DeLay's lame imitation of Fred Astair; the Yugo; the Michael Richards' TV show. I think you're getting the picture.

Add the Barrack Obama administration.  A lot of the facts come from the Bush Administration, but still -- very disappointing. And, ironic -- I've been preaching in various forums available to me that the jobs data was totally whack, for example. People out of work getting MBAs -- does anyone sense the irony besides me? Sending people back to school who were loggers before to get degrees and certificates in Computer Graphics? Really...the idea that the future of America is virtual is vapor. Pure vapor -- hell, virtual vapor. I was preaching that in 1998! Today, The Times announces that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has consistently gotten in wrong. Hooorah! Defeatists 1, Government Bureaucracy -10000. It's a Pyrrhic victory, of course.

When the United States economy fell into recession at the beginning of 2008, many economists, including those at the Federal Reserve, refused to believe it was happening. They pointed to the employment numbers, which showed only mild job losses for the first half of that year...Recessions, they said, do not come with such mild job losses. ( AXE Comment: If the gas gauge says full, and the car won't move, accept that some goddamn thing is wrong. And, I'd don't know how to make this clearer -- if you've driven your Bugatti Veron flat out for the last hour and suddenly lose power and coast to a stop and the engine won't turn over, bet the gauge is fucked first. The measurement is usually wrong. )They were right. Unfortunately, it was the job numbers that were wrong. (AXE Commentary: Great, I was right. BFD. I'm not Obama, I have no leverage to fix this clusterfuck. Not that he does, but he can bitch about it from the bully pulpit. I have the Defeatists. ) On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered its latest revelation that the jobs picture was far worse than it had previously reported. Using newly available data, the bureau now estimates that during the 12 months ended last March, the economy lost 5.6 million jobs, 824,000 more than the 4.8 million previously reported...(AXE Snark: What's a 824,000 job error to an accountant or a statistician? A rounding error. What is it to a human being? Tragedy.) It now appears that during the first half of 2008, when the recession was getting under way, job losses averaged 146,000 per month. That is nearly three times the average of 49,000 jobs shown in the initial estimates. How did the government get it so wrong?

They got it wrong because they are fucking Hobbits who obtained their positions during the last 30 years, 20 of which were in the control of Reagan and Bush2 and their various advisers. Remember faith-based governance? Laffler Curve? Supply Side Economics? Ketchup is a vegetable? Karl Jaspers Karl Jaspers, the German Existentialist besides Heidigger, the one who wasn't a Nazi, provided an explanation as did Morris Massey, the OD guru about generations and learning. (Only one of these guys is dead, I think. In the 70s, Massey would show up at conferences and people would come up to him and say, "I thought you were dead." He ultimately theorized that they were confused because two important cultural  figures had in fact joined the Norwegian Blue in permanently pining for the Fjords...Maurice the Cat, star of 9 Lives Cat Food Commercials and the actor Raymond Massey.) It's actually a pretty straight forward proposition -- everything you do is influenced by everything you've ever done. If for 30 years you've been calling red ambergris, guess what -- to you, red is ambergris.

Going back to my gauge analogy, the measurement can be accurate, reliable and repeatable, but if it isn't measuring the right thing, well, the measurements aren't just meaningless, they are absolutely dangerous. Real people will make decisions on this stuff, and GIGOGIGOGIGO!

Now usually some twinge of optimism sneaks in at this point, but I'm out of it. I don't believe that we can do the fundamental things necessary to fix this mess. I'm enough of a Marxist to believe that systems collapse based on their own internal contradictions. What we observe in so many ways is the triumph of what Teddy Roosevelt called the "malefactors of great wealth." The system can't be changed until we can elect Philosopher-Kings whose only reason for running for office is to do good and do right. Power, ego, and all the perks have no place in governance. Unfortunately, Christ, Socrates and Jefferson aren't available.

Now, I do have some ideas -- confiscatory income taxes, government financing of all campaigns down through junior high student council, execution or exile for corrupt politicians or bureaucrats, mandatory IQ and basic skills tests for government employees and elected officials, and a series of constitutional amendments to "fix" some systemic problems. Little things like mandating marginal tax rates necessary to pay the government's way within 20 years of the expenditure; taxing corporations that lay-off workers; requiring severance, blah blah blah. Not going to happen anymore than the ascendancy of the philosopher kings...time for a defeatist old favorite -- a little Yeats, I think, is appropriate for the moment.

THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Even better...

So let me see if I've got this right...If you have a job, you'll probably lose it. If you lose it, you'll probably never find another. If you quit your job, you will never find another. If you move, you won't be able to sell your house. If you get forced out of your house, you'll never be able to buy another. If you can't see the house you are about to be forced out of, you'll never get a job because you're a bad credit risk. And, if you never had a job and just joined the workforce, you're totally fucked. Think it's time for a visit from Doctor Leary...
 

And then, there's this bit of joy...the old people who aren't so old are stealing my money! Goddamn the widow Doonesbury.

"A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire," said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "If they were younger, we would call them unemployed. "Job losses are forcing more retirements even though an increasing number of older people want to keep working. Many can't afford to retire, especially after the financial collapse demolished their nest eggs.

Weimar Republic, anyone? Little gratuitous  Liza and Joel?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/27/early-retirements-strain-_n_301118.html

 

Twelve years ago on a dreary Washington Day...Bachman-Steele Overdrive

I was a new state employee in a program called the "Governor's Executive Fellowship" working for the Department of Transportation up in the Shire of Ectopia. DOT was the Shire's Waffen SS, in that unlike a lot of government, they actually did things in a more or less rational, results oriented way. They were hobbits, as all civil servants are; however, Hobbits with a purpose...which can be dangerous. At the time, we were trying to grow infrastructure which meant hiring engineers. Well, we were in competition with California, who needed to hire a lot of engineers to handle seismic refit for things like the "Bay Bridge." I lost interest and left government...although at times, I wish I hadn't. Government, especially state government, could be a good place for a left-libertarian-anarcho-syndicalist to hide out. Kafka worked for the government; didn't seem to inhibit him, much.

Anyway, I was amused to read this piece this morning. Seems the Bay Bridge, after 20 years, is still fucked up, and during a simple inspection discovered a potentially catastrophic crack that will keep it shut down until it's fixed. Ok, or falls into the bay.

Now, I'm not sure whether to chalk this up to living in California or to the basic hobbitry of the well-meaning technocrats. Or both...It's tempting to consider this the Shire of "Dude!" except it is far more schizo-psycho-WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH THESE PEOPLE than that. The last guy with a coherent idea in state government was probably Jerry Brown. And, look what happened to him...from the Birchers to the Truthers to the Surfers to the Huffers, this is one hell of place here in the golden west. We don't have shit and our taxes are high, but the old bastards have lower property insurance because of it.

Speaking of birthers-etc., Gary Trudeau and Doonesbury remain a gold standard for social commentary. Today's strip is a kinda wry but marvelous portrait of a nation in need of a new place on the space-time continuum. In a sane world, the Roman style Republic envisioned by the founders, which of the clowns currently driving the public debate would be anything more than a member of some Asian mystery cult hanging out in the backstreets or in the catacombs, babbling eschatoloical nonsense to each other?
And, for those of you thinking that Obama might be Marcus Aurelius, well, remember how that ended up? The thought "utterly fucked" comes to mind...although, I have decided that it's time to end this farce, and Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes is declaring for " Michelle Bachman-Michael Steele in 2012." Proposed motto -- "What could possibly go wrong? How hard can it be?" While Bachman is SpaceBat crazy, I think Steele is an utterly useless dickhead who's a credit to his race and completely without principle, compassion and public service. One of the generals I worked for used to say that there were great Americans, great great Americans, and GREAT GREAT GREAT Americans -- the last being politicians. Who as a class should hit in the head with a hammer and composted. I don't generally agree completely, but in Stella Steel's case, I wholeheartedly endorse General Roe's conclusion.

Let's just get the end of the Republic and the elimination of the human race overwith...the game is really getting old.