North Korea commemorates Memorial Day with it's biggest firecracker ever!

What does North Korea's latest nuclear test show us? For one thing, making a nuclear weapon is not as difficult as we have been led to believe, or as we would like the world to believe. That, depending on the Earth to sustain us has, at best, a limited future. That, as long as we are still here on Earth, international boundaries are not as important as international peace. The best way we can honor our Veterans is to realize that an unending series of wars no way to run an economy is a luxury we can no longer afford. We must turn our remaining resources, our treasure, towards making the world a better place for those living in its poorest regions, for we can no longer afford the ecological disasters poverty, strife and conflict produce. It is now waste not, want less. We must buy local, think global. In my own family, I have found we can cut 25% from the budget, without really suffering. But we can go further. As waste loses its appeal socially, we can expect this to become a worldwide trend, somewhat similar to what is considered "beautiful" in terms of the female form. However now our tastes change faster. Already the auto makers' advertising has decreased and is shifting its focus from gas-guzzling super fortresses to technical intelligence, safety and miles per gallon. We, in the U.S. can eat less meat, and grow more vegetables in backyard gardens and city farms. Backyard composters and even Chicken tractors are becoming more popular in urban and suburban locations. This may not bode well for the current or future GDP but we must remember that the real humanitarians want humans to survive longer than this Earth, (longer than this Sun even).

Republicans Rush to the Right

Almost as amazing as the speed of decoupling of the world's means of production is the Republicans, what is left of them, rush to the right. It is as if they are tots on a teeter totter with a big bully and must lean all the way back to maintain equilibrium. The Republicans point of view is so insolated from the majority of Americans that they are unable to see that the Democrats have cornered the markets on both left and center. The danger is that they fall all the way off and an even smaller tot will have to move forward to take their place. Will it be the old stand by Libertarians or the Ultra-eco greens? Barring the candidate or platform that can seamlessly bridge the two: Libereens (People that believe government spending is bad for the environment?)? This doesn't give either, or at worst both, much of a chance. Yet it is still not too late for the Republicans, there is time for them to come to their senses on environmental issues and show that their are better, more efficient and sure ways to meet those goals than Gore's Cap and Trade system.

Life in the New Economy

Have you lost your job or been downsized to part-time status? You may have thought having less work, you would have more time for an exercise program, taking up a forgotten hobby, or visiting friends and relatives. As you start putting more time into being greener, eating healthy, renewing, reusing and recycling, doing more for yourself around the home front and buying or bartering and trading you find they all take time and energy. Even though some of these activities do not make you the big money that you used to get in the old economy, they directly benefit your life, especially in the long run. At least generally, they are exercise.

We, as Americans especially, but as the capitalistic world in general have paid far too much attention the the gross numbers, GDP, Gross Profit, Gross margin, gross income. We need to start looking at the NET. When you start looking at the net, big picture wise, you start to realize that instead of merely acting for your body, or even your family is way too limited. Too limited to even be in your own, or your family's best interest. Long term, we need a bigger sense of self. Not one that is acting for the Whole in only the Here and Now, one that is acting here and now for the Whole with respect for the past and in the interests of the Future. If we save a gallon of gas, say, we have saved the work of the drillers to find and pump it out of the ground the refiners, storage facilities and shippers and retailers that brought it to me, the financiers that make this infrastructure possible and what they would have spent their profits on etc: And we have saved that resource for the future when they will be able to use it for polymers and plastics and other things we can't imagine yet.

Will this result in an economic downturn. Gross-wise and now-wise, yes; but we get a longer lasting world with healthier people to enjoy it so net-wise we win. Do we need 3 big automakers? No, but we do need manufactures. We need insulation, windmills and turbines and solar cells and cell phone towers. If we are to depend on big SUVs less in the future, we will need light transport, public rail and CNG delivery systems. We will continue to need drill rigs and earth movers. We will need an underground superconducting super-secure electricity and data backbone. We will want Household size easy and efficient composting systems. The new economy needs a lot of new things but three big auto companies? No, sorry. Can't you learn to make some of the things we do need though? Since GM and GE both took money from the government can't they work together to manufacture the wind systems GE in already producing and using overseas? I encourage you to take the long view and not to squander the country's resources propping up the status quo which further wastes our resources by producing unneeded vehicles and jobs that do not have a net positive effect.

A New Way of Doing Things

David Brooks the Republican pundit cannot grasp that not only will Barrack Obama attempt to do many things at once but will actually use doing these things together in order to accomplish that first thing, fixing the economy. This is a generational issue, directly related to Davis's inability to multitask. This may also be the reason the Republican Party finally dies, and goes the way of the Dinosaurs, like Sinclair Oil. Anyway to explain it to those of a bygone era, it is like making lemonade when life gives you lemons. It is actually an old way of doing things. If you are given a swamp, you buy saws, cut the lumber and build a lumberyard. The trees being gone you sell the saws and build a clay digger. Convert the Lumberyard into a Tile yard. Sell tiles, install tiles, plant orchard, garden, stock ponds with sunfish bass and catfish. Some things must be done sequentially, some all at once.

So, translating, It is by changing the Tax code, regulating financial markets, changing banking system, educating Americans, fixing and developing infrastructure that will allow growing the green economy that will permanently fix our failing economy. Fixing our health care system will save us money by making Americans healthier and more productive: A penny of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The bailing out measures we are currently working on is only a way of kicking the can down the road so things don't get too much worse before they get better. After all this is done and the new economy is begining to work "too well" -- heating up ever faster--we will slow it by paying down the debt.

Economy

The financial "gurus" said $4.00 was too much to pay for Bear-Sterns, lol, because "the President of the U.S. signed off on this" Well you could have doubled your money because Chase upped the price to $10.00. They also said to hang onto your shares when the price was $60 and falling.

They also continue to claim the market may already have reached the bottom and gold, it's peak... Try listening to these "gurus" and imagine if the opposite of what they are saying is true (perhaps equally so). I am not saying that these "gurus" are just trying to prop the markets up for a bit to get their own money back out. Or trying to manipulate the prices of certain stocks so that they can use insider information. But, it would be in their financial best interest wouldn't it?

Oh by the way, the Prez also said that Bennie's doing a great job so you know he's out within the year...

From 1/23/08:


The US economic situation is bad and will get worse. Look to shift into Euros or Juan and then buy into new technologies, especially consumer sized wind turbines, alternative fuels, ultralight technologies, solar collectors, green batteries and electronics, and hi-tech materials, especially Bucky tubes. Reinvest to result in a local and worldwide diversified balance of sustainable businesses, this will be the new economy.