Category Archives: Politics & News

“We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Big Thoughts, Part I

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I had a (lower case) epiphany.

This is neither the user friendly GNOME web browser nor the Christian feast. It is not a revelatory manifestation of a divine being. It is, however, a sudden intuitive realization that gave me a little flash of political reality.

I’ve been reading Maslow today because I’ve been thinking Big Thoughts. The readings reminded me that our political candidates always, always, always promise to provide health and well-being to every living American; to secure our borders and stamp out crime; to bring the Financial markets back under control when they are not or boost them even more when they are; and to improve the safety net we expect from our gummint against illness and accidents and the impact of hurricanes. The promissory order depends on their polls.

We are affluent and relatively safe. Most of our physiological and safety needs are met. So why would a political candidate promise us this stuff?

  • It is safe to promise what we mostly have
  • They figure to motivate us to choose them because they can scare us into thinking we aren’t fed and housed and safe.
  • They aren’t smart enough to promise what we really want.

What do we really want? Really?

I already have a chicken in my pot. In fact I have more than one. The army got it right; I want to “be the best that I can be.”

John F. Kennedy didn’t electrify two generations of Americans because he delivered universal health care. After all, he promised the Moon but didn’t actually accomplish much here on Earth. He electrified two generations of Americans because he showed us Camelot.

Can John McCain deliver that passion? Can Barack Obama?

If that wasn’t clear enough, my friend Bob reminds me that the election year question I asked is this: what do we voters really want? What new goal will captivate two generations or three? Have we settled for smaller and fancier widgets and lost our passion for inventioneering on a grand scale?

We make grand choices when we have great passion.

And vice versa.

Bedposts

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Most countries use taxes to further social goals as well as as for raising revenue. The U.S., for example, is debating raising the gas tax to reduce the use of petroleum-based fuels.

Almost 42 Billion-with-a-B petroleum-based plastic bags were used in grocery stores, Wally Worlds, and all the other stores worldwide in January, 2008. Most go to landfills as waste or to roadsides as litter. Plastic bags are not biodegradable. They remain where they land pretty much forever.

Ireland took agressive action in 2002 when that country passed a tax on plastic bags; Irish consumers now pay 33 cents per bag at the cash register.

Six years into the bag tax, most smart, progressive people in Ireland carry cloth bags. Sales of plastic bags has dropped to nearly nothing there.

Ireland has moved on with the tax concept, proposing similar taxes on customers for A.T.M. receipts and chewing gum. Bedposts will be so lonely with no chewing gum to keep them company overnight.

So here is the real (and the environmentally most important) question: What kind of plastic bag does that “smart, progressive” person carry his or her trash to the dump in?

Good News/Bad News

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David Barboza reported in the New York Times that China’s inflation is hitting American price tags.

“The higher costs in China could spell the end of an era of ultra-cheap goods.”

The good news is that importing countries like the U.S. might very well look within their own shores for at least some manufacturing again. The bad news is that if China sees its income from exports fall, the pressure on Chinese leaders to lash out will skyrocket.

The bad news is serious. We have long predicted that, on the day after the Beijing Olympics close, China will nationalize (read “steal”) many of the manufacturing plants that U.S. and E.U. companies are nicely building for them. Now this Perfect Storm of shoddy or dangerous goods, rising prices, and internal growth may sink China, Inc. If the global monies pouring into China slow to a trickle, that gives China an excuse to move troops into its “economic resource centers” in Eastern Russia and Southwestern Asia.

It may be a good thing we’ve built new military bases in Iraq but what can Mr. Putin do?