On-Line Donations

* For decades, I have contributed to almost 50 nonprofits by check every December. Last year I realized that my 77-year-old eyes and arthritic hands made this too painful, so I included a note with each check, saying that my future donations would be made on line via PayPal. Most of my favorite nonprofits ignored my note. Considering the ease of setting up PayPal on a web site, this failure is astonishing.
* To donate by PayPal, one clicks on the PayPal button, types the amount to be donated and clicks on two more buttons. That's it. The needed personal information accompanies the donation automatically.
* By contrast, giving on line by credit card is harder than giving by check in the mail. For each donation, one must fill in personal information, type the amount to be donated, type 20 hopefully private digits, select several more numbers, then click on one or two more buttons.
* The money I didn't contribute to recalcitrant nonprofits will approximately pay for my new dentures.

Pride or modesty

* In my declining years, I've been wallowing in existential angst, questioning every source of pride and suspecting that much modesty and even some shame might be appropriate.
* The greatest generation and my generation enjoyed a golden age of resources and advantages which we squandered. Consider the Fleetwood Cadillac.
* We white male American Christians dominated and exploited every other kind of people not so specified, assuming that it was the natural order. I can remember greatly admiring the British empire, over which the sun never set.
* The opportunities for justice and peace that we had within our reach and wasted are enough to make one weep. Is our society or civilization the best that a society or civilization can be? If not, what would be?

Wealth gravity

* The following MotherJones article summarizes some important policies, trends and dynamics that could be the basis for some interesting ethics discussions: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/01/matt-yglesias * Reagan believed increasing wealth of the already rich to be good, as do contemporary Republicans. For whom? How? Why? * Unbridled imbalances in an organism are deadly. Far too many Americans lack access to legitimate jobs with apprentice potential. Far too many Americans are becoming hopeless, demoralized and disaffected. That is nothing to celebrate. Can the earth support macroeconomic solutions to such problems? * Was the transfer of wealth from middle class to rich and to other destinations inevitable regardless of policies, eg owing to production technology and international competition? Even if so, government taxing and spending should not be designed to exaggerate and accelerate the trend. * Imagine an economy in which the burdens and opportunities are more widely shared. Imagine a society in which joys and satisfactions are more scattered throughout the socioeconomic pyramid.

Rupert Murdoch punishment

* Back when Rupert Murdoch felonies were in the news, I dwelled on the question whether he could be punished for the lies and gratuitous hate heard on his property, Fox Talk Radio.
* It was just over a decade ago when the FCC stopped requiring broadcasters to balance partisan rhetoric with opposing views. They still forbid certain obscenities under some circumstances. Why not forbid lies or at least require them to be exposed during a 10-minute cleanup segment at the end of each hour?
* Note to judges: Condemn all guilty Murdoch executives to wearing a digital-radio necklace that plays Steve Gill, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin from 7 am to 7 pm relayed via a fact checker who inserts a buzzer noise at the end of every lie.
* This might be a pretty good punishment for all Republican white-collar criminals, in addition to restitution. Democratic white-collar criminals could be punished with a digital-radio collar playing NPR relayed from a buzzer-wielding fact checker, in addition to restitution.

Remembering Charlie Howell

* Our community lost a friend on Oct 27. I've known Charlie Howell most of my adult life, witnessing from a distance his involvement in public policy at the local, state and national levels. Throughout those years and beyond, Charlie held to an ethic grounded in faith, the law and examples of great leaders. He had a clearer grasp of social, economic and political issues than did most of us; and he came up with imaginative proposals.
* For the past two decades, I've been in Charlie's vortex. It began with a conference he organized titled: Loving our neighbors across time. It seemed to me compelling to extend a New Testament commandment about relations among contemporaries to the asymmetrical relation among generations. Continuing that commitment, Charlie established a foundation, Trust for the future, and created Descendants' Day, June 30, to remind us of our responsibility to leave future generations a healthy planet and decent people with whom to share it.
* During those decades, Charlie contributed many thoughtful letters to the Tennessean editor and several Nashville Eye articles addressing issues of the times. When I got the news of his passing, I looked to my right where on top of a stack of papers was a copy of a year-old letter from Charlie to Gov Haslam with detailed recommendations about state and local taxes.
* In my last conversation with Charlie, more than a month ago, we discussed what course our society might take were it possible to incentivize truth telling in the national conversation. It seems like yesterday.

Bocephus & Football

** Contrary to opinions expressed by print and broadcast media and held by ESPN, Hank Jr did not compare Obama with Hitler. He compared the incompatibility of Obama and Boehner with the incompatibility of Netanyahu and Hitler in an imaginary golf match.
** How could newscasters, newspaper commentators, letter writers and ESPN get this wrong? Perhaps because Hank Jr combined three figures of speech (simile, hyperbole, sarcasm) in a double or triple comparison/contrast (Obama contrasted with Boehner compared with Netanyahu contrasted with Hitler).
** The same figures of speech are in the statement "30-10 is like 100-1", which does not imply that 30 or 10 is like 100 or 1. Where can you find an English teacher when you need one? Bocephus was done wrong by.

Cuba

* Conventional wisdom has it that Castro and Communism have been disastrous for Cuba. Certainly, many Cuban immigrants hate the regime, most earlier ones having lost property and wealth to the revolution, most later ones feeling held down by communism. Perhaps a majority of those remaining in Cuba feel that they suffer as a result of the regime's dictatorial communistic ways. They believe that sans Castro and Communism their lot would be more like the images of America seen in various media which they can access. They probably haven't seen images of our housing projects, inner-city blight and poverty in mountain and agricultural communities.
* These opinions may deserve some examination and revision. The revolution was a response to unsatisfactory conditions for the vast majority of Cubans. Much of the commerce was in the hands of the American mafia and plantation owners. One might postulate that average Cubans would be in much worse shape today had Castro not intervened. They have received better education than they would have received sans Castro. Many services have been better distributed than they would have been sans Castro. Most of the deprivations experienced by most Cubans can be attributed to American policies including trade policies. Cuban ingenuity in coping with our policies has been down right heroic. It is very likely that the oppressive effects of Cuban government and American policy have preserved Cuba for the next generation far better than would be the case absent Castro and Communism. It would have been over developed and over exploited and dependent on outsiders as is Haiti. And the wealth gap would be huge, with the vast majority in abject poverty. By the way, over-development, over-exploitation, widening wealth gap and spreading poverty are where we are going with our free-market economy.
* So I say, let Cuba be Cuba. They may find a middle way that is better for them in the long run than would be some attempt to mimic us.

Civil Unrest

* We're seeing a tornado of civil unrest skipping across North Africa and threatening the Middle East. From a distance, it appears that several factors fuel this contagion.
* 1) Autocratic leaders who refuse to relinquish power. 2) Corruption throughout all branches of government, so that every interaction with government involves a bribe and/or injustice. 3) Obscene opulence of top leaders. 4) Lack of freedoms. 5) Educated people humiliated by lack of employment needed to begin customary life passages, eg marriage and children. 6) Large segments of population whose incomes are too low in relation to cost of living, especially cost of food.
* In other words there are political defects and economic defects that provoke demoralization, disaffection and impatience. It appears that the mobs will succeed in displacing the corrupt top leaders leaving sovereign countries temporarily ungoverned. Chances are pretty good that the vacuum will be filled by competition among factions identified by religion, clan, tribe, race, commercial connections, etc. Often the most cynical and ruthless faction wins such a competition, beginning the cycle again. Even if some benign regime and political system emerges from one of these rebellions, it is hard to imagine satisfactory economic outcomes for most subjects, laying the groundwork for future mob actions.
* There are Tea Party Limbaugh Sycophant Racist NRA Patriots who think our elected president should be targeted for mob action like that in Egypt (Tennessean, Opinion, 2011 Feb 22, Jeff Roman). They probably don't know that Reagan started us on the road to massive government debt and globalization with its attendant job flight. Nevertheless, it would be worth considering the extent to which factors analogous to those listed above might bring about demoralization and disaffection sufficient to evoke mob action in America (also Tennessean, Opinion, 2011 Feb 27, John Ruff).
* 1) We are able to replace our leaders every 2-4-6 years. 2) Our corruption is mainly in congress and due to our campaign financing which is tantamount to bribery. 3) Our political leaders aren't especially opulent, but our tax policies were rigged by Reagan and W Bush to accelerate sequestration of wealth by the already wealthy. 4) We are free enough, but many have been told by Tea Party rabble rousers that their taxes are tyrannical and confiscatorial. 5) Owing to our economic downturn, many educated, experienced and skilled citizens are unable to get work they consider appropriate. 6) Millions of our citizens are poor and essentially discarded or warehoused and facing rising food costs.
* If someone deserves to be the target of mob action it would be hedge fund managers in Greenwich Connecticut for whom our economic system has been rigged. Seriously, though, free-market capitalism leaves too many people out, and it is destroying the earth.

Insane economics

* To keep or not to keep Bush's tax cuts for the rich. Arthur Laffer (Tennessean, 2010, Sept 22, Opinion) says keep them, because the rich invest in businesses which create jobs. If his theory were correct, we would have a better economy today than we had before Bush's tax cuts. We don't. The very rich put their money in hedge funds that sequester money from the financial markets without helping underlying businesses--like a cancer. * Back around 1980, Laffer's theory was cited as justifying Reagan's tax cuts for the rich. We don't know whether those tax cuts stimulated economic activity, since they were accompanied by increased military spending, reduced interest rates, deregulation, policies promoting international trade and policies promoting investment in stocks and bonds--and the economy soon faltered with all these policies ongoing. Nevertheless, all Republican spokespersons quote Laffer's theory as self evident axiom (eg Richard J Grant, Tennessean, Sept 12, Opinion). * If Laffer's theory actually underlay Reagan's tax policies, then his legacy is about 12 trillion of our 13 trillion national debt, which is heading us toward default and/or hyperinflation. * There are some policy initiatives that would restore balance and wider sharing of prosperity in our society, but they aren't being discussed at high levels.

Lies and conventional wisdom

I recently sent the following thoughts to a friend, and I recently found out how to get back in my blog. By way of introduction, let me say that the most important fact concerning our existence is the rising ratio of human demand for resources to the amount of resources. Everything else pales by comparison. The merits of any policy should be measured against its effect on this ratio. Those in power are ignoring this most important fact, which will defeat any attempt so far contemplated to solve social or economic problems. * Well, I'm thinking about ways to make broadcasters accountable for their lies, supposing that they would likely tell fewer of them if they had to pay for them or explain them or apologize for them. The FCC could implement such a policy as easily as they forbid obscenities. After all the spectrum belongs to the public. Something similar might apply to newspaper staff writers and columnists. * A non-governmental way to address broadcast lies would be a copy of the broadcast or excerpts thereof on podcast with a buzzer going off at the end of every lie, possibly followed by insertion of an explanation. But who has the patience to listen to the deceptive broadcasts. * I'd like also to make honest people examine the conventional wisdom that they convey to fill their 24/7 communication. For example, all leaders, economists and journalists want to solve our social problems by stimulating economic activity, including international trade. Some international trade is needed, but much of it is wasteful. In any case, the earth simply cannot support continually stimulating as the means of solving the worlds social problems. We are destroying the earth's support systems at a rapidly accelerating rate, owing to population growth and newly gained prosperity in some very large countries. One of these days, when we are fighting over insufficient commodities whose prices are skyrocketing, leaders may understand this and seek a way to better share an unstimulated economy that is sustainable. It is time for the conversation to happen in public. * I believe that at least half of economic activity is wasteful and wouldn't be missed if we agreed to forgo it. We could substitute cultural/intellectual/recreational engagement for much of the vain quest for seductive stuff that eventually fails to satisfy. Certainly, there is no need for people to work 40 hours per week when everything really needed could be produced if everyone worked 20 hours per week. Imagine that we jumped from 1911 technology to 2011 technology overnight. What would be the just thing to do with all the excess labor? I think what we did with labor over that century wasn't very just. * More later.