Thursday, September 29, 2016

Indeed, Work Ought to be About a Great Deal More Than Just Money


The linked article below from the Guardian is another reminder that our relationship to work is not only in question, but in need of a fundamental rethink.

What is usually missed in such reviews of what automation is doing to the nature of work, and what we should do about it, is the lack of considering the basic assumptions that Capitalism forces upon work. An interesting deficiency when one considers that the same technology that brings folks to write these kinds of articles is precisely why Capitalism is no longer viable.

From my perspective, you can't really even begin to think about what work ought to be, aside from being the means to obtain an abstract medium of exchange, if you do not also question the system that has so far defined what labor, and a laborer, is. Especially important if you want to start going beyond mere terms of money as to what one seeks in return for such effort.

So far, the factory mentality has made work be separated tasks performed in the furtherance of mass production for mass consumption. And in this the worker, as skill regurgitator, is simply another purveyor of a commodity. As such we are meant to be disconnected from each other, and focused solely on the factors that impact the continuance of our skill, and the output of same.

As some outputs have common destinations as source material for other processes, we can usually make temporary common cause with others, but in many instances what concerns the continuance of our output often comes in direct conflict with the continuance of other areas of production; usually expressed in not only policies of development, but in rules of social interaction. And if that weren't bad enough, we are also then made to be at odds with each other on the maintenance of every part of the communal necessities that make manageable social organization possible in the first place; all of the common goods that everybody want's to benefit from, but which hardly anyone wants to foot much of the bill for.

And then we have the problem of livelihoods based on the massed production that itself is based on massed consumption. This all has to work within a global system of competition where every costs is a potential nail in the coffin that your commercial activity will be buried in. And as your skill is simply a commodity that must also compete with the offerings of others in every part of the world, as well as skill regurgitation done by automation, what you can demand for it in terms of "money" becomes ever more constrained. So, even as we are urged to want ever more pervasively, we find ourselves all the less able to do so; hoping that others around the globe will take up the slack, even if the planet is already straining to maintain current levels.

The real question here is simply this: Does it really have to be this way? Couldn't work be reconceptualized as of the people, for the people? Work reorganized so that we are the managers and the producers? Cooperating within city states to share all of the tasks that make a community possible? Cooperation that would necessarily reconnect us to each other to make daily life possible?

With clean energy, and a mix of automation with personal involvement we could do away with mass production for mass consumption, building the basics for not only what keeps a community going, but what each of us, making the end use item ourselves, needs and wants for a fulfilling life. Work then would be, in a very real sense, not only our connections to each other, but our lasting connections to the tools we create and use.

Make no mistake. This is not the description of some pie in the sky utopia. It would be argumentative, slow, and frustratingly difficult even to implement, let alone keep going. By any measure it wouldn't be any easier to do what we're going now, it would simply be a great deal better for us, personally and socially, not to mention a great deal better for the planet as a whole. And it would also recognize that, difficult though it might be, it would still be a far sight better than the change that will be forced upon us if we continue to keep pretending we can continue as we are indefinitely.

With robots, is a life without work one we'd want to live?

Being gainfully employed is about more than money. We need to consider what will give our lives purpose and connection in the age of automation
See Also:
bsjobs

Why Capitalism Creates Pointless Jobs

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.

By David Graeber



If You Can't Hide, and You Can't Spin A Win...


...Do you actually stoop to doing the same "canned" presentation that you accused your opponent of? Worse still, do you actually try to steep yourself in facts, organized into a coherent, and coordinated package that might indicate real thinking about policies? Which is, by the way, just another aspect of being politically correct in running a campaign that might have a real chance of winning.

That Mr. Trump might be considering such a radical departure from what he's shown of knowing about campaigning so far reminds me of the story of the scorpion and the frog.

The frog in this scenario is Mr. Trump's more serious campaign handlers. And the scorpion, of course, is Mr. Trump himself. And right now one supposes that the frogs in question are trying to convince themselves that his protestations about really wanting to get across the river, and thus the seriousness of his wanting to put aside his normal proclivities toward poisoning those around him, indicating the understanding of his own supposed self interest in making it to the other side.

Others, certainly, have tried this, and were soundly stung in the process. And he has, almost gleefully in the past, shown no hesitation in proclaiming: "I am what I am." No matter of the bodies left to float face down in the wake of his departure. That he has managed to skate past the usual fate of the scorpion so far speaks volumes to the surreal nature of the campaign so far. Reality, though, like truth, can be a fickle thing in when, as well as how, it finally decides to turn and bite you in the ass. Especially to the degree you've been flaunting your supposed imperviousness to it so openly to date.

They say he's a quick learner and can absorb what will necessarily be quite a mountain of so far ignored information. Not only does he have to accept that he has to do a complete 180 degree turn style wise in presenting it like it's natural to him, he has to internalize it sufficient to indicate real understanding. Even if we accept that me might actually be such a quick study, the real question is whether he can put his ego on hold long enough to not only accept the need to be dressed up as someone else, but to to through the motions of actually pulling the act off. In this sense Mr. Trump will be going into the next debate facing two opponents: Mrs. Clinton, and himself.

Anyone care to lay bets with what the odds are here of his defeating both of them? Will bad microphones, or mean moderators provide enough spin to salvage another weak performance, even assuming "weak" is as bad as it we be? One wonders if all involved on that side of things will be looking back fondly on the "run and hide" strategy.


Trump Campaign Says Debate Two Must Be Better


See Also:

What Does Donald Trump Really Think About Using Nuclear Weapons?



It would actually *increase* immigration, you fools!

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Trump's Ongoing Debate Strategy?


...Run and hide.

Oh, you're going to hear this couched in terms like "not treated fairly" and "the media bias stacked against him," but the truth will still be a clear as the bruising he absorbed; as much from his own bumbling evasions and rambling equivocations, as from what Clinton responded with, or what the moderator, Lester Holt, tried to do to keep him within the bounds of reality.

Rudy Giuliani marked the start of this "strategic retreat" as soon as the debate was over, telling a reporter that he should pull out of future debates if moderators didn't agree to be more deferential, even as Trump himself was trying to blame things on bad microphones. Lame on top of lame and you can bet it won't be improving much as they seek whatever damage control their active imaginations can conjure.

So now you can expect him to not disclose any more of himself, in factual give and take, than he has been willing to do with his finances. It's not likely to put much of a dent in the reality avoidance of the Trump Chump Brigades, but it will hopefully get more of the undecideds right with what he really is.


Analysis: Hillary Clinton's Studies for Debate With Donald Trump Pay Off


by BENJY SARLIN and ALEX SEITZ-WALD

See Also:



The Commoditization of Science -- Continued


Inverse has an article that describes more of the growing realization that there are a number of problems with science as it is now practiced in the age of "if it doesn't sell, it doesn't sail."

Not only has "reproducible" not been taken as seriously as it should have been (reproducing the work of others doesn't get you the publishing creds that original work does), the whole universe of "publish or perish," and the fact that a few publications dominate this arena, makes for a formula that emphasizes the "sexy" over the long term foundation building that less sexy can yield. And the pressure to keep on publishing new "finds" can lead to the taking of shortcuts (as in much smaller sampling), or the temptation to fudge results.

The title of the article says it all, of course, especially as it relates to Capitalism, though I too believe we shouldn't give up. We just have to realize that fundamental change is required.


THIS IS IT, FOLKS

But that doesn't mean we should give up.

Monday, September 26, 2016

The Other Advantage of Big


The article in the Atlantic linked below describing the dichotomy between how "Conglomeration" has been able to deliver competitive prices, while still stifling entrepreneurialism, and of course amassing untenable political power, is an important read. It reminds us in clear terms just how much entrepreneurialism has declined here, but it also makes clear that not only is defining what is too big difficult, it shows us just how much we, as consumers, have come to love it. Economies of scale are able to work at least some magic after all, and when you throw in the degree to which the insanity of "low prices are everything," you get an entrenched ambivalence for both business and the public about mega corporations.

What we are forced to do here is to consider just why entrepreneurialism is a good thing in the first place. If you simply "google" (the ubiquity of search bigness also reminding us of our ambivalence) the phrase "the benefits of entrepreneurialism" you get a list that explains the benefit in terms of "new ideas," "competitive advantage," "new job sources," as well as the chance to start a business where you "disrupt" in ways where you can define how you will "work"and what you can get out of it. And, generally speaking, these can be quite beneficial; especially if you keep your focus narrowly confined.

Expand the focus to the world at large, however, and especially within Capitalism as an overall, complex system, and you begin to notice that, for every local benefit, there is usually a corresponding negative consequence elsewhere. That's the whole point of disruption, after all, to shake things up so that what once was the accepted way of doing something is now at a disadvantage. Which means these other parts of the system as a whole must shake out the old way and introduce the new. New ideas unquestionably give us the potential for system wide improvements, but they also often require quite painful restructuring; where "painful" becomes the loss of livelihoods, as well as significant chunks of capital investment.

Thus do we see that "innovation" can be a two edged sword. To which we must then consider the consequence of what happens when "innovation" worldwide is able to accelerate precisely because it has already happened, and will continue to do so, and woe be to those who only get undercut as the blade comes back for another down stroke. In this, of course, the electrification of everything, plays the part of knowledge amplifier; the cutting strokes happening ever more at the speed of nanoscale switches.

We need only then add a world in constant crisis (largely because fixing anything means someone has to pay while others may benefit) to create a mix of "uncertainty" to which the purveyors of capital react with ever growing trepidation. And one of the ways to protect yourself from complex uncertainty is to be big both horizontally, and vertically. If new then comes along you can buy it out before it does too much damage to your bottom line. A good number of people who may be working for you will have to suffer the usual consequences, but you as a company will likely be able to continue on just fine.

I have gone through this description to suggest to you that "innovation" is itself just another of the contradictions that Capitalism is now confronted with. An inevitable contradiction in that competition has always been the boon and bane of those who have accumulated large counts of capital. Now that it has been mutated into a blur of metastasization, always accelerating, they fear it even as they still promote it. And we are left to trying to run on a speeding treadmill; a runaround that may surround us with a few improved rings to grasp, as we try to keep up with the pace, but which still doesn't really get us anywhere but a more precariously unbalanced world.

Trying to figure out how we can have the right kind of bigness is just as much a fool's errand as is thinking that profit can ever be tempered enough to provide living wages for even a simple majority of an increasing workforce. Or that production and consumption linked to livelihoods can ever be balanced with inherently limited bio systems. The problem is the system itself and the abundantly clear fact that it is no longer viable. A fact for which we will not be able to ignore much longer.


America’s Monopoly Problem

How big business jammed the wheels of innovation


Friday, September 23, 2016

If a Black Man in a Ghetto Gives Heroine Away...


...To promote sales, he's the "pusher man," and will be pursued vigorously to suffer hard time in jail. When large pharma does virtually the same thing with drugs like Oxycontin, not only do they usually make a great deal more money, but the penalty is simply a few tens of millions of Dollars in fines, and that's if they're caught at all.

Donald Trump says our cities are out of control with crime. Actual statistics indicate that violent crime is up in a few cities, but for the rest of the nation we're still at record lows (see herehere, and here. Despite this he now claims "stop and search" is the answer to a non existent problem. In your wildest dreams can you ever imagine a rich man like him suggesting "stop and check" all of the promotional practices of Big Pharma? Big Pharma where it's not just millions getting hooked on drugs, but the rest of us ripped off on either outrageous profits, or drugs that don't perform as advertised? Can you imagine him suggesting new task forces to police the border between right and wrong on "con man" type sales practices in other areas of our economy?




By DAVID ARMSTRONG @DavidArmstrongX
SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

See Also:


THOSE WHO CAN'T TEACH, SCAM

The company had been taking millions in federal grant money, burying low-income and first-generation students in insurmountable debt, and evading regulators since the early 1990s — all while its CEO and other executives personally profited from the fraud.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

What Jason Furman is Missing About Human Skill as a Commodity


The linked article below from The Atlantic, by Obama Chief economist Jason Furman, is meant to suggest that Capitalism has within itself the means to protect human participation as a viable competitive commodity. I couldn't disagree more.

Mr. Furman's argument is based on two points, first that new technology ought to be able to continue to create new skill requirements for humans because it has been able to do that so far. And secondly that the unemployment rate of a range of advanced economies is not related to technology improvements, even though participation rates of less educated white males have fallen off precipitously in the last several years; especially here.

The is argument is astonishing for both what it includes, and the way it includes it, as well as what it does not include.

First of all, the real issue at present isn't just the risk of replacing humans, but what the potential ability to do so does to what human skill can expect to demand in return for its services. Put another way, humans are now simply competitors with their wage expectations limited by the current costs of applying automation of various sorts. And make no mistake, that has been a part of keeping wages down, but that is not the only competitor workers here face. Because capital can move so quickly, and output can be moved so efficiently anywhere, other workers in the world labor market are also there to limit wage expectations, as well as to undercut them completely. Which, in itself, is why so much of our unemployment hasn't necessarily been related to domestic technological inputs. One would also have to factor in the trade agreements we have made with the rest of the world that many, if not most, of the other advanced economies have not done. Trade agreements that make foreign production advantageous for reasons other than labor costs.

This then begs the question: what good is it to have a job if wages have to be constrained by the cost of not only other workers in less advanced economies, but also the cost of applying automation? Does the trend of ever better automation, where setup costs are sure to improve, just as the ranges of applications do, bode well for the prospects of a living wage; even for the jobs of middle, and upper middle, tier education levels?

The fact of the matter is that it's not just that "disruption" has a chance to totally change what software can do, that it can't presently do, but that, as we progress in better software, the ability to be paid commensurate with a healthy life, let alone consume to the degree that ever increasing production requires, becomes unbelievably more problematic than it already is.

Then we come to this whole notion of "retraining." Education costs are already soaring. Just imagine how things are going to be when the rate of technological change goes through several more iterations of increase. As it stands now, in any one lifetime, a person might reasonably expect the need to retrain once, or twice at the extreme. In a decade or two what might that be?  Two to three times? Three to four times? Who can say. And even if the human psyche could be made to handle this without going insane, who's going to continue paying for it? We've already seen what might be likely for living wages. Do you think those left making decent money are going to foot the bill in increased taxes? Do you think corporate America, already struggling with hyper competition around the globe, is going to any more receptive to new taxation?

There is also one other thing we have to remember here, already alluded to when I mentioned being paid enough to continue consuming what we are capable of producing.

When manufacturing was still predominate here, factories were well suited to employing large numbers of people; something commensurate with the increases in production they represented. The more technical we become, however, and the more software is able to do to assist the technical leaders amongst us, the fewer people that will be needed to apply the technology. That is, after all, the whole point of better productivity isn't it? And you can be damn sure that if a producer doesn't maximize doing more with less, the world market will punish them appropriately.

Keeping that trend in mind, let us also consider where global population is heading. Always are there going to be more and more people looking for some way to create that abstract we call money. What will be done with them? Will mass die offs become just another factor in euphemisms like "economic pain" to be born? Aren't there signs we're getting there already?

Capitalism is obsolete. It is so precisely because of technological change. Trying to suggest that it can use the techniques that have rendered it so to save it is ludicrous. Anybody trying to say otherwise has a vested interest only in keeping things the way they are this quarter, and maybe one or two more down the road; the current structure of who pays and who benefits. It's been working, more or less, for the last bunch of quarters after all. What could possibly go wrong with that view point?



How to Protect Workers From Job-Stealing Robots

President Obama’s chief economist argues that, with the right policies, artificial intelligence can be boon to the labor market, not a threat.


Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Money And Reputations Giving Us Flying Turkeys


Even when we get at least one principled participant in the process of fielding a new weapons systems, we still have the result of a turkey pretending to be an eagle; as in the case of the F-35 stealth fighter. A fighter who's main stealth performance so far is to fly under most of the Air Force's turkey detection system.

You need only read a bit of the warisboring.com article linked below to see how the revolving door of military staff, people looking to get into the industry they currently watch over, to see just how dismal the results can be. And it's only because one participant in the review process has remained doggedly objective that we know anything about this at all.

The baseline here is simply that the aircraft, in it's current state of non performance, would struggle to match what we already have in the field. And this after spending something like $400 billion, and still counting. It's depressing as hell not only because of the harm it may cause the people already in harm's way, but because we've been taken on this ride way too many times before.

Before I go any further, though, I'd like to make one thing very clear. I am not a progressive who thinks all, or even a majority, of military spending is necessarily wrong. We need a very capable military, and will continue to for quite some time to come. After all, between our own mistakes in dealing with other nations of the world, and the ingrained nature of extremism, greed, and stupidity that's always been out there, we are going to have enemies for some time to come. Of this there can be no mistake.

My main problem with the military as it now operates is that it is forced to do so within all of the failings of a cost based economy; as well as the social organization formed around that model that separates us all into various groups of interest simply because our livelihoods, and status, depend on these narrower concerns. As a result decisions are made far too often outside of objective requirements, or even the most basic of practical considerations. It also, unfortunately, ensures that far too few of us share in the burden of protecting the nation.

Having a much more effect military, in my view, goes hand in hand with recognizing that Capitalism is long past its use by date. If we are to have any hope of protecting ourselves into the future we'd better come to terms with is fact. The sooner the better.

The F-35 Stealth Fighter May Never Be Ready for Combat

Testing report contradicts the U.S. Air Force’s rosy pronouncements

by DAN GRAZIER & MANDY SMITHBERGER

See Also:

A look at F-15SE Silent Eagle

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Might as Well Have a Laugh...


...While telling it like it is:

AMERICA'S XENOPHOBIC SWEET POTATO

The Most Creative Insults Hurled At Donald Trump

We all know Donald Trump has dished out his fair share of insults, and he's certainly taken a few punches too. But calling the guy a sexist, orange nightmare isn't the best comedians and politicians have come up with.


ITT Tech and Donald Trump Had Something in Common....


They would both tell you whatever it took to close the deal, however far fetched the claims might be.

ITT Tech has been closed down as the government finally had enough of the bogus claims never delivered. One can imagine at least some of the devastation that this has caused a lot of folks who took on a lot of debt only to be left holding an empty bag. Trying to imagine the devastation all of the Trump Chump brigades are in for when they finally see how empty all of Trump's promises are is an order of magnitude more difficult.

Florida ITT Tech Campus Used 'CSI Miami' Pitch to Sign Students



Friday, September 16, 2016

A Comprehensive Review of the Insanity That is Donald Trump


Keith Olbermann lists all of the lies, slander, ignorance, and ugly innuendo that Trump has spewed out since he started running for president. And after you hear it all again you can only shake your head in bewilderment that so many Americans can swallow any of without choking. Without any sense of disgust or repulsion. Just utterly unbelievable.


176 Shocking Things Donald Trump Has Done This Election | The Closer with Keith Olbermann | GQ

See Also:

Donald Trump Again Alludes to Violence Against Hillary Clinton


Analysis: Trump's Lengthy History of Conspiracy Theories and Rumors


The States Cutting K-12 Isn't the Whole Picture


They've been cutting funding for public colleges as well, and guess what. Those cuts are the major reason we have rising college education costs.

Now ask yourself. Why are states having trouble funding education on both sides of the basic and advanced divide? Is it just that they're mean spirited and enjoy putting kids into bigger classrooms, and the college bound into more student loan debt?

One could certainly forgiven for being suspicious of hidden agendas by bankers wanting needy students to take out more debt, for which they get to add to their books as paying assets, but one of the more likely candidate is simply the process of companies pitting the states against each other in the competition to land corporate investment deals; deals sweetened by tax avoidance schemes of all sorts. Deals which also proved a quite questionable, real return, to the state via the jobs supposedly created (look here, for example).

Are the businesses then the real boogey men here? Or are they just playing by one of the fundamental rules of Capitalism? The rule that says you compete effectively or you die; made all the more emphasized now that we are into the hyper competition of electrified Capitalism; where capital, and the ability to regurgitate skill, can move anywhere in less than a blink of the eye, and technology advances ever more rapidly.

That, of course, isn't the only revenue problem. The other is the right wing dogma that taxation is fundamentally flawed at the get go. And obviously, with the shrinking of the middle class, what people can actually afford tax wise is decreasing. But that just harkens back to why we've lost good paying jobs in the first place (tangentially related to why there is less money to ensure we aren't poisoned in one way or another). So, as already stated, you compete effectively or you die. So you lower costs every way possible. And thus a cycle of self perpetuating decay is assured.


Fancy Dorms Aren’t The Main Reason Tuition Is Skyrocketing

It Is What it Isn't...


And it isn't what it is, as Trump trips the light fantastic reality wise. And it always leaves you wondering just how much of it is Trump's unhinged mouth (His ass puts more thought into taking a dump than his brain does in issuing stinkers from his mouth), or how much is really attributed to the fantasies ruling his world view.

The fiasco at the black church, with him being corrected on what he was allowed to say there, and then making up his own interpretation of the events, and now his campaign saying one thing about Obama's citizenship, and him refusing to say much of anything in corroboration. You then have to ask the question: Does even he understand his own tendency to spew, and is putting himself in check, or is he bending to campaign staff on letting go of a favorite fantasy, at least publicly, so that the real world might not judge him quite so harshly; a supposed real world (in his mind), of course, that he will no doubt set straight once he has the power to do so.

What is especially troubling here, for me at least, is that, as obvious as this question of mindset is, is just how many of us refuse to face it properly, if at all. It's as if significant portions of the nation had swallowed the spiked cool aid and were happily spacing right along with Tripper-T. And maybe that's the real problem here. It's not the space cowboy himself, but the process by which so many of us have lost touch with a fantasy limited reality. And if that is indeed the situation the more important question to be asked here is what is that process?

It will come as no surprise to most of you that I have a set, perceptional bias, in this. From my perspective it is quite obvious what has been at work here. It is the hyper marketed, distraction is everything, predominant modality of the info sphere, and the 24-7 saturation we get with dreams so intimately involved with selling us on the mystical properties of inanimate objects satisfying every need real or imagined. As well as the ever more high fidelity depictions of one fantastic experience or another, to keep us wonderfully entertained (the selling and the fantastic depictions are, in fact, becoming ever more seamlessly integrated).

I ask you all to give this some serious consideration as the polls indicate a closer race for this election. It's not just the immediate insanity of putting a Tripper-T into the White House, scary though that truly is. It is also the very fact of how messed up the info sphere has become as it mutates under the mutagen that is electrified Capitalism. What good is an informed Democracy if it is the product of nothing but dreams and fantasies?






A UNIFIED MESSAGE


Donald Trump is refusing to say President Obama was born in the United States, telling the Washington Post in an article published Thursday he’ll answer the question “at the right time.” But soon after publication, the Trump's spokesman released a statement saying that the candidate concluded in 2011 that Obama was born in the US.
See Also:

SEP 15 2016, 12:06 PM ET

With Attack on Black Pastor, Trump Reboot Again Goes Off Rails
by BENJY SARLIN and ALI VITALI

Donald Trump Finally Admits President Obama Born in U.S.


Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Rising Incomes is Good News


And one can only hope it will last. But that is always the real issue, isn't it.

On the one hand it can be hard to really feel a difference with fractional increases, one time period to the next. There might be X amount more every paycheck, or at the end of the month, but it's so easy to miss when a host of things can come up to surprise you. Maybe it's a broken part in the car; something in the house or apartment. Maybe it's an ailment that will be a significant out of pocket expense not expected. And all the while, there are still myriad loans to service. Clothes for the kids to buy, not to mention school supplies or, if they're not old enough yet, daycare to pay for that never seems to stop increasing. One could go on with this certainly.

On the other hand, though, you might see that increase, and even if you don't, they certainly always keep the heat on for wanting, across the full gamut of human fears and desires. And getting, even if it hardly ever fills the real void, can certainly provide for fascinating distraction.

They put these figures out, of course, so that you will feel more confident in making those durable goods purchases that usually mean taking on more debt. They do this not only because it may be self serving, but also, truth be told, to bring about a self perpetuating spiral of positive growth consumption. Such an outcome is possible, but the probability of sustaining this, or any other kind of growth, is questionable at best because there are so many other factors that cause instability and uncertainty. One need only contemplate any of the many interconnected problems facing public policy, national security, and the global environment, to understand this.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how much you spend to keep the economy growing, or how much debt you take on for servicing, there is always the possibility that the job you have now will be replaced by a more cost effective skill source. And even if it isn't, so much of the money you spend won't necessarily recycle into new investments here. Why should it when it can flow so easily to wherever the regulations are the least demanding, taxes are the most favorable, and wages are at, or below the current lowest common denominator. Which, of course, only feeds back into why so many critical issues go begging for the resources to address them.

Just remember, as you may, or may not be emboldened to take on more debt, that wages saw an uptick (look at the graph below) just before the great recession. What is really the killer here, and what has always been the problem, is that so much is going on that Big Money doesn't want you to know about (some of which they occasionally get punished for, even though few ever go to jail). Things even many in government don't know about yet, or, if they do have some inkling, don't fully understand, or have been paid to keep their mouth shut about.

The game itself, under continuous mind bending technological change, has become untenable. It is now absurdity piled upon endless contradictions, and the greed of those who can afford not to care. Just as it is not sustainable as far as the planet is concerned, it is also unsustainable because it has become counter to any sense of our being connected to each other, let alone any sense of intrinsic value, or a structurally maintained sense that we all matter, and are needed. Add to that the unfettered saturation of mindless marketing 24/7, and the making of bull shit as the nominal reality, is there any wonder that sanity itself is an endangered species?

Rising Incomes Lend Optimism to Bleak Perceptions of U.S. Economy


See Also:

Ford to Move All Small-Car Production to Mexico From U.S., Announces CEO


Rising Rents, Healthcare Costs Cutting Into Household Budgets, Data Show



Tuesday, September 13, 2016

What it Takes to be Able to Buy a Home


The yearly income required is substantial, almost everywhere, and quite absurd in a few others. What you have to keep in mind here, however, and despite whatever fluctuations may occur, is that maintaining a substantial yearly income will be ever more assaulted by the vagaries of increasing hypercompetition, and a host of interacting global uncertainties.

What does that mean?

In a nutshell it ensures that retraining requirements will increase. You will be expected to retrain in an environment where the training costs are sure to increase, even as what you may be able to retrain to won't ensure a comparable follow on wage. Any more than where you will have to go in order to make use of that new skill, and what that housing market (purchasing or renting) may require in order to be housed as you were previously. And this will be guaranteed to be so because greater uncertainty in the world will make further investments so problematic that what is continued to be done here, commercially (other than certain core services), will become quite unpredictable; especially as to what would allow for substantial yearly incomes.




TOO MUCH

How Much You Need To Earn To Buy A Home In 27 US Cities



Sep 12 2016, 3:31 PM

See Also: