Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I’m hearing an awful lot lately about how weak the economy is, and how we all need to get together to make it better. Let us look up what exactly an “economy” is. Dictionary.com carries eight definitions, and I think the fourth one is apropos:
the prosperity or earnings of a place: Further inflation would endanger the national economy seriously.
The fourth definition is also the most relevant one at Merriam-Webster:
the structure or conditions of economic life in a country, area, or period; also : an economic system
Wikipedia seems to agree, at the higher levels, with Dictionary.com:
The economy is the realized social system of production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.
I think by now we have a thumbnail sketch: Within a region, usually a physically or politically contiguous one, that may be a country — the economy is the purchasing power of the free people who dwell within it. And it’s some kind of an average; a good economy means people who are ordinarily rich can buy even more stuff, and people who are ordinarily poor can buy more than they usually can. If the economy sucks, the poor people suffer more than usual, and the rich people can’t buy as much of what they normally could.
It’s important to achieve a full comprehension of this “all boats” concept; we all have an interest in reviving the weak economy. And that symbiotic relationship works across neighborhoods, towns, townships, counties, states and regions…for the meaningful border is formed by the use of the United States Dollar. Naturally, this means it works across the economic strata. The word “economy,” in other words, implicitly acknowledges the truism of trickle-down economics. If rich people have more money then the poor people are going to be better off.
And herein lies my rant. I’m seeing an awful lot of highly-placed, powerful, prominent public officials, some of whom have been ensconced in their positions of political might for decades or more, talking up a good game about “reviving the economy” and then spurred into action by the perception that someone within the private sector has too much money, and they need to fix this by taxing away large pieces of it, sometimes 90 percent or more.
The issue we have with rich people being part of the economy, seems to be the same one we have with humans being part of the environment: We’ve got a lot of people walking around entrusted with power and authority, who talk at length about wanting to help the bigger thing, without acknowledging the smaller thing is a part of it…pretending, instead, that the smaller thing is an agent of destruction upon the larger thing. Aren’t humans, their carbon-emissions & all, part of the environment? Aren’t rich people, their bonuses and all, part of the economy?
My point is that when you’re talking about anything that involves problems, solutions, and plans to reach those solutions, words are important. It seems to me we all bear some blame in leaving this one undefined for a little bit too long. Revive the economy? If that means something to you besides embiggening the purchasing power of rich & poor alike — then what exactly do you think you’re reviving? If it’s something else…redistribution, perhaps?…then shouldn’t you be made to specify that, before we hear any more about what exactly it is you’re proposing?
Our current President who is also the Savior to untold millions who voted for Him — while running for that high office last year, eschewed the notion of individuals enriching themselves to such extent as to have control over their local climates.
We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times…and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.
So He is high on my list of people who like to talk a lot about “reviving the economy” — but seem to have something other than “the economy” in mind about what exactly it is they’re trying to revive. Either that, or He admitted to an intention of assault upon the “economy,” until such time as it is battered into a sufficiently weak state that “other countries are going to say OK.” I’m not entirely sure which one was His intention…and I don’t suppose it very much matters, does it?
And so I have a very simple solution for our weak economy; it’s simple, but I’m afraid it won’t be carried out because we just got done electing a lot of people who are directly opposed to it. My idea would be to start with the objective of making people richer. Which means whenever we see someone walking around with a million dollar bonus, or with a paycheck that simply leaves enough room for them to turn the thermostat to 72 degrees, our reaction is — “Alright, way to go! What do I have to do to earn the same thing?”
That’s the American way.
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