Come One! Come All!

Tom Walker, a.k.a. the Sandwichman, invites us to join him in a Facebook group dedicated to the care and feeding of The Greenest Elephant in the Room!.
Walker, a noted Vancouver economist, expounds on the value of working less to gain full employment, a more productive economy, a better comity and a happier society in a greener environment. It is rumored he also contains lanolin. Read through his posts at  Econospeak for a fascinating account of an economic idea that has been shunted aside in as errant an act of piracy as any that festered the Gilded Age. It is that part of Keynesianism that dare not speak its name -- at least in the Halls of Conventional Wisdom.
Do -- please -- check it out.
--ml

Dum Luks Community, economics, Politics

Another POV

According to the best guess of the Congressional Budget Office, Social Security is well funded until 2040, about 6 election cycles from now. (By the way, it is well funded because the baby boomers agreed to tax themselves to pay for their own as well as their parent's retirement, so as not to impose too large a burden on the smaller baby boomlet of their children.)

There is no question that the US pays the most for health care. It has a poor return for that compared to the rest of the developed part of the world.

Of the $1.4 some odd trillion the world spends on War, the US spends $771 trillion, or 48% of the total.

Based on the above facts, it is obvious that the only way to achieve fiscal balance is by cutting Social Security benefits.

Right.
--ml

Dum Luks's stockpot, Politics

Poinarded!

Tristero:

they die under Mysterious Circum-stances (alas, it is the karma for all whistle-blowers portrayed by lower-billed actors in a conspiracy thriller).

This is as bad as being stabbed in the rotunda ...
--ml

Dum Luk's Stockpot

Defy(n)ing Terms

Zeitgeist (pronounced [ˈt͡saɪtgaɪst] is a German language expression literally translated: Zeit, time; Geist, spirit, meaning "the spiritsociety". The word zeitgeist describes the intellectual, cultural, ethical and political climate, ambience and morals of an era or also a trend. In German, the word has more layers of meaning than the English translation, including the fact that Zeitgeist can only be observed for past events.

If we get to some future point that allows the luxury of looking back, I feel certain the term will change to zeitscheiss.
--ml
UPDATE: to correct typos and layout yechh.

Song of the Right Wingnut

Roy, in his Village Voice column observes that some right bloggers think Obama gets ideas from "his fellow socialists at The Economist."

This ricocheted through my synapses to wake the voice of the turtle after an old Quaker saw.

Said the ripe old right Wingnut to his sole confidant:
"All are commies, save me and thee.
All to our left deep dyed in pink, they be.
Nor none to our right may be, nor ever might appear.
Sometimes I think thee a bit of a socialist."

--ml
Dumluks Community, Dumluks Stockpot, politics

Memed Agayne, Mortimer. Memed Agayne!

One: Link to the person who tagged you. Mary Soderstrom.

Two: Post the rules. That's what I'm doing right here.

Three: Write six random things about yourself.

Before 1950 my family lived in an interrupted subdivision next to the IC mainline near Chicago. By interrupted, I mean one that got planned and stared prior to WWII but was only finished in the fifties. My elder brothers played harem scarem games in the installed but unused sewer pipes that threaded beneath the prairie grass which the fire department burned periodically. I preferred to play in a declivity in the sand dune across the street. Think of a sand box about fifty feet by seventy five and a story tall on one wall. A wonderful place to develop a sense of design while constructing intricate highway systems.

In high school I took a shop medley course which visited wood shop, machine shop, auto shop and blue print reading. The auto Mechanics Teacher became a mentor and friend. He it was who advised me: "Shift for yourself, young man." When I wondered about transmissions. He also asked me why I, obviously bound for college, wasted my time in a shop course. In my career (if it may be so dignified) as theatre designer, nail maker, book store owner, furniture builder, and general roustabout, that class has come in handy more times than many another.

In the full bloom of 20 I once made the mistake of inviting a sixth grader to belt me in the stomach. How hard could he hit? I wondered. A lot harder than I expected. Somehow I toughed it out. That impressed the kid sufficiently to calm him down enough to actually learn something at camp. So did I. I do not recommend this technique.

The school district paid us once a month in the middle of the following month. The schoolcamp year began the fourth week of September. That meant that I was paid fifty dollars for September in mid October and had to make it last until mid November when October's pay appeared. The school camp provided room and board from Monday noon to Friday noon. So my co-worker, George, and I clubbed together to survive the weekend. He had a friend, Danny, who worked at a Hermosa Beach hotel as a bellhop. We crashed in his room the first weekend. The second he rented a garage apartment on 99th street less than a block from Normandy. This put us inside Watts the fall before it blew up. That Friday we pooled our cash. We had $3.84 to eat with. Outside the store I asked George "What should I buy?" "The biggest, cheapest, loaf of bread, and the biggest, cheapest, jar of peanut butter," he replied. So I did. "What did you get ?" George asked. "The biggest, cheapest, loaf of bread, and the biggest, cheapest, jar of peanut butter I could find," says I. "Oh, no!" said George. "I was kidding! I hate peanut butter!"
Somehow we made it to Monday morning. After that the camp kitchen gave us left overs. It was many a year before I could tolerate peanut butter. Even now I prefer to make my own almond butter.

My first job out of college was teaching at a Catholic prep school in Connecticut. The salary was tiny. So we looked for rental housing in Bridgeport. The realter pursed her lips as she scraped the bottom of the barrel for a place we could afford. "You understand," she informed us, " that this is an integrated neighborhood?" What she didn't mention is that we were the integrating factor. And in more ways than one. Every house in that neighborhood -- except ours -- had two dogs. A big guard dog for the yard and a little birf dog for in the house. We had cats.

"Why don't you tell horror stories about the depression?" I asked Earle.
"I don't have any to tell" he said. "I worked all through the thirties after I left school." From that I comprehended that statistics always come with a minimum of two sides. If 12% of the workforce was out of a job, that meant something entirely different to the 88% with a job than it did to the 12% without. The trick is to comprehend all sides before shooting my mouth off. Maybe next time.


Four. Tag six people.
John McKay at Archy
Tim Abbott at Walking the Berkshires
Tobias Robison at Precision Blogging
Rob Hunter at A Rain of Frogs
Two presently unknown souls who, tired of merely floating in the zeitscheise, now kick forward to take some initative by what ever slippery handle comes to paw.
--ml

Dum Luks Community, memes

Translating Olde English:

Bring out your debt!
Bring out your debt!
Bring out your debt!
Can't you do anything about this vista bill?
(looks both ways -- clouts bill)
Bring out your debt!

--ml

Dum Luks Ordinary, politics

Oh! Welcome Light!

--ml

Nil Desperandum

Obama has done as he promised he would.
His words were and are clear.
Obama will be the President he promised to be in stump speech after stump speech.
That will get us nearer to the goal the Democratic Party has sought for many years.
If that displeases any of us to the Left, too bad.

He told us.

This is what we voted for.
--ml

Dum Luks Stockpot, politics

Discrete

Political appointments are actions.
Political speeches are words.
Political appointments are announced in political speeches.
Political appointments are still actions not words.
Actions still speak louder than words.
Even when they are modified by the adjective political.
Actions in the month preceding are indicative of the sorts of actions to expect the month after.
Disappointment looms.
--ml

Dum Luks Stockpot, politics