Basket Weaving for Dummies
I apologize in advance if you came here actually expecting information regarding basket weaving. My misleading headline has lead you astray. I sincerely apologize for wasting your time. At least there aren’t 42 self-loading videos on this page. I guess it could have been worse. –Ed
For a fun mental exercise I will often take modern situations and problems and try to extend them, in my own inimitable fashion, to a hypothetical construct in my mind loosely based on my concept and interpretation of an indigenous people’s village.
Does this make good sense? Is it accurate? Does it result in increased understanding of how things work? Is it, in even the slightest way, particularly useful? Perhaps not, but I enjoy it and besides, it’s my brain. That’s the one place on this planet where I get to make the rules. No wonder it’s so crazy in there.
—
One day there was a visitor to the village who observed two people sitting on the ground and weaving some baskets. It was clear they were not equally skilled at the task.
Continue reading →
Inequality for All | A documentary film about income inequality, public policy, and economics and features professor Robert Reich.
“Inequality for All”, featuring former Clinton Secretary of Labor and University of California, Berkeley Professor in Economics, Robert Reich is a great film.
I had written previously on this blog on the same subject in “How Did We Get To Here”, Parts I, II and III, which covered the deterioration of the US economy since 1980. This film covers many of these same points. However, there is nothing easier and more entertaining than seeing a film that explains these complex things – how we as a great nation went from a manufacturing powerhouse in 1980 to a service country where everybody- men and women, both, have to work two jobs and still barely break the poverty line. This film expertly explains this phenomenon without getting preachy. It only makes perfect…
View original post 407 more words
401 Pork Belly Crude Efficient Market Theories
I’ve often talked about the “three-legged stool” on this blog. No, you don’t have to leave. This post won’t qualify for a certain tag that shall remain nameless. I’m going to keep this post on a higher, more sophisticated plane.
So often, in fact, that I should probably elevate the topic to the level of a category so you can ignore all the posts equally at the same time. But that would be convenient therefore I won’t do it.
The future is something which “occupies” my thoughts from time to time. (Yes, my brain has little protesters in it.)
To refresh your memory, the “three-legged stool” is a metaphor rolled out around the time that piece of sassafras Ida May Fuller clutched her first Social Security benefits check in her kung fu death grip. I remember it well because I was there. On the floor. Licking her ankles. Whispering hotly, “Be my sugar momma? Mommy? M to the O to the M M Y.”
Continue reading →
Maximum Rage
This week’s Saturday Reblog touched briefly on the minimum wage issue. In light of current events and the passing of Labor Day (that sounds about right) I wish to expound on this topic a bit more. My goal is to make a couple of points that I think are patently obvious that I haven’t quite seen before, not that I’ve looked very hard. –Ed.
The Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. This minimum rate of pay became effective way back on July 24, 2009, as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). That was over four years ago.
Like practically all business laws in this country, the FLSA law provides plenty of exceptions and loopholes in favor of business. The standard practice is to make laws that appease the mindless masses by rendering them toothless. If the law was a ravenous tiger it wouldn’t even be able to gum anyone to death.
Continue reading →
G.R.U.N.T.E.
The author’s family coat of arms.
I’ve been brain doodling some thoughts. Hopefully they’ll congeal enough to make a cogent post. I highly doubt it. Ideas flit around inside my head but somehow lose their luster by the time they get translated for the rest of the world.
G.R.U.N.T. represents my latest attempt. It stands for GRand Unification Theory of Economics.
In short, the theory states that things, economically speaking, are fucked up. (Please excuse the technical jargon.) And, when things reach the state of being fucked up too well, then Bad Shit ™ may be the result. Irrationality is the term I like to use for systems that produce unexpected and undesirable results. GRUNTE predicts a period of Bad Shit heading our way.
Continue reading →
Shouts from the Abyss 
Recent Comments