Musings Redux

Shakespeare said so aptly "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players". That set me to wondering who were the playwrights, the librettists, the
composers and directors? In my long, inquiring life I have witnessed, and participated in countless performances, the vast majority innocuous and forgotten.
But at times there was a HIT, that changed lives, even the path of history. Each of
us bit players can remember some on both a personal scale, and as well as societal.

If we all had labeled a bean for each such HIT, and put it in a lifetime jar, how
informative it would be, from time to time, to compare the contents of our jars.
Would they agree in the majority, or disclose differences in importance, values and
circumstances? What a fascinating exercise to relate the relationships of our varied life experiences to the differences between the contents of the jars.
How much we would learn of the human condition. This could be a subject for a book,
which I have too little time left to write. Perhaps one of you among my readers would give it a thought?

Exports: Our jobs or our products?

Americans love the good life, and for good reasons. Up until the 1970's our
productive machines of goods, foods, services, were the world's best and
highest qualities. We had an efficient and prosperous middle class matched nowhere
in the world. That also made us the largest market---for our own, and imported,
goods. But we became a fat, comfortable and complacent consumer society. We didn't notice that others were catching up and passing us in education, and modernized production capacity, and government subsidies to manufacturers. With vast reserves of workers they were also able to keep wages and benefits under tight control and at very low levels. Suddenly the disparity between the cost to produce
our products at home vs. in low wage venues grew too great to ignore. Our industrial
base looked abroad as the place to produce at lower cost and still continue to sell
in the American market. That is an unsustainable strategy. The outsourced jobs have
eroded our middle class consumer economy. Trying to work our way out of this deep recession solely within the American economy is a recipe for a steep decline in our
standard of living. We must again become a leading exporter. To do so, will require a number of actions:
All subsidies to job exporters must end.
Tariffs must be imposed on imports which enjoy government subsidies abroad.
Labor must accept restraints in work rules, benefits, wage increases to reduce
domestic production costs, until exports reach relative equilibrium with imports.
That certainly is preferable to permanent unemployment.
The federal government should be willing to offer incentives to firms which recall
jobs from abroad.
American entrepreneurs should be incentivized to go into manufacturing for the
coming green energy explosion, creating new jobs instead of abandoning this enormous emerging market to Asia.
We are a resourceful and courageous people when called to action. Now is the time for
the new congress to sound the clarion call. The nation will respond!

Where now brown cow?

I used a nursery rhyme title because we are entering a political never-never land
post election, in which little of real worth will occur in congress. All will likely
be maneuvering with nothing solved. The Republicans have not put forth any agenda
that will lead to solutions to the deficit, the Democrats are demoralized and frightened and will play defense. What is required to make significant change for the better would ask sacrifices by all segments of society. The very wealthy have clearly
indicated in this election that sacrifice is not an option. They will not permit the
Bush income tax cuts to expire despite the fact that they were designed to end after a decade because they were not payed for and added to the horrendous deficit.
The original purpose for the cuts was to stimulate private investment to create jobs. Can anyone prove they accomplished their purpose? If not, why expect them to do so now?
The Obamacare law will not be substantially repealed or changed because the public
will realize that despite the barrage of negative propaganda, there are significant benefits that they will not surrender when the light of reason turns on.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans benefits, all of which are and will be drivers of annually increasing deficits, are sacred cows. Any politico who
attempts real cost controls will end up working for lobbies instead of Congress. But these are the areas where the largest deficit reductions would be found. That would require courage, and hard work to educate the voters. Does anyone see that happening?

Most amazing in the campaign was the total absence of attention to our two wars! Those are the major consumers of revenue, growing exponentially while the prospects of successful outcomes for us grow increasingly unlikely. And as our defeat becomes more apparent our international prestige and influence shrinks. America is becoming irrelevant on the international stage. The Republican glee of victory may soon tarnish as they assume the greater responsibility that comes with greater power.

The morning after

After the dust has settled, and the window to the future is again clear, permit your
humble servant a few observations about the election just completed.

It was first and foremost an admonishment to the sizable majority who had the temerity to administer a defeat to the ultimate establishment candidate, John McCain
and elect a totally non-establishment figure as President.

The Republicans vowed from the moment the election results were official that they
would destroy the Obama presidency. That such a goal might also inflict almost
irremediable damage on the nation was considered an acceptable risk in the drive to
regain power. "We will fix it once we are back in control" was the mantra. So began their "just say no" agenda, and sure enough the damage occurred. That then gave them
the perfect second ploy. Everyone should know that economic catastrophes can occur
in the blink of an eye, but to repair a broken economy, particularly one damaged in
such massive areas as the financial and real estate segments, will take years. After
about 18 months into the new administration, the laboriously slow recovery
gives the obstructive opposition the opportunity to blame the catastrophe on the administration.

The anger and fear that accompanies unemployment, loss of homes and security can then be exploited to oust the party in control at the next mid-term election. The victors are usually demagogues who were elected on a tide of anger and
extremism and usually have no viable governing philosophy or agenda. The nation becomes starkly polarized and the parties incapable of the necessary compromises.
The nation loses more of its economic vitality and continues its decline.

Only statesmanship at the top of both parties can avert that decline. I have
not observed such statesmanlike conduct in the past two years. I don't expect to see it in our present perilous state. I would be delighted to be proven wrong.

Over at last.

We have come to the formal end of the mid-term campaign process, and a disappointing process it has been! Enormous sums of money were spent on behalf of candidates who
were, in their own rhetoric, unworthy of the offices they sought. Very little was revealed about how the candidates would approach solving the serious problems facing the nation. A great deal was exposed about their personal characters.
For me, I found a few pearls among the garbage. I encountered and exchanged with
some bright, thoughtful and articulate people. Our orbits now intersect, and our
lives have been enriched because of that.

Whatever the outcome when the votes are tallied, let us now proceed to "bind the nation's wounds" and to restore the international luster to America's image.
We can hope that the winners will see the need for cooperation for the benefit of
all. Anything less will be unworthy of a great nation.

Fork in the road

A dispassionate observer of the American scene today could be led to conclude that
events are going one way, and our response is going in the opposite direction.
Our economic and international problems are becoming larger while the vision and minds of the people we hired to face them are growing smaller.
Many segments of the economy are stagnant. Unemployment stays stubbornly high. The
national debt is growing on steroids, devoted to unproductive activities. The sums of money to fund nine years of senseless, and perhaps unending wars would have been enough to provide middle class jobs to everyone willing to work. Even if those jobs were in the public sector, such as restoring and building infra-structure, the long term effects would be enormously beneficial. They would more than compensate for any slow down in the military-industrial complex.
A simple cost-benefit analysis would disclose that there are no benefits justifying our wars. The costs include the damages to the American economy and psyche, all of which delight our enemies and benefit our competitors. If our competitors could vote in our election, they would make the Republicans and blue-dog Dems the overwhelming
controlling force in our government, a fifth column. This mid-term election could very well turn out to be a coup d'etat in which reason and intellect
could be banished from the national and local governments.

Mid-term Madness

One of my readers reminded me about the old aphorism "a new broom sweeps clean",
expressing hope that the Obama administration would suffer a "necessary" defeat
on Nov. 2. There is another adage "marry in haste, repent at leisure". If the people,
in their wisdom, decide to divorce the Democratic party and remarry the Republicans,
will that be a repeat of a relationship which brought on the worst recession in history, involvement in two senseless wars, and a state of economic disparity in which 1% of the population became obscenely wealthy while the entire middle class approached poverty?
According to the radical Tea Party zealots, government is the enemy, the bigger
it gets, the more evil it becomes. But so much of our existence is now dependent
on what government does, that treating it as the enemy threatens the most basic
foundations of our way of life. Imagine life without Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Medicare; No regulations governing safety of medications, food and
water; No consumer protections in the functioning of Stock markets, banks, credit cards; No minimum standards for construction of roads, tunnels, bridges, homes
schools, hospitals; No educational requirements for practicing professions---physicians, attorneys; No environmental controls; No police, firemen, para medics, sanitation workers, armed forces; No courts of law. Without all of those, what would we have--AFGHANISTAN.
Ours is a huge country, with complex economic and social relationships which took a long time to develop and will take a long time to alter.
Throwing out the "Bums" now in charge and replacing them will not produce rapid, productive change. Expecting that will mean that each mid-term election will resemble the previous one.
The dilemma in which we find ourselves grew over many years. To blame it all on Obama is juvenile. Repeating the policies which put us here, in the hope they will change our condition, meets the definition of insanity.