I had planned to get on with some of the really grave environmental issues facing us but then I get derailed by other stuff. How did I get worked up over the oil crisis in the Gulf? I started by looking at the folks in the White House who are supposed to know something about off shore drilling. Oh dear, it turns out there ain’t nobody. Start with Mr. Salazar Interior Secretary. I wouldn’t put him in charge of my cat Aldo. He doesn’t know sheeeit from shinola about oil well drilling.
So what do we expect from him? Nothing. And you can go through that whole panoply of Washington folks including Nobel Laureate, also a Cabinet member Mr Chu and none of them would know a deep sea drilling platform from a health spa. So what’s the point of either or all of them visiting what BP is doing? Nor would they know what to do about a clean up and even if they did they would not know HOW TO MANGE THE EFFORT.
As a result of recent Internet research I have learned the following. Big ocean going oil carriers now have a vacuum cleaner ability to pick up oil spills. I thought I had discovered a great idea of picking up the oil with a vacuum types suction system. Sucking into a tank where the oil will float and the water will sink. You drain off the water and ipsfacto you got the oil that you can then sell to the refineries. Like so many of my inventions it is already invented. So, why isn’t it being done? It turns out that the worlds tanker fleets are all loaded to the gunnels with oil waiting for the price to go up. Does anybody in Washington know about all this? I doubt it.
Now why is it that? Washington politicians are not good at solving catastrophe problems. Remember Katrina. No, I don’t think this Administration is doing much better than the previous one. Or the previous one to that one going all the way back to Herbert Hoover who also didn’t have a clue what to do in face of the the great depression. There is nothing in learning to be a politician that helps a person to learn HOW TO MANAGE.
The oil problems in the Gulf are in dire need of a manager and I’m afraid that our President simply doesn’t know beans about managing. Now why should he? He was a Professor of Constitutional Law. That is not particularly helpful in trying to understand and manage an enormous oil spill.
My point is about the failure of the Administration to get out there and find some folks, maybe in Saudi Arabia who in fact do have some knowledge of how to handle “well blowouts” as well as clean ups. For God sakes don;t send in Cabinet people like Salazar, Napolitano, Sebilious or Dr. Chu to reassure the Gulf folks fishermen who are watching their livelihood go up in the oil bath that is engulfing the Gulf. A special decommetdanion should go to Elizabeth Birnbaum head of the Minerals Management Department at Interior. She, poor thing has resigned. But why was she put there in the first place? The whole department has clearly let the extraction industry folks run it. Man. did I ever learn my lesson about those folks.
In the 50ies I did a stint for the Miners Union in Butte Montana. Anaconda Copper had one single agenda. How to make more money on extracting copper from the Butte hills. They didn’t give a damm about the safety of the miners or the destruction of the land they left behind. There is now a lake in Butte that is the largest super-fund sight in the country. That reflects the history of all the extraction companies in the world. They have a very singular intention. That is dig for the profits period. Nobody at Interior seemed to understand that simple historical fact. FDR was the exception when he hired a farmer, Henry Wallace to look over Agriculture and Harold Ickes to go after the Utilities at Interior.
One of the biggest failures so far in the Obama Administration has been his appointments. As I think back over the various administrations in my lifetime this crowd turns out to be one of the weakest, The single ability that seems to be lacking in all of them is how to think about making things work. That quality has nothing to do with the political ability to sound good and make people like you. It has to do with being able to figure out how to get things done. Kate, who spent many years as a consultant working for major “500 companies” often will remark. “that so and so
from GE or Xerox could figure out how to manage that mess in the Gulf within a week.”
Therein lies the problem. The government in Washington has simply lost, or never had that ability to do any real problem solving because they lack any experience in the management of everyday disasters. If you need more evidence for my argument just look at the mess in Haiti. Millions upon millions of relief money. Who is thinking about how to rebuild the country so when the next disaster strikes, and it will soon, as we get into the Hurricane season. What will help create a stable state in that very poor ravaged place?
Does our problem start with our young who seemed to want only to get into Goldman Sachs and make huge bonuses by knowing how to shuffle the money around in derivatives? That may be attractive but it certainly isn’t what the world will need as we get further into the coming planetary catastrophes resulting from global warming. How about incentives to help future generations learn how to Manage in a Crisis?
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
The "Tea Party"
A recent blog discussed how “The Party” was over. Of course I was referring to the economic bash that had been going on for a couple of decades not the ‘Tea Party.” That name was chosen to connect it to the Boston Harbor Tea Party back in 1773 to the newly founded Tea Party crowd. That 1773 Party was a way for the Colonists to tell the colonial powers in London that there would be “No Taxation Without Representation.” So there’s the first fallacy. In fact the present Tea Partiers have representation. Strangely enough they don’t seem to want it.
There may be a very universal, “underneath sort of feeling” that is bothering the country, At the present time a number of issues have have come together to create a crisis. The economic crisis that threatened and maybe still does, could put us back into the great depression that I grew up in. As the banks started to fail, learning from the Great Depression, the government decided to rescue them. At the same time what was also failing was the housing market and still is. Millions of people were coaxed, seduced, into buying homes they couldn’t possibly afford. Like in the thirties they were rapidly losing them to the banks. The government has done little or nothing for these folks compared with what they did for the banks. The number of people who can’t find jobs is adding to our present malaise.The oil spill in the Gulf has also added to the sense that “we” the country have lost control. According to the Tea Partiers it’s all the fault of Washington and big government.
(While this was going on I was pacing the house telling Kate, “if we only had some kind of an organized left in this country I would go out west and organize people to defend their homes the way we stopped evictions back in the 30ies.” But alas there was nobody to do that. Hence the Tea Party folks are filling the vacuum by giving the angry citizens a place to express that anger. The Wobblies used to call that, (“Fan the Flames of the Discontent.”)
The Tea Party is already having trouble with the controlling conservative wing of the Republican Party. You see. it was assumed that they would be natural allies. Well not so fast. The Republicans don’t want any one to mess with the Wall Street crowd who would just love to pick right up and go on with the derivative party. The Tea Partiers don’t like the bankers and Wall Street. That’s who they are ostensibly protesting. So the “trust the market” crowd just want the government out of the way.
Now the tea party slogan of “Take Back our Country” is a horse of a different color. It has always been crystal clear to me that what that slogan refers to is that “Black man in the White House.” Now that resonates well with the Republican right wing.
Since all of our politics now is acted out in the election process all we are hearing about is “Comes November, we’ll throw the bums out.” That’s both Dems. and GOP. It reflects a traditional populist response to a frustrated citenzery. The sad part of all this is the tweedle dum tweedle dee nature of the two parties. Back in the 30ies we used to sing a song went like this.
“Take the two old parties mister. There’s no difference I can see.
But with a Farmer Labor Party We could set the people free.”
Of course I’m not so sure of the sentiments expressed therein but it was at least a recognition that the two parties we have are just to much alike. In the present,that felt sense on the part of a large section of the population is an expression of the populism now sweeping the country.
This is a very complex issue as it can resonate both on the left and the right. The idea that the Government has no business messing with our lives was a major theme of the left back in the 60ies. I remember well the demonstrations declaring “I am not an IBM card.” Students burned their draft cards to protest the Vi-et Nam war. That was a very individual protest against the government interference in our everyday lives.
On the other hand there are all the benefits that, yes we the left helped pile up on the way to fighting for better living conditions. Back in the 30ies we got welfare, unemployment insurance, wage and hours act, rights of worker to join unions, Social Security and later Medicare etc. etc. Those programs saved the system from massive social unrest.
Yet there are some folks who truly believe we screwed things up because we interfered with the Free Market. It’s that notion that underlies so much of what the Tea Partiers are talking about. They would really like the free market to do what it promised. The free market just leads us from one crisis to the next and there are people who just can ‘t give up the idea that all of us should be able to do well enough on our own so we are free of government interference. That’s a utopian myth but for some reason it has always attracted a sizable following. But then utopias always have.
There may be a very universal, “underneath sort of feeling” that is bothering the country, At the present time a number of issues have have come together to create a crisis. The economic crisis that threatened and maybe still does, could put us back into the great depression that I grew up in. As the banks started to fail, learning from the Great Depression, the government decided to rescue them. At the same time what was also failing was the housing market and still is. Millions of people were coaxed, seduced, into buying homes they couldn’t possibly afford. Like in the thirties they were rapidly losing them to the banks. The government has done little or nothing for these folks compared with what they did for the banks. The number of people who can’t find jobs is adding to our present malaise.The oil spill in the Gulf has also added to the sense that “we” the country have lost control. According to the Tea Partiers it’s all the fault of Washington and big government.
(While this was going on I was pacing the house telling Kate, “if we only had some kind of an organized left in this country I would go out west and organize people to defend their homes the way we stopped evictions back in the 30ies.” But alas there was nobody to do that. Hence the Tea Party folks are filling the vacuum by giving the angry citizens a place to express that anger. The Wobblies used to call that, (“Fan the Flames of the Discontent.”)
The Tea Party is already having trouble with the controlling conservative wing of the Republican Party. You see. it was assumed that they would be natural allies. Well not so fast. The Republicans don’t want any one to mess with the Wall Street crowd who would just love to pick right up and go on with the derivative party. The Tea Partiers don’t like the bankers and Wall Street. That’s who they are ostensibly protesting. So the “trust the market” crowd just want the government out of the way.
Now the tea party slogan of “Take Back our Country” is a horse of a different color. It has always been crystal clear to me that what that slogan refers to is that “Black man in the White House.” Now that resonates well with the Republican right wing.
Since all of our politics now is acted out in the election process all we are hearing about is “Comes November, we’ll throw the bums out.” That’s both Dems. and GOP. It reflects a traditional populist response to a frustrated citenzery. The sad part of all this is the tweedle dum tweedle dee nature of the two parties. Back in the 30ies we used to sing a song went like this.
“Take the two old parties mister. There’s no difference I can see.
But with a Farmer Labor Party We could set the people free.”
Of course I’m not so sure of the sentiments expressed therein but it was at least a recognition that the two parties we have are just to much alike. In the present,that felt sense on the part of a large section of the population is an expression of the populism now sweeping the country.
This is a very complex issue as it can resonate both on the left and the right. The idea that the Government has no business messing with our lives was a major theme of the left back in the 60ies. I remember well the demonstrations declaring “I am not an IBM card.” Students burned their draft cards to protest the Vi-et Nam war. That was a very individual protest against the government interference in our everyday lives.
On the other hand there are all the benefits that, yes we the left helped pile up on the way to fighting for better living conditions. Back in the 30ies we got welfare, unemployment insurance, wage and hours act, rights of worker to join unions, Social Security and later Medicare etc. etc. Those programs saved the system from massive social unrest.
Yet there are some folks who truly believe we screwed things up because we interfered with the Free Market. It’s that notion that underlies so much of what the Tea Partiers are talking about. They would really like the free market to do what it promised. The free market just leads us from one crisis to the next and there are people who just can ‘t give up the idea that all of us should be able to do well enough on our own so we are free of government interference. That’s a utopian myth but for some reason it has always attracted a sizable following. But then utopias always have.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Environment 101
As I have been promising I am about to start on the environment crisis. Yes I said “crisis” as that is exactly what I mean. I consider the environmental issue far more serious than the economic one. Why? The periodic economic mess has been with us far longer than the environmental one. The latter started some time around the invention of the steam engine, 1775. The coming years saw the enormous increase in the use of powered machinery that began dumping its waste into the atmosphere.The sauce of global warming.
The periodic economic crisis can probably be dated much further back to Mercantile Capitalism around 1500. Some time in the fifteen hundreds when the first ships left Europe for Asia to bring back stuff for purchase in Europe. These ships were funded by bankers who lent them money and then took a percentage of there sales as part of the deal.
The thing about the periodic economic crisis, as predicted by Karl Marx, is that somehow we grow out of them until the next one. What we do in the meantime is make “imperfect adjustments.” Like The Poor Laws, Welfare, Medicare, Social Security etc. Then we fiddle with the imperfect adjustments until the next crisis and the process goes on adum finitum.
I am indebted to my friend Arron Wolf, a hydrologist, whose life's work is devoted to the problem of our shrinking water supply as the inspiration for this blog. I will primarily deal with the issue of water as it relates to the warming of the Planet. Water, I am referring to sweet not salt water. Sweet water is an absolute essential for all land living creatures. With the warming of the Planet it will increasingly be a life or death issue. Add to this the projected population increases in the poorest parts of the planet and there you have the recipe for a catastrophe of unheard of proportion. (Today we are 6.5 billion people. By 2025 we will be 8.5 billion and all needing fresh water to survive.) Where’s the crisis?
Well, consider the largest ice sheet in the world in Asia that is melting at an ever increasing rate. This highest ice sheet in the world covers an area as big as Europe. With nearly 37,000 glaciers on the China side alone. This ice give birth to the Yangtze, Yellow, Ganges, to the Mekong rivers. Some 2 billion people in more than a dozen countries are dependent on these rivers for their water supplies. Nearly a third of the worlds population. This has been called Asia's “fresh water bank account.”
Now here comes the crisis. This glacial plateau has been heating up 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit for the last century and in some parts even faster. This slight temperature rise has been devastating for the glacier. 95 percent are shedding more ice than they are adding. There may be some argument about how fast the glaciers are shrinking. There is none about the fact that it is happening. Delhi India’s water demand already exceeds its daily usage by over 300 million gallons a day. A Delhi environmentalist predicts that within ten years there will be a massive exodus as people move to other places looking for water.
We are going to see rising tensions over shared water resources including between farmers and cities. As is already happening in California’s Sacramento Valley. How about the struggle for water in our very own Southwest where golf course become a priority for their greens. Of course the developers out there for a long time have been eyeing the Great Lakes. The Great lakes folks have been saying, and “the pigs eye you do and we shoot you.” The Colorado river that is also very dependent on the ice melt has been constantly shrinking and at some times of the year it becomes a stream.
It is in Africa and Asia that the first full impact of the global warming will show up with severe water shortages, These shortages already exist with women in many parts of Africa walking as much as 8 miles every day in order to gather enough water for simple survival. In some ways the coming water crisis may be the “Canary in the coal mine” warning us about the catastrophe that Global Warming will wish on our planet.
What scares the hell out of me is a simple fact. Once the overheating of the planet takes its terrible toll there will not be any simple adjustments that might fix it. We will not be able to fix the Planets warming problem with some “imperfect adjustments.” (Forget desalinization. It’s very expensive and needs to be close to the oceans.) There simply will be no “imperfect adjustments.” What there will be is terrible conflicts between the haves and the have knots for resources essential for survival. If you think we got border problems now just try to imagine what happens when whole areas of the Planet turn into desserts while others are inundated by rising salt water floods.
So what’s to be done? What I learned in science 101 was, step one in finding solutions to a problem is to agree on the problem. We aren’t even close on that one. Why? Two reasons. First human nature is such that people don’t want to hear about problems that might cause them to reduce their own desires for fulfillment. Yes I believe we are basically selfish. Second, there are far to many stake-holders in the status qou world like the oil companies. BP comes to mind, who fight any effort to change human behavior that might have a negative effect on their earning power.
Finally, as I think about the shift in the poles of the declining number of people who believe the Planet is warming. I wonder if the movement for change beginning way back with “The Silent Spring” just peaked to early? Now people who would love to deny that it is happening at all are getting their reassurance. People like me are just a bunch of “Chicken Littles” worrying that the sky is falling. No it’s not the sky I’m worrying about it’s the Planet my great grandson Soren will inherit.
The periodic economic crisis can probably be dated much further back to Mercantile Capitalism around 1500. Some time in the fifteen hundreds when the first ships left Europe for Asia to bring back stuff for purchase in Europe. These ships were funded by bankers who lent them money and then took a percentage of there sales as part of the deal.
The thing about the periodic economic crisis, as predicted by Karl Marx, is that somehow we grow out of them until the next one. What we do in the meantime is make “imperfect adjustments.” Like The Poor Laws, Welfare, Medicare, Social Security etc. Then we fiddle with the imperfect adjustments until the next crisis and the process goes on adum finitum.
I am indebted to my friend Arron Wolf, a hydrologist, whose life's work is devoted to the problem of our shrinking water supply as the inspiration for this blog. I will primarily deal with the issue of water as it relates to the warming of the Planet. Water, I am referring to sweet not salt water. Sweet water is an absolute essential for all land living creatures. With the warming of the Planet it will increasingly be a life or death issue. Add to this the projected population increases in the poorest parts of the planet and there you have the recipe for a catastrophe of unheard of proportion. (Today we are 6.5 billion people. By 2025 we will be 8.5 billion and all needing fresh water to survive.) Where’s the crisis?
Well, consider the largest ice sheet in the world in Asia that is melting at an ever increasing rate. This highest ice sheet in the world covers an area as big as Europe. With nearly 37,000 glaciers on the China side alone. This ice give birth to the Yangtze, Yellow, Ganges, to the Mekong rivers. Some 2 billion people in more than a dozen countries are dependent on these rivers for their water supplies. Nearly a third of the worlds population. This has been called Asia's “fresh water bank account.”
Now here comes the crisis. This glacial plateau has been heating up 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit for the last century and in some parts even faster. This slight temperature rise has been devastating for the glacier. 95 percent are shedding more ice than they are adding. There may be some argument about how fast the glaciers are shrinking. There is none about the fact that it is happening. Delhi India’s water demand already exceeds its daily usage by over 300 million gallons a day. A Delhi environmentalist predicts that within ten years there will be a massive exodus as people move to other places looking for water.
We are going to see rising tensions over shared water resources including between farmers and cities. As is already happening in California’s Sacramento Valley. How about the struggle for water in our very own Southwest where golf course become a priority for their greens. Of course the developers out there for a long time have been eyeing the Great Lakes. The Great lakes folks have been saying, and “the pigs eye you do and we shoot you.” The Colorado river that is also very dependent on the ice melt has been constantly shrinking and at some times of the year it becomes a stream.
It is in Africa and Asia that the first full impact of the global warming will show up with severe water shortages, These shortages already exist with women in many parts of Africa walking as much as 8 miles every day in order to gather enough water for simple survival. In some ways the coming water crisis may be the “Canary in the coal mine” warning us about the catastrophe that Global Warming will wish on our planet.
What scares the hell out of me is a simple fact. Once the overheating of the planet takes its terrible toll there will not be any simple adjustments that might fix it. We will not be able to fix the Planets warming problem with some “imperfect adjustments.” (Forget desalinization. It’s very expensive and needs to be close to the oceans.) There simply will be no “imperfect adjustments.” What there will be is terrible conflicts between the haves and the have knots for resources essential for survival. If you think we got border problems now just try to imagine what happens when whole areas of the Planet turn into desserts while others are inundated by rising salt water floods.
So what’s to be done? What I learned in science 101 was, step one in finding solutions to a problem is to agree on the problem. We aren’t even close on that one. Why? Two reasons. First human nature is such that people don’t want to hear about problems that might cause them to reduce their own desires for fulfillment. Yes I believe we are basically selfish. Second, there are far to many stake-holders in the status qou world like the oil companies. BP comes to mind, who fight any effort to change human behavior that might have a negative effect on their earning power.
Finally, as I think about the shift in the poles of the declining number of people who believe the Planet is warming. I wonder if the movement for change beginning way back with “The Silent Spring” just peaked to early? Now people who would love to deny that it is happening at all are getting their reassurance. People like me are just a bunch of “Chicken Littles” worrying that the sky is falling. No it’s not the sky I’m worrying about it’s the Planet my great grandson Soren will inherit.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Remember "Social Unrest" or The Parties Are Over
It was about a year ago I wrote a blog on social unrest. In it I suggested that it was the phenomena that most scared the ruling class no matter where. Present day Greece is a good example of what happens when the CREDIT SPIGOT feeding the “we can have it all” frenzy suddenly stops. Like most of the rest of us the Greeks were enjoying the “Big End of Century Party.” The overwhelming and highly motivating idea was the notion, that yes “we can have it all.” Bumper stickers out here proudly announce “We have It All.” Okay, and the question is, how did you get it all?
The answer is, THE PANDEMIC OF EASY CREDIT. One can argue whether it started on the top and dribbled down to the bottom or the other way around. At this point in time it hardly matters. Where would you like to start? Want to start with the government? The US debt to the Chinese alone is in the trillions. The Spanish, Portuguese debt to the Euro banks in the billions. The consumer debt in the US in the hundreds of billions with foreclosures in the millions predicted for the balance of 2010.
I must admit, that it is extremely difficult for a person like myself, who grew up during the great depression to understand how this could have happened. During those days of living just to survive it was driven into my my thick skull that if you couldn’t pay for it you just don’t have it, period. The opposite of “we got it all.”
I do remember during the nineties, when the credit market was already in full throttle friends would ask,“How much credit you carrying?” My reply was very little as I am really afraid remembering what happened way back when. I was laughed at, told that based on my income I should be carrying at least a half million in credit because money gets more expensive so the credit deal is a sure money maker.I admit I was embarrassed and often felt that I was stuck in some past dungeon of despair from which I could not seem to escape.
As the housing bubble was in the early bursting stage I could not understand the stories of people making $40,000 a year buying houses for a half a million. Of course they couldn’t pay the mortgage. Who coaxed them into it? Who was making lots of money off of these poor suckers? Bankers, hedge fund cowboys and the brand knew scam called derivatives. Bundle up all the bad loans and then peddle them to some other suckers while sucker number one loses their home and their livelihood as the economy goes into the tank. I used to think that it was just the poor sucker buying a house they could not afford in Phoenix. Oh no. It turns out now that governments were doing the same thing. Promising all kinds of goodies for some time in the future and the tough part is that future is here now and there ain’t enough money to pay for the promises.
There’s your prescription for social unrest. Those folks in Athens who thought they really had it made suddenly learn the cookie jar is empty and they now have to face something called austerity. Same as the teachers in New York. The end of YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL. Strangely enough there still is a Communist Party in Greece. What exactly it can do I don’t know. But what I am certain is they are helping to stir up the masses. After all that’s one thing they know how to do.
The problem is that the mess in Greece hits Europe hard because their banks are holding the IOU’s and if Greece defaults you know who is going to hold the bag. Yes we are included in that bag. So they had to figure out a bailout because if Greece goes bust there are a number of fresh candidates right behind them, Spain Portugal, Italy and who knows who else.
So much for the glories of the Global Economy. And don’t forget our very own State of California that also could go bust because they too can’t pay the Piper now that the parties over. Do I think we can survive it? Of course I do and we will but on much lower expectations.
Frankly I am still more concerned with the environmental catastrophe that is unfolding as that cannot be solved by shuffling numbers and there are no derivatives that can do anything about the oil spill in the Gulf or the coming water shortage. Okay I’ll get on the environment soon I promise.
The answer is, THE PANDEMIC OF EASY CREDIT. One can argue whether it started on the top and dribbled down to the bottom or the other way around. At this point in time it hardly matters. Where would you like to start? Want to start with the government? The US debt to the Chinese alone is in the trillions. The Spanish, Portuguese debt to the Euro banks in the billions. The consumer debt in the US in the hundreds of billions with foreclosures in the millions predicted for the balance of 2010.
I must admit, that it is extremely difficult for a person like myself, who grew up during the great depression to understand how this could have happened. During those days of living just to survive it was driven into my my thick skull that if you couldn’t pay for it you just don’t have it, period. The opposite of “we got it all.”
I do remember during the nineties, when the credit market was already in full throttle friends would ask,“How much credit you carrying?” My reply was very little as I am really afraid remembering what happened way back when. I was laughed at, told that based on my income I should be carrying at least a half million in credit because money gets more expensive so the credit deal is a sure money maker.I admit I was embarrassed and often felt that I was stuck in some past dungeon of despair from which I could not seem to escape.
As the housing bubble was in the early bursting stage I could not understand the stories of people making $40,000 a year buying houses for a half a million. Of course they couldn’t pay the mortgage. Who coaxed them into it? Who was making lots of money off of these poor suckers? Bankers, hedge fund cowboys and the brand knew scam called derivatives. Bundle up all the bad loans and then peddle them to some other suckers while sucker number one loses their home and their livelihood as the economy goes into the tank. I used to think that it was just the poor sucker buying a house they could not afford in Phoenix. Oh no. It turns out now that governments were doing the same thing. Promising all kinds of goodies for some time in the future and the tough part is that future is here now and there ain’t enough money to pay for the promises.
There’s your prescription for social unrest. Those folks in Athens who thought they really had it made suddenly learn the cookie jar is empty and they now have to face something called austerity. Same as the teachers in New York. The end of YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL. Strangely enough there still is a Communist Party in Greece. What exactly it can do I don’t know. But what I am certain is they are helping to stir up the masses. After all that’s one thing they know how to do.
The problem is that the mess in Greece hits Europe hard because their banks are holding the IOU’s and if Greece defaults you know who is going to hold the bag. Yes we are included in that bag. So they had to figure out a bailout because if Greece goes bust there are a number of fresh candidates right behind them, Spain Portugal, Italy and who knows who else.
So much for the glories of the Global Economy. And don’t forget our very own State of California that also could go bust because they too can’t pay the Piper now that the parties over. Do I think we can survive it? Of course I do and we will but on much lower expectations.
Frankly I am still more concerned with the environmental catastrophe that is unfolding as that cannot be solved by shuffling numbers and there are no derivatives that can do anything about the oil spill in the Gulf or the coming water shortage. Okay I’ll get on the environment soon I promise.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
"The Harvesters"
"The Harvesters" May 2010
Peter Brugel, tell me,
The women sitting under the pear tree? Is it a picnic?
I count twelve of them. Are they wives and children?
Seven others hard at work in the fields.
Bright sunny day, the wheat a shining gold.
I want to be with the picnickers
Eating dark bread, cheese, ham cheese..
This scene so attracts me? Hmmm why?
Not a machine in sight. Just a U curved sickle.
A hand tool for cutting wheat.
A snoring peasant, codpiece up tight,
Fast asleep under the pear tree
His lullaby? Birdsongs.
I first met Peiter Brugel
At a museum holding Papas hand,
“Here’s an important artist.
A painter of people in their everyday lives.”
Harvesting wheat and a picnic lunch,
That’s an everyday good life”
The Harvesters in the bright yellow wheat field
Yet it must be lunchtime. Peasants
Have gathered in the mid-ay sun?
Under the shade of an old pear tre
John Deere of Peoria saw the Harvestors,
His roaring gaseous tractor.
Did the work of the whole Brugel family.
Goodbye, Harvesters, Goodbye picnic.
Goodbye to the sheaves.
Goodbye to the birdsongs.
Peoria, John Deere did it all,
In one big thunderous roar.
Go, put that on your canvas.
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