The Idiocy of Cutting Spending During a Recession

I've been trying to find a way to convey the idiocy of cutting government spending during a recession. I hope this helps.

First, it's important to understand the effects of a recession. The worst symptom of a recession is a lack of money. Does that mean that the money doesn't exist somewhere? No. It exists, it's just not in circulation, and if it's not in circulation, people can't get it either by earning or borrowing it. If people can't get money, they can't spend money, and since that money that they spend goes into the paychecks of the guy at the gas station, the lady at the grocery store, and the folks who build houses, then they also have no money. Now stretch that example out far enough, covering the thousands of types of jobs, and make it cover the entire country. That's recession; no flowing money.

So, let's use water as our example. Most cities have large tanks either up on big supports looking like some sort of steel monster (or painted to look like a piece of fruit), or set on top of a hill. For the purpose of this demonstration, they're not tanks, they're banks. Imagine that the water those tanks hold isn't water, it's money. Water mains carry water to users the same way that investors invest money in job creators - employers. The smaller pipes represent employers who channel the money to their employees in return for time and effort put in by the employees.

Our water flows like this: Tanks > Water Mains > Smaller Pipes > Users

Our money flows like this: Banks* > Investors* > Employers > Employees

*This order may be reversed and often is.

Here I am at home and one day, I turn on the tap, but nothing comes out. There's water in the tanks. There's water in the mains. There's water in the pipes. But I can't get the water to flow.

This is recession.

The banks have money. Investors have money. The "tanks" are full, there's "water" in the "mains", but the "water" - money - isn't flowing. Why?

Fear. Sometimes fear mixed with greed.

In order for me to cook, bathe, clean, to use for sanitation, and water my garden and flowers, I need water. 

In order for me to eat, pay my mortgage or rent, pay for transportation, afford clothing, pay for the kids' necessities, I need money.

When water doesn't flow, we have a water shortage or drought.

When money doesn't flow, we have a money shortage or recession.

Money isn't flowing.

This is recession.

So, if the problem affecting being able to cook, bathe, clean, use for sanitation, and water my garden is a lack of water, or specifically, since we know there is water in the tank and in the mains, lack of movement of water, I need to get the water moving in order to fix the problem.

If the problem affecting being able to eat, pay my mortgage or rent, pay for transportation, afford clothing, pay for the kids' necessities is a lack of money, or specifically, since we know there is money in the bank and in the investors' pockets, lack of movement of money, I need to get the money flowing in order to fix the problem.

Here's the catch: Government can't make banks lend or investors spend or employers create jobs. Government can only make enough money available to them so that they feel safe enough - because there's an abundance of money - to let the money start flowing again and government does that by making more money available at very low interest rates to banks and investors who can then lend at low, but still profitable, interest rates to consumers - you and me. 

Making enough water available so that the valves are opened on the tanks and mains gets the water flowing to our homes.

Making enough money available so that loans are opened at banks and by investors gets the money flowing to our wallets, and from there back into the system to kickstart the system and make it work again. 

It's like using the shock paddles to resuscitate a person whose heart stops. It takes a bunch of new money - a shock - in the system to jolt it back to life. Only government has that much money, and that's why cutting back on spending during a recession only makes it worse, and never makes it better!

This is recession.

The Birds, They Are A-Bairning

I recently had 5 baby  fledge from a coffee-canister nest in the rafters of my barn and watched their parents lead them to the forest behind the house. Now I have a nest of  - they're above the door post so I can't look in to count them but there's at least 3 and I think 4 - on my front stoop and a nest of  in my rose garden with at least 3 eggs. I have  in the privet hedge, the holly tree, the Scotch Pine, and in one of my loquat trees. They never fail to show up and nest. The Wrens usually make a nest on the back porch and my big pig, Spig, watches them curiously. It really is amazing to watch. The Wrens will come down and peck up pieces of her dried-on food right off her lips, nose, and chin. She doesn't move at all when they're feeding. 

I have huge , taupe-colored lizards with bright crimson on the sides of their heads during breeding season, which is now. A few of the big males will get up to a foot and a half long. They eat mice, frogs, toads...and small children. ;) Old people here still call them 'scorpions' and think they have a poisonous bite. They don't, or I'd've been dead as a kid. There were few things that live in the Southeast I haven't been bitten by except poisonous snakes, black widows, or brown recluses. Everything else...pretty much. If it flips, flaps, flops, flutters, farts, or flies, it's sought me out for an educational biting. I could amass a Ph.D. in Bitology.

There are things I miss about living in the city, and that's what having a car with far too much horsepower is all about fixing when I'm feeling the need. But there's so much life here in Podunkia that most people drive right by or shut out of their homes and never see. Then, when it's gone, they'll shrug and move along. But, there will come a day when it's too late to turn back the clock, if that day hasn't come already. I hope it hasn't, and I hope we're smart enough to cherish and protect the things that make our only home - Mother Earth - home. A barren planet has no appeal to me but that I might bring life to it. I love our lush, verdant Mother, but I would share her carefully with others if it would stake a claim for humans on another rock, a backup plan in case ours gets involved in a galactic game of billiards.

Until then, birds are a-birding, bees are a-beeing, and I'm in my own little piece of Paradise.

Why I'm an Atheist

God told me not to believe in him, so I don't.

Who am I to argue? He's G-O-D!

Where Is The Root Of Our American Evil? You Might As Well Ask, "Where's Waldo?"

The problem is far deeper than Congress vs the White House, Democrats vs Republicans, Left vs Right, or Liberal vs Conservative. Those are all labels invented to keep people at each others' throats and away from the people who actually run the world. If you're too absorbed in the fist fight going on in front of you, you'll be too distracted to notice the grand theft going on behind you. Until you get the pettiness out of politics - good luck with that - and get people to stop watching 'Hillbilly Sister Breeding' on TV, you'll never get them to stand united and up to the massive wealth being made by the Central banks, on securities so byzantine as to make derivatives look like crayon drawings, and to the fact that we've all been duped for...centuries.

The scheme is so broad, so well-meshed, and so pervasive that it looks real. And when the few people who pull up the edges and peer under it scream out what they've found, they're merely labeled nuts and it's right back to 'Cajun Wife Beating'.

You can't fix stupid.

So whom do you talk to? Contacting the media is like sending an email to the Vatican about pedophile priests: They already know because they're involved.

I applaud activism and I support activists' efforts, but the mainstream media isn't your friend in this matter, even the NYT.

More in tune with what it takes to turn the worm is someone like Matt Taibbi. You should read his work on RollingStone.com. His father is Mike Taibbi of NBC News, so journalism is in Matt's blood, but his politics run heavily independent, and that's the only place you'll find any sort of truth; neither of the 2 major parties has any desire to bite the hand that feeds them.

Keep up with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, too. Bernie is hell on wheels and he's a Democratic Socialist like me. You can always tell the knee-jerk crowd who react to "socialist" without further research. It amuses me greatly.

Change will come only when people realize that the only secure means of communicating is mouth-to-mouth and then only with those whom you know. The internet is like a giant bulletin board, regardless how secure the 'leets think they're being. I could tell you how I know...but then I'd have to kill you.

From Wikipedia under 'Oligarchy': "Political theory - Further information: Iron law of oligarchy
"Robert Michels believed that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. He called this the iron law of oligarchy. According to this school of thought, many modern democracies should be considered as oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an acceptable and respectable political position, and politicians' careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites. Thus the popular phrase: there is only one political party, the incumbent party." (my italics)

Want to be different without falling off the hipster cliff? Be an independent or, hell, become a Democratic Socialist. Want to be a lemming? Do nothing. 

"Believe you can or believe you can't; either way, you're right" - Henry Ford

Breaking News: Hell Freezes Over!

We have breaking news from our friends over at The Weather Channel. Here's Jim Cantore live from...Hell...with news of a never-before-seen weather phenomenon there ! Go ahead, Jim!

Thanks, Brian. As you can see, I'm up to my little elf ass in ice and snow...

Tomatoes, of all things! EZ as π

A thread on Google+ today got me thinking about tomatoes and I wanted to share my tomato growing technique.

I've tested this with everything from a 10-cent pack of hybrid wilt-free tomato seeds from the dollar store to several varieties of heirloom tomatoes and it never fails to make both a better plant and a better tomato flavor.

Start with good potting soil. I use generic stuff that costs $2.77 at Walmart or about the same price at Lowe's. "Wait", you're probably thinking, "I thought you said 'good potting soil'". I did.

I add hay which my 2 pet pigs, Shadow and Spig, have used as bedding and have broken down to short pieces. You can use grass clippings or even your own compost. Make sure to put some egg shells in the mix. Tomatoes need calcium and the tomato shells break down and help. It works. Try it. (If you don't have a compost bin, take a bucket or pail and put your veggie peels, egg shells, coffee and tea grounds - anything but animal products - into it and stir it every few days. You'll probably want to keep it outside. Even if it's not composted, feel free to put a cupful or two around your plants and gently mix it with the soil. It'll compost to some degree right there and it's increases the tilth of your soil so much.)

Next is variety. Yep, I said that it makes even cheap dollar store seeds produce better tomatoes, and that's true. They're better than grocery store tomatoes, but what isn't? OK, they're even better than that, but still not like a good heirloom tomato. Find a seed saver online who has a good reputation and buy a selection of tomato seeds. There are hundreds of varieties available, and these are a few I like: Black Krym (the spelling varies), Black Brandywine, Pink Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, and I like to experiment with others. I've never had a bad heirloom tomato, either. Also, since they're not hybrids, you can save the seeds from your very best, biggest, most flavorful tomato by simply spreading some of the seed-containing tomato ectoplasm (snicker), the goo in the tomato that has the seeds, onto a paper towel, letting it dry for a week or so. Make sure to space the seeds so that you can separate them come planting time, then when they're fully dry (OK, it might take 2 weeks, or even longer - you be the judge), putting them into a sealed plastic ziplock bag in the freezer. Come planting time, take them out a day or two before you wish to plant, put them in the butter compartment or a drawer in the fridge and let them warm slowly before placing them in a cool dark spot for a day or two, and then plant them. Basically you're letting them warm up slowly like they would outside in the soil.

Heirloom tomatoes have always been selected for flavor first and foremost. They range in color from white to yellow to orange to pink to red to brick red to purple to black (although they're called black, I'd call them dark brown). Most websites will describe the flavor along with the fruit description. Buy several types, but plant them apart else they will crossbreed and you'll end up with a hybrid - which might be great! 

Here are a couple things I've learned about terminology. 

Determinate: This means that you can determine almost exactly when the tomatoes will all be ripe. This characteristic of tomatoes is important commercially for things like tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, catsup, et cetera, so that they know when to have a crew ready to harvest the tomatoes, they can go to the field, almost all of the tomatoes will be at the same stage of ripeness so they don't have to go back over and over to pick them; they pick once and done. That's not what I look for in a tomato. I want one that will give me tomatoes all season long. Obviously, indeterminate means the exact opposite, or what I just described, and that's what I want.

Potato-leaf: This means that the plants leaves are shaped like a potato plant's leaves rather than a tomato plant's leaves. Potatoes, tomatoes, chilies, tomatillos, eggplants, tobacco, petunias, are all in the same family of plants, as are deadly nightshade and black nightshade. It's the Solanaceae family with over 3000 species. Being in the same family as tobacco, deadly nightshade and black nightshade, are probably why all parts of the tomato and potato plants are poison, as are green spots on potatoes. Yep! You can find more terms here.

The real secret is what to fertilize them with. I use Miracle Gro. I put 1 tablespoon of Miracle Gro per gallon of water and I add 1 rounded tablespoon of Epsom salt plus 1 tablespoon of demerara sugar. Miracle-Gro and its imitators are designed to be poured over the leaves of the plant. Try not to get it into the blossoms, but it's OK if  you get it on the tomatoes themselves, just wash them well before eating (*see my note at the bottom). The Epsom salt gives them a nice rounded acid flavor, and helps build the root system. The demerara sugar helps them have a nice sweet flavor, in balance with the acid and "tomato" flavor. It also seems to increase blossoms, which in turn produce more tomatoes. The result is wonderful. Don't store the mix as the sugar seems to make the sulphur in the Epsom salt come out of solution and your mix will not work and it will stink like rotten eggs! Mix what you need and don't save any. The Miracle-Gro package will have a scoop (so do generics) for you to measure with. The tablespoon side is the big end, obviously, but there's a small scoop on the other end that's good for making fertilizer for other plants. 

I've used generic Miracle Gro and it works just as well. The demerara sugar I buy is a brand called Zulka and it's wonderful for anything you already use white sugar for. It's not refined like white sugar; it's simply dried cane juice and smells and tastes like fresh sugar cane. Walmart sells a 4-pound bag at my local store for $2.58. That's close to the price for regular white sugar and there's no comparison when it comes to taste. Look for it on the sugar aisle in a clear plastic bag with green logo. The sugar is a light tan color. If you can't find it on the sugar aisle, check the Hispanic food aisle. I use it in place of white sugar for everything. You'll love it! I use it for baking, coffee, and to make jellies and jams. It gives them such a wonderful flavor, too!!!

Good luck and happy tomato-ing! :)


*Note: I make a general cleaner, veggie wash, shower spray, (and everything else) out of white vinegar and lemon juice. I buy generic white vinegar (it's exactly the same as the branded stuff) for about $3/gallon at Walmart or Kroger, and I use lemon juice that you'll find on the juice aisle in the grocery or dollar store for about $2/quart. I take a spray bottle (don't use one that's had harsh chemicals or poisons in it, obviously), clean it well with soap and water and rinse it well. Don't forget to pump some soap and water through the sprayer itself and be sure to rinse the whole thing well. I add 2 ounces, more or less, of lemon juice (shake the juice well before you pour) and 30 ounces of white vinegar to make a quart. It cleans counters, glass, floors, veggies, I spray it on the shower curtain to inhibit mold and mildew...all sorts of things. I even use it on my hands after I've been in the garden or playing with the animals. Ditto if you've handled onions, garlic or fish. I wash my hands well first, then spray my lemon juice-vinegar spray on them, rub well, and let air dry. Just remember to shake it each time before use; the lemon juice solids will settle to the bottom, otherwise.) The great thing about it is that it's 2 acids together - acetic acid in the vinegar (about 5% acetic acid) and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in the lemon juice. It even has mild bleaching power. It kills 99.9% of household germs, it isn't toxic, and if you accidentally spray it on yourself or the dog or your dishes...so what? On top of all that, it's completely environmentally safe, it's cheap and it works!

Meteors, asteroids, and meteorites - Oh my!

"Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C Clarke

So, you're sitting way out in the solar system beyond our ability to see and you have this massive launcher capable of throwing rocks the size of a city. Just like a bowler, a skeet shooter, or even a baseball batter - but with much better technology, you toss one rock one way at one speed - you have to get it going first because it has a longer path to the target - then you toss another rock from a different direction at a different speed, and a third with a different trajectory, all designed to coincide at one point at the same time.

Hey, guess what, sports fans, the US Army already does this! It's called a Time On Target. It's a Field Artillery fire mission where every available gun shoots the same grid location so that the rounds hit at precisely the same time. The farthest guns have to shoot at one time and the closer ones a few seconds later, all so that the splash - the artillery rounds hitting the target and detonating - occurs simultaneously. Baaaad day for anyone in that grid square; your world just blows the f*ck up. 

Extrapolating our ability to do that to a larger, galactic-energy, or possibly just a solar system-energy scale, even we could do it. Any civilization capable of traversing space to get to us likely also would have mastered the ability to control energies on a massive scale, far bigger than where we are, or even where we'll be much further down the road when we can control our planetary energy and make it do what we want it to.

On top of the mastery of enormous energy, one would have to have the patience to set these bodies in motion years before their scheduled rendezvous with their intended target, with attention to their trajectories that defies our ability to muster, currently. 

Likely? I have no idea. Possible? Yep!

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" - Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Anti-social Media

It occurs to me that with computers, and tablets, and smartphones, people interact more, but not in a helpful or social sense. At least not the sense of 'social' that I think of. 

That's one reason why I resist the term 'social media'. To me, social media is sitting in a coffee shop on Sunday morning reading the New York Times, with your good Conservative acquaintance across from you with the Wall Street Journal and the two of you debating the merits of each side's positions over good coffee and the promise to do it again next Sunday, just as you have for years. And to keep it social, and civil, when the coffee's done and newspapers folded under arms, you shake hands or swap hugs and off you go, each having taken a little and given a little, compromising and trying to understand, and becoming the better for it, social-izing.

I think I have a new term for this medium on which I'm hypocritically communicating: Anti-Social Media.

These are my emoticons dammit and screw you if you don't like 'em...

/.   - skeptical                                         "I don't think we should drive."

).  - watchful                                           "Keep your eyes on the road!"

(.  -wistful                                             "I wish we could find a restroom!"

°!* - drunk                                               "I peed in your flowers? Heh heh. I mean...sorry"

A thought on technology

A flashlight is a lightsaber to a caveman.

Is our future paved with the gravestones of our children?

Yesterday, 14 December 2012, twenty of our republic's children and seven of our adults lay down their lives while innocently pursuing their dreams. Days after a shooting spree in my former hometown of Portland, Oregon, we have yet another tragedy, made worse by the fact that it took lives so young and precious. Occurring only eleven days from our highest holiday, this event will likely darken the season's skies for their loved ones eternally. 

No sense can be made of this or the other heinous crimes committed by deranged gunmen, but the overarching cause behind them is like a flare warning us that it will be repeated until guns are out of reach of those who would use them for such as these.

What possesses a group of so-called responsible adults to claim after these tragedies that guns are not responsible for them? What illogic manifests that says no to reform of our gun laws? What would happen if this crowd lost children of their own in this manner? One could safely wager that they would want to find the guilty, but less certain is that they would search the one place they might find them: The mirror.

I wish this crime on no one, not even them. Yet, I hold them at least in part responsible. It's one thing to claim that only the deranged commit these murders, but it's yet another altogether to leave the weapons used available to the killers.

I fear that failure to pursue gun law reform leaves us little hope of a future not paved with the gravestones of our children.

If Not Now, When?

In the 1980s, Mothers Against Drunk Driving took on the establishment, and entrenched established ideas, to make our highways safer. They fought an uphill battle which they ultimately won.

We're faced with a dilemma: Do we allow an outdated constitutional right to trump public safety? The Founding Fathers could not foresee how our republic's education system has evolved into schools with hundreds or thousands of students, the rise of weaponry that will hold and fire hundreds of rounds per minute, or the foundation and continuance of an organization whose existence triumphs violence through its cryptic mission.

The NRA purports to uphold the Second Amendment in its honest intent, but the Founding Fathers would have come down on the side of What's Best for the Republic rather than an anachronistic idealism, it seems clear.

Yes, it will require vigorous debate. Yes, honest citizens should be allowed to keep and bear arms. But no, assault weapons have no place in the hands of teens, the deranged, pure criminals, or anyone whose right and role in our society doesn't demand their mindful ownership.

Haven't we learned our lesson just in this one year alone? I fear that if we haven't, we deserve what we've wrought.

Further proof why we need an 'Initiative, Referendum, and Recall' process nationally

The media has taken to making this seem like it's both sides who can't agree on a budget deal. Let's be clear - it's not. It's one side that won't budge or compromise. It's the Republicans. And the real reason most of them won't is because of the traitor Grover Norquist's treasonous anti-tax pledge. 

Senior, old-line conservatives have come forward and called the pledge foul, yet the GOP leadership, too far mired in this morass of their own making, refuse to compromise. Lump Boehner, Cantor and McConnell in with Norquist as traitors.

These people give us a perfect reason to consider the 'Initiative, Referendum and Recall' process so that, in the future, when they try to do something as puerile and pointless as cause the nation to lose its credit rating status or default on debt payments, or simply hijack the political process, they'll find themselves being UN-ELECTED pretty damned fast.

One Day...

One day, we will look back on the lies told by Big Sugar, Big Tobacco, Big Polluters, Climate Science Deniers, and others, and we will remember when we held them all accountable. We will remember as they laughed while we found them guilty, assuming that The Public was a toothless tiger, and we will remember how they laughed as we held them responsible for the suffering and death of millions. We will remember as they chuckled and winked amongst themselves as we passed judgement, and we will remember as their laughter turned to silence as they noticed the stony glances of those whom they deluded and the families of others who suffered or perished because of The Lies.

One day, we will remember them as they were trundled off to prisons where they were forced to atone for their crimes and misdemeanors and we will remember them as they weakly mumbled their apologies for the manslaughter, perhaps even murder, that they committed in the name of their god, Profit. 

We are a trusting lot, although we generally find untrustworthy the cynics who are incapable of the belief in trust. But we're also a lot who demand justice, especially for lies which endanger our families and our fellows. And in our demands for justice, we can be wrathful, accepting nothing short of the full measure dealt to those we love or loved by those guilty of this malice. 

One day, we will remember that we could, no, we will remember that we SHOULD, see justice done so that others need not suffer; so those who have suffered will be avenged; so those who conspire against us will have their days of remembrance, also. 

Resetting the center for a prosperous middle class

We've allowed the national agenda, and the political center as well, to be pushed so far to the right that an adjustment is overdue. Pursuing pragmatical Progressivism is our only chance to build a middle class sustainably. The lessons of Conservatism are clear for anyone to see and parse and they're lessons of failure. The very nature of Conservatism deals a self-inflicted deathblow, and that's Nature's way of telling us that it's wrongheaded: You can't stop the Arrow of Time from progressing at the rate of 1 second per second. Conserve all you wish, time marches on.

Frankly, we need to ignore the Conservatives as the failures they are. We need a laser-like focus on the future and on a sound path to it. We need to present ideas for debt and deficit reduction that won't crush the weakest among us, but which simultaneously won't hinder the entrepreneurs. President Clinton would make a wonderful budget ally if he could be persuaded to assist since he was able to journey us along that fine line once before. 

If our President and his administration can continue the momentum we have, we will break free from this recession, but it also requires Congress to act in concert with him, something Conservatives there have shown a puerile contempt to do. 

Four more years, then Hillary. We can do this.