Cut and Paste

We have a Super Committee, a group of Republican and Democratic Senators who have been charged with the impossible task of reducing our National Deficit and their time is running out.  It is an interesting problem and they are in a "do or die" situation.  If they fail to reach agreement then the reductions will automatically come out of Social Security, Medicare and the Military.  Even if they reached agreement it is still not final.  There would be a vote in Congress and whatever was decided still needs to be signed by the President.
   All of this is of importance to Artists because we are people too.  We get old, we get sick, we pay taxes.
We have been in this recession for over four years.  Schnitzer Steel Stock is less than $50 from it's high of $117 four years ago.  Not all but most of the stock market is this way.   Housing has taken a beating and we have lost much of our equity there too.  We are unemployed, uninsured and soon to be hungry.  More people are on food assistance than ever before.  This "new normal" is pretty sad.
   To fix it you have to be a betting person, a bit of a gambler.  You could have the attitude of despair, that it is all going to come down crashing upon us like a house of cards.  We must hunker down and pay the piper,
take what suffering that will occur, pay down the National Debt and suffer the consequences.  This same reasoning will want the creation of jobs at any cost.  The cost could be dear indeed.  Get rid of Government rules and regulations, abandon the clean air policies and pollute our waterways, fracture the Earth in the name of industry.
   One could have a more optimistic attitude.  We could bet that there will be a  future, that these are not the "last days on earth", not Armageddon.  We will continue and decide what kind of world we want to live in.
It seems to me that the biggest difference in these decisions between the Republicans and the Democrats
come down to tax revenues, environmental concerns and who would be more able to stimulate the economy,
private enterprise or the government?
   I am sure cuts will be made and they will be more political than economic.  They won't be about fairness but about power.  Why 99% of us can't get the richest 1% to pay an additional 3% in taxes OVER a million a year is all about power.
   It wouldn't be easy to be on that committee, someone will hate you.  One third of Medicare's budget is spent on the last one year of a person's life.  I am not sure that is a good investment.  I think I miss the days when a person could just die in peace and not be carted back and forth to the emergency room and suffer heroic efforts.  Personally I like an Eskimo tradition of being placed on an iceberg or in a small canoe paddling after that last sunset.  The isolation of our society says to put old people in nursing homes and our guilt for this requires huge investments in last days medical care.
   I am sure there is tons of waste that could be cut, probably easily 10% across the board.  We have a country of Government Workers who all have pensions supported by tax dollars.  Pensions that we do not have.
  Our military is huge.  Much bigger than all the rest of the world combined!  Can you even imagine this?
   As a businessman cutting a budget can be a dangerous thing to do.  Some expenditures make money and are necessary.  Rebuilding our Nation's infrastructure is one of these.  We need roads, bridges, trains or commerce will come to a grinding halt.  To invest money there seems like a good idea to me.
   It is all pretty complicated.  First the banks were bailed out and as expensive as that was it was necessary. They represent "the system", our faith in money, our belief that when we get a check it will be cashable, and when we write a check or use a credit card, it will be honored.  This "system" is not perfect and there is a lot of abuse but it is easier to fix it than tear it down.  I think.
   Now it is "Main Streets" time and the question is what to do?

What I do is HERE

Piece of the Pie

It is interesting, watching the "Occupy Wall Street" Protesters.  They are growing in numbers and are all over the world.  It is a protest without leadership and I am not really sure what they are after.  Some are being arrested and I wonder why the bother?  It has to be expensive to arrest someone, the court costs, attorneys,
more police taken away from real crime, jail guards, feeding them, the whole of it.  And then it becomes an issue, doesn't it?  In Syria they shoot them, a bullet from a sniper a half mile away!  Extremes.
   The One Percent have been identified.  They are the ones who make over $700,000 in one year.  Not bad for a forty hour week if that is how they do it. That works out to be $350 per hour.
   These are not the protests of the '60's, not anti-war protests nor voter registration, equality or fighting racism.  These are not the "flower children" of San Fransisco who were just so fed up they opted to drop out.  The new protesters of today are all wearing imported clothing, all have backpacks made in China, carrying their i-phones and netbooks manufactured overseas.  If you removed these foreign items from them they would all be naked!
   It is pretty funny to me, in a strange sort of way.  It is like they have "seeeen the Promised Land" and want a piece of the pie!  They don't seem to be after Truth or Justice or Environmentalism, nothing altruistic at all.
All over the world they want IN!  More big screen t.v's. please.  Yes, I would like it "Super-Sized"!
   Greece now is going to vote for their austerity measures and this has caused the Stock Market to crash.
No one will vote for less when what we want is MORE!
   Where ever did we get the idea that material possessions will make us happy?  Yes, more please.  I want gravy on everything!
   I want to see Paris Hilton, naked, extolling the virtues of American products!  I once read that if we could go One Week, just a week, and stay away from Walmart, not buy anything imported, then we could create a half a million jobs!  We do not need any laws for this, no police, no crowd control, not even a protest.  Just a new slogan, "Don't Do it".
   Christmas will be here soon and Walmart will be packed from wall to wall.  Don't do it.  This year make cookies, find some American made paints and give your art away, support a local artist and buy their works, buy everyone on your list American made towels.  My challenge to you is on Christmas Day dress your best all in clothing "made in USA"! or your own country for my foreign friends.  Tell your friends!  If we all did that we could create over a million jobs!
   So what makes a cool gift?  Any ideas?

I am HERE too.

Bo La De La Ba

Life goes on, C'est La Vie, what will be will be.  That is just about the most powerless victim kind of attitude I have ever encountered and it is a bunch of crap.  I remember the cartoons of my youth:  "are we Men or Mice?"  We're MICE!
   In real life in the real world the only constant has been change.  Nothing remains the same.  There are reasons things are the way they are and there will be reasons for the future, always reasons for why things happen.
   I think we have lost our curiosity and don't even give a rip.  We are in encampments, circling the wagons.
We throw ideas away because we don't like the messenger.  We don't even know why we don't like the messenger, just a label without investigation.
   This is all pretty interesting to me because I think we are all after the very same thing.  We want to have a sense of power in what appears to be a powerless world.
   The "Teabaggers" and the Wall Street Protesters at first glance seems to be on the opposite side of the spectrum but they are not.  In a world where they feel powerless they want a voice.
   There is a danger to a society where more people vote for "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars" than do for a National Election.  There is a danger to society where more people read the "Twilight Series" than have ever even heard of John Stuwart Mill's "On Liberty".  Our libraries are closing and we have forgotten that a Democracy requires work.  Newspapers are going out of business every month.  It seems that we no longer read at all.
   The problem with not being curious is that we are easily lead.  It is so much easier to follow than to cut a path and easier still to sit and be do nothing people.  Our justification to our grandchildren will be "I didn't do that!"  But it is a pretty poor answer to claim you did nothing.  Didn't even read a newspaper.
   Yes, these are "interesting times".

My Art, my Garden and my Studio can be found HERE

My Idea

   I like the clash of ideas, you already know that about me.  I like Truth and Consequences, presenting what seems like a great idea only to discover the consequences are not so great.  With a discussion the idea is to iron out these problems.  It is not an issue of who is right and who is wrong, but what happens if we did this and what happens if we did that?
   Here is a great example:  Bio-fuel.  Making fuel for our cars from corn oil.  Gosh, it sounds great!  Helps get us away from foreign oil, reduces the need for fossil fuels and we have tons of land upon which to grow corn!  Nice, green corn!  Well, it sounded like a good idea and we did this.  Made it a law even and 10% of our gasoline is now corn based.
   Here is what wasn't considered.  The corn-gas mixture is deadly to lawn mowers and all small gas engines.
Most of our corn for this is grown along the Mississippi River Basin eventually dumping into the Gulf of Mexico.  It takes a huge amount of fossil fuel fertilizer to grow corn and the excess is drained into the river.
This is killing the water in the Gulf, creating a "Dead Zone" where fish cannot live.
It is now more profitable to grow corn for its fuel than for food and this has caused food prices to soar,  adding to world-wide hunger. 
   Gee, why couldn't anyone think this out?  Somewhere in the scheme of this discussion was a lobbyist for the corn industry.  I will bet on that.
   A discussion that is going on now is about the EPA.  Environmental Protection Agency.  I notice ads on television trying to persuade me, telling me that these "Government Regulations" are the source of our economic plight.  I wonder whether anybody takes this seriously?  "They" want to give us the pollution of Mexico, the air of China, the waste dumps of Russia in return for jobs?  You have got to be kidding!
Maybe I should be investing in face masks?  Or pharmaceuticals, an investment in "Happy Pills" to make us stomach the b.s. they are throwing at us?
   I am a skeptic and as in any good murder mystery I want to know motive, who profits?  I follow the money.  Why does someone want my vote?
   My "idea for government" would be anonymous.  All Bills before Congress would be without a name.
All speeches would be without a speaker.  Ideas would be presented without tags or labels.  We wouldn't know.  We wouldn't know whether it be a Republican Idea nor one from a Democrat, not even a "Teabagger" nor an Independent.  We wouldn't know who gave the speech, could be Obama, could be Sarah Palin?  Could be anybody?
   That would cause more work for us.  We would have to listen.  We might have to read!  But the article would not have an author!  Anonymous.  We might have to actually think!

Wall Street Protests

I wonder whether anyone listens to anything any more?  How Loud do we have to be?  The World is laughing at our political system, once admired and the envy of  all nations.  The Republicans have sworn an oath, not to do what is best for this country, but to thwart Obama at any cost.  Barely a year from another election, they will do nothing that might make him look good.  In fact, if they can blame it on our President, they will pull this country much further down this slippery slop we find ourselves on.  That is their plan.
   Rich people do Not pay their fair share of taxes.  They pay 15% after every slimy deduction while a working person pays closer to 35%  Over 60% of Americans think this isn't right and I suspect the other 40% just aren't thinking at all.
   The top 2% of Americans are getting richer and richer in these troubled times.  It is not hard working people who are buying newly foreclosed houses.  It is giant real estate corporations, the wealthy getting wealthier, taking advantage of tough times.  Corporations are not creating jobs; their net value has increased 15% as the rest of us suffer.  They are sitting on over One Trillion Dollars, cash reserves building up and up.
Living wages are disappearing and we are supposed to be grateful for $10 an hour with no benefits, no insurance.
   We don't feel as though we are "all in this together", fighting a common enemy, all willing to sacrifice equally, all willing to work harder to get us back to a firmer ground.  We don't feel this way because it is not this way.  It is some other way and we know it.
   Congress is so broken it is pathetic.  Conflicting goals:  destroy Obama or help America?  They have given up on attempting to achieve some kind of equal taxation where we might all pay the same rate.  They can't even get a bill through to tax money OVER A MILLION DOLLARS at a mere 5%.  That single thing alone would raise 450 Billion Dollars, the price tag on the Jobs Program to kick start our economy.
   It is nuts.  We are all at a card table and we are all playing different games!  No wonder nothing gets done!
   So, for now, we will protest peacefully.  We will camp out at Wall Street and financial institutions all across American.  When more and more and more people are working for $10 an hour and the richest people are sitting on over a Trillion Dollars and getting rich beyond our ability to count and NOT paying taxes on their money, something is wrong.
   This is not Robin Hood.  It is not taking from the rich and giving to the poor.  I am not after that.  Only an equal playing field, all at the table and all playing the same game and all of the cards on the table.
   There has never been a better time to rebuild our infrastructure, repair our roads and bridges.  We need it
and we have the people to do it.  It would be far simpler to fix this economy if we wanted to. But that might not really be the agenda, huh?

My art stuff is HERE