Filed under the heading: “Would be funnier if it weren’t so tragic,” or “One reaps what one sows.”
What we’ve sown is a terrible public educational system that, due to underfunding, is getting worse each year.
What we’re reaping is Trumpism, semi-illiteracy, white nationalism, street crime and mass incarceration, drug addiction, QAnon believers, and lack of preparedness to compete in the international marketplace.
From this: “Rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were people that love this country, that (sic) truly respect law enforcement. I might have been concerned if they were Black Lives Matter or Antifa protesters.” – Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI)I don’t see how much worse it can get. More than 300 arrested, 5 dead, including three members of law enforcement. Johnson unconcerned, since they’re white “patriots.”
Here we have Bill Gates discussing nuclear power, pointing out that it’s safer than oil, coal, natural gas–and, of course that it’s a requirement if our civilization is to mitigate climate change successfully, insofar as it emits zero carbon.
So good to see this. It is true that most environmentalists are anti-nuclear, but that’s because their misinformed.
Advanced nuclear, e.g., the fission of thorium or the aneutronic fusion of hydrogen and boron, will take all this to a new level, one in which there will be no more dangerous waste.
It’s ironic that part of the QAnon belief system is that billionaire philanthropist, technologist and climate change evangelist Bill Gates is working towards the goal of the enslavement of human society, via the use of microchips. It’s a great example of the old adage, “no good deed goes unpunished.”
As Connecticut senator Chris Murphy points out here, there is a moral issue at stake here.
But, if nothing else, this will be a very interesting experiment in macroeconomics. The neoliberalism that has defined the United States for the last 40 years has resulted in an obscene increase of wealth for the top 1%, even more so for the top 0.1%. What happens to all this money? Well, some of it buys yachts, but most of it goes into stock and bond portfolios, many of them offshore, where it stays, generation after generation.
OK, so what happens when $1.9 trillion goes into the hands of people whose net worth is less than, say, $250K? It’s spent, more or less immediately, into groceries, clothing, rent, car payments, and restaurants. Now it’s in the hands of grocery store owners, restaurateurs, etc., soon to be spent somewhere else.
We’ll soon see what a high velocity of money does to an economy that has been stagnant for the common American for the last four decades.
The American education system continues to decay, and the horrific results are all around us. Trumpism. Job openings going unfilled due to lack of skilled labor. Gun nuts. White nationalism.
Those older than perhaps 50 remember a time before music was removed from public school curricula. The tragedy here is that music is so much more than signing or playing an instrument. Music is art, it’s math, it’s science, it’s social studies, and it’s history.
Readers who happen to be musicians will get some good chuckles out of the list of new musical terms here. A few of my own:
Craig Shields: I think this is a more complicated subject, personally.Carol Heesch: NO. IT. ISN’T.
Caroline Lindley: Craig, yes, please explain the complicated part.
Here’s why I haven’t been in a Walmart for the last 20+ years.
It’s bad enough that the Walton family pays its employees slave wages; it’s even worse that you and I are subsidizing the Walton payroll so its people don’t starve.
Let’s give credit where it’s due: Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has no reservation about making the most outrageous and indefensible comments in his nightly presentation of his version of the news.
In his endless quest to paint the worst possible picture of Joe Biden, Carlson told his adoring audience that the U.S. President is trying to make the military “more feminine,” and is “making a mockery of the U.S. military,” to the wrath of the 198,432 active duty women (14.4% of the 1,417,370 total) and, especially, to the generals who operate the armed forces.
These Fox News people live in an alternative universe, one known, famously, for its “alternative facts.” As always, their existence is a function of a basic truth of human civilization: if there is a demand for something, good, bad, or indifferent, a market will arise to supply it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cure for a dread disease, pretzels, or heroin.
As long as there are people who couldn’t care less about the truth as long as it slams Democrats, there will be the Tucker Carlsons, Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs and Alex Joneses of our sad world.
Here’s an article that describes how natural gas fracking could be Argentina’s ticket out of a years-long economic crisis, but it jeopardizes a promise to wipe out emissions by 2050. It begins:
President Alberto Fernandez took to a makeshift stage in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale deposit in October to announce the nation was doubling down on fossil fuels. “Today we are relaunching the oil and gas economy,” he declared, starting with $5 billion of government subsidies. (more…)
Is trillion-dollar public spending a good idea? That’s arguable.
If we’re going ahead with it, should that money go to those who need it most and will spend it immediately, thus stimulating the economy? That’s irrefutable.
See graphic below.
