Archive | July, 2012

Our Gardenbrain Economy – NYTimes.com

11 Jul

YES! The economy’s a garden, not a machine. It must be tended, not cranked. Right now the cranks are ruling the country and they’re making a mess of it!

What we require now is a new framework for thinking and talking about the economy, grounded in modern understandings of how things actually work. Economies, as social scientists now understand, aren’t simple, linear and predictable, but complex, nonlinear and ecosystemic. An economy isn’t a machine; it’s a garden. It can be fruitful if well tended, but will be overrun by noxious weeds if not.

In this new framework, which we call Gardenbrain, markets are not perfectly efficient but can be effective if well managed. Where Machinebrain posits that it’s every man for himself, Gardenbrain recognizes that we’re all better off when we’re all better off.

via Our Gardenbrain Economy – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , ,

Tim Morton: Beyond Apocalypse

11 Jul

From Timothy Morton. The Ecological Thought. Harvard UP 2010, p. 19:

The ecological thought must transcend the language of apocalypse. It’s ironic that we can imagine the collapse of the Antarctic ice shelves more readily than we can the collapse of the banking system—and despite this, amazingly, as this book was written, the banking system did collapse. The ecological thought must imagine economic change; otherwise it’s just another piece on the game board of capitalist ideology. The boring, rapacious reality we have constructed, with its familiar, furious, yet ultimately state whirl, isn’t the final state of history. The ecological society to come will be much more pleasurable, far more sociable, and ever so much more reasonable than we imagine.

Yes. By all means, transcend apocalypse, transcend capitalism. The future CAN be better.

At the same time I want to imagine the worst. Climate change: Whooossshhhhh and crunch. Billions will suffer and die. Humans, but not only humans. Other flora and fauna as well. Trillions upon trillions.

We humans may well climate-change ourselves to extinction. But the earth will survive. Life will survive. And thrive. Not the same life that was here a billion years ago, a million years, ten-thousand, one-hundred, yesterday. But life will go on, and flourish, without us. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Let’s Draft Our Kids – NYTimes.com

11 Jul

An interesting proposal. But I’d like it better if it was coupled with a commitment to NO MORE WAR.

A revived draft, including both males and females, should include three options for new conscripts coming out of high school. Some could choose 18 months of military service with low pay but excellent post-service benefits, including free college tuition. These conscripts would not be deployed but could perform tasks currently outsourced at great cost to the Pentagon: paperwork, painting barracks, mowing lawns, driving generals around, and generally doing lower-skills tasks so professional soldiers don’t have to. If they want to stay, they could move into the professional force and receive weapons training, higher pay and better benefits.

That is, the fighting would be done by those who volunteer to do it.

Those who don’t want to serve in the army could perform civilian national service for a slightly longer period and equally low pay — teaching in low-income areas, cleaning parks, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, or aiding the elderly. After two years, they would receive similar benefits like tuition aid.

And libertarians who object to a draft could opt out. Those who declined to help Uncle Sam would in return pledge to ask nothing from him — no Medicare, no subsidized college loans and no mortgage guarantees. Those who want minimal government can have it.

via Let’s Draft Our Kids – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , ,

Tokyo’s Newborn Baby Panda Dies – Japan Real Time – WSJ

11 Jul

The birth on July 5 of the zoo’s first baby panda for 24 years and its progress during its first few days of life attracted broad news coverage in Japan.

National broadcaster NHK ran breaking news headlines over its normal programming to announce the birth, and death, of the cub, while newspapers gave daily updates on the cub’s milk intake and published front-page photos of Shin Shin cradling the pinkish newborn — weighing a mere 133 grams at birth.

Could it be that the Japanese, caught in the awful resonance of Fukushima, had pinned their hopes on this baby panda? Is the future that fragile?

via Tokyo’s Newborn Baby Panda Dies – Japan Real Time – WSJ.

Tags: , ,

Raccoons Chase, Attack Washington State Woman – NYTimes.com

11 Jul

LAKEWOOD, Wash. (AP) — A Washington state woman says she was attacked and bitten by raccoons after her dog chased several of the animals up a tree.

Send that raccoon to Washington, D.C. There’s some politicians there that need its most solicitous and gnawing attention. And check out Pom Poko, a great Studio Ghibli film in which raccoons–well, not raccoons, they’re tanuki, Japanese raccoon-like dogs)–rebel against the destruction of their land. They institute guerilla warfare against the humans.

It could happen here! 

Note: The tanuki are shape-shifters. Rumor has it that Occupy Wall Street was started by tanuki.

via Raccoons Chase, Attack Washington State Woman – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , , , , ,

Congress’ new bank outrage – Salon.com

10 Jul

Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are expressing dismay. On Monday, San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank president John Williams acknowledged, reported Reuters, that Barclays’ behavior had eroded confidence in the integrity of the banking system. Which is bad news, he said, because “trust is absolutely critical to conduct any type of business.”

Come on. After what we’ve witnessed and learned in the last five years, is there anyone who still trusts the integrity of the global banking system? The great Greek cynic Diogenes had a significantly better chance of finding an honest man than we do today of locating someone with confidence in the premise that bankers get up in the morning every day determined to do the right thing by their customers and the larger economy. The evidence is overwhelming.

Robert Reich wonders whether “the unfolding Libor scandal will provide enough ammunition and energy to finally get the job [of breaking up the big banks] done.” The New York Times’ Joe Nocera expresses surprise that Americans don’t seem to be giving the debacle as much attention as the British, considering how fundamentally important it is, but hopes that as the scandal continues to unfold, increasing opportunities for outrage will encourage Americans to ” finally summon the will to change banking once and for all.” At Slate, Mathew Yglesias believes that the new revelations “should destroy the credibility of banks once and for all.”

To all three commentators, I can only say, have you looked at what our political system is currently doing with respect to bankers?

Giving them a “Get Out of Jail Free” card is what!

via Congress’ new bank outrage – Salon.com.

Tags:

‘When We Go Out, the Lights Go Out’: Workers Locked Out at Con Ed | The Nation

10 Jul

Hundreds of union members have descended on New York power utility Consolidated Edison’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan following the company’s decision to lock out 8,500 of its unionized workers in the midst of contract negotiations. Workers were sent home on July 1 after Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers Union refused to agree to give seven days’ notice before a strike. Only weeks after the debacle of the Wisconsin recall, and the subsequent consternation among many in the labor movement, it seems these boisterous union members missed the message that labor is on its way out.

About 500 union members, most of them from Local 1-2 but with contingents from SEIU Local 32BJ, CWA Local 1101 and TWU Local 100, among others, have been picketing outside Con Ed’s headquarters each day since the lockout began on July 1. Today, however, that number increased to more than a thousand, as Con Ed canceled healthcare coverage for Local 1-2 members as part of its effort to ramp up pressure on the union. Other pickets have been set up at Con Ed job sites around the region. The contract dispute centers on the fact that Con Ed wants to get rid of defined-benefit pensions and drastically increase union members’ healthcare contributions.

Lockouts have become increasingly common in recent years, as employers have become more and more proactive at trying to force givebacks on union members.

via ‘When We Go Out, the Lights Go Out’: Workers Locked Out at Con Ed | The Nation.

Tags: , , , ,

By Dumping on Mitt, Is the GOP Making a Steal Plausible? | The Nation

10 Jul

It’s actually good, from a Republican point of view, that party powers like Rupert Murdoch, his Wall Street Journal and Bill Kristol are piling on Mitt Romney as a lousy candidate now, in July. And not just because it gives Romney a chance to shake up his campaign and satisfy his overlords’ demands over the summer. (He’s already begun.) But by squeezing him through the Adjustment Bureau now, the top GOPers can, by November, sing another tune: Romney is a plausible candidate, he can beat Obama. That way, if he “wins” with the help of massive voter suppression, it won’t seem so much like they’ve stolen the election.

I’m not saying Romney can’t win fair and square; sure, he could, especially if the economy spirals downward. But the Republicans won’t risk giving fair-and-square a chance. This is playing out most nakedly in Pennsylvania, where Obama is up over Romney by a Real Clear Politics average of eight points. No problem, says state House majority leader Mike Turzai. In tallying up the party’s achievements last month, he brayed, “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

That’s no idle boast. As the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote yesterday, “More than 758,000 registered voters in Pennsylvania do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department, putting their voting rights at risk in the November election, according to data released Tuesday by state election officials.”

via By Dumping on Mitt, Is the GOP Making a Steal Plausible? | The Nation.

Tags: , , ,

To Achieve Work-Family Balance, Americans Have to Work Less | The Nation

10 Jul

It seems the summer heat is making us think about how to escape work. Tim Kreider’s New York Timesop-ed on our overly busy lives made a huge splash, while Mitt Romney himself came out sort of for vacations for all. Meanwhile, the controversy continues to swirl over Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article about why women “can’t have it all,” meaning that they still struggle to balance family and career. What do these topics have to do with each other? Everything. If we truly want improved work-family balance for American families—mothers and fathers alike—then we have to address the fact that Americans are overworked. We have to work less. Period.

We work too long, for too little, and don’t have time for nurturing one another.

via To Achieve Work-Family Balance, Americans Have to Work Less | The Nation.

Tags: ,

Work Less, Live Better

9 Jul

The single most important thing we can do to reduce our ecological footprint is

Work less
Consume less
Produce less
And live more

Ninety percent of all the junk that we make ends up in land fills just six weeks after it’s been made. We’ve become a world of landfill fillers.

–Conrad Schmidt, Work Less Party

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →