An Economic blog

a good audience is a rare find.

“Now what can this possibly have to do with economics?”       

says the short haired glassed eyed girl as she looks up from her blackberry…

Trauma Farm

a)

“keep their head up…

grab the opposite leg and flip’em…”

says the farmer  

a little pain i imagine 

when the pin goes through her ear…

    grab the next one …

wrestle her into position…

b)                                                                                                        

six were destined for slaughter

           (but only three got to go)

                 the ramp we built was a disaster…

                       we had beer, could smoke and it snowed.

 

Economics Again

even a person who has worked only a few days on a farm can see the effort expended to produce and feed maybe 10 or 20 people is awed at the capacity of our food industry to feed the six billion and growing population.

Food security  is a tangible issue…again we in the first world would have to  curtail our consumption enormously for their to be a future beyond a few centuries…

i know i hear the screams…even sooner… but

a) there will be a technological solution,

b) we’ll discover a new planet

c) we can eat the internet

d)the age of Aquarius is dawning                                                 

on this rich island of 15000 which is quasi known for its farming they only produce 10% of the food they consume…the other ninety per cent is shipped in…the middle east is exploding…the Canadian economy was better than expected…exports jumped 5%.

the post modernist feeds his budgies                                                                   in a disturbed 100 year old rain forest.

In a document titled "The WikiLeaks Threat" three data intelligence companies, Plantir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies, outline a plan to attack Wikileaks. They are acting upon request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm working for Bank of America. The Department of Justice recommended the law firm to Bank of America according to an article in The Tech Herald. The prosed attacks on WikiLeaks according to the slides include these actions:

• Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. Disinformation. Create messages around actions of sabotage or discredit the opposing organizations. Submit fake documents and then call out the error.
• Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed not to be secure they are done.
• Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward.
• Media campaign to push the radial and reckless nature of WikiLeaks activities. Sustain pressure. Does nothing for the fanatics, but creates concern and doubt among moderates.
• Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees.

A Religious Blog

Tolstoy believed that “progress” was a myth

yet the natural sciences appear to be cumulative. 

In  the arts do we see an evolutionary nature?

Has any author transcended? 

Is poetry better today than it was 70 years  ago?  is music?                                are the visual arts improved?

is  film the most effective medium for artistic expression? or the easiest?  

             i say the arts are dead…

                      suffocated in intellectual ghettoes by soft bodied poseurs…who long ago started towing a party line.    

….

As long as there are humans there will be creativity…

but the arts as a honorable institution was sold down the river long ago.

In Case You Were Wondering

In this era of metrics and commoditization an insensitive person looks to  efficiency and is rewarded immensely.

The blunt stupidity of most rich people should come as no surprise.   

how can i do this better?

which is not a particularly useful question in the practice of a creative endeavor where the final result is not a forgone conclusion nor particularly concerned with your self interest.

              

“Beyonce” sings for a million dollars for the son of Kaddafi. 

 

The artist looks for grants, fame and recognition as an initial impulse                                the self professed cutting edge of liberal democracy has failed…                                                                                                         

the worst system prevails yet the slow movement of time persists.

            

Barack Obama awards Maya Angelou the Medal of Freedom…it is still good.

Freelance Friday

Is there a direction to history

or is it in fits and starts

over periods of time                                                                                             that are too vast for our comprehension?    rabbit…

oh well on to cheery things… on a sunny Friday morning on the west coast of a small country, which is thankfully cool, at minus a couple…

a writer whom i have been exchanging criticism for work has told me my writing is racist to which i agreed  not in a manifest destiny kind of way…just an acknowledgement that their are cultural differences as the sociology professors mumble…

my editor accuses me of sexualizing my characters

and an old friend says over the last year i have become more and more arrogant…

“energetically i feel…”

is the beginning of a sentence

that can go no where                                                                                                                                                 but to

an interpretation

which will be based on an ideology                                                                                                                                   which ties in nicely with consumerism        which at a frivolous level is the attempt to make the first person feel good…

we all have holes to fill…to bad yachts don’t fill them…

Hegel and I

pride, shame and lust say i

pride, shame and the need for recognition says Hegel

through lust one is recognized? or perhaps love is too obvious

tantra…

the erotic union

of emptiness and form…

 

yes the trees are alive…

birds    

the birds are hungry

so i empty their dish of shells

and put it back empty

which confuses them to no end…I surmise

they keep looking in my direction

and chirping…

geopolitical

from what i can gather there is a toppling of the far right (totalitarianism) in the Middle East in 2011

which is similar to the fall of communism, (the far left)

starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall which was in 1989 for my young readers…so for you history buffs the far left fell before the far right…

which means a dictator is a more effective…if people are educated in a liberal democracy,  a liberal democracy looks more inviting than unelected central governments…

it seems the best we can do is pretend that we have elections that are democratic to support a central government who control our lives…we are being treated as children…a Greek god would argue…

the rest pessimistically see little merit in human nature…

except the elite who see much merit in their obscene accumulation…some how they justify their existence too gods which in the sense of privilege they are… 

The Elite

the 14 million families who own most of it

(in the face of 7 billion this is not a lot

14,000,000 divided by 7,000,0000,000

is .2% of the population)

 

as the mad French writer Bataille notes, 

“I believe that truth has only one face: that of violent contradiction.” 

             it’s all good…             

Thursday

I am well and living for a few months on the gulf islands which is easier than saying Salt Spring which is basically a rich enclave; full of fake spiritualists at best and at worst, just oblivious pigs.

Just read the last chapter in “The End of History” by Fukuyama and on page 347 he talks about four possible hurdles to his “optimistic evolutionary scenario.” Read the book it is a  masterpiece whether you agree or disagree but his argument is simple and backed up…

i was struck by the similarities between his outlook and those of the new agers…both believe in some sort of higher power guiding us through (this mess) in a way for the good…a happy ending…this is a Hegelian approach and undoubtedly religious…this view has been used to reinforce a democratic capitalism in the west…

of course one of Fukuyama’s hurdles is Islam…

which does not lend itself so easy to consumerism…

but in the west we’re all little gods so our spirit is being appeased…

do what you love…

buy what you like…

make yourself happy…become an ultra high rich individual.

Nietzsche believed that a few great men have shaped history and i would say undoubtedly that Hitler was shaped by this view…he wanted to be great…first as an artist then as a later Napoleon…which was more conducive with his times…perhaps Nietzsche hypothesis became self fulfilling…

Great men or an evolutionary spirit?

in fits and starts or is history determined?    

Nietzsche would argue men can become gods by sheer strength of will like football players in the NFL…

and a few elites are born into circumstance where this can occur…manifested AS THE ULTRA HIGH NETWORTH INDIVIDUAL…+$50,000,000…who not only take a large slice of the economic pie but now it is trendy and tax wise to have foundations that will also direct our arts and charities…of course of there choosing…they are shaping the planet…a few people shaping the planet is Nietzschean.

To help spirit along the Hegelians meditate, pray, do yoga, free up emotional baggage and basically practice hedonism to realize their spiritual aspirations…which of course is nothing short of enlightenment…

(one so called “guru” desperately wanted to replace oprah (no lie) so he could spread his message)

the more people who become enlightened and can see what is “really” going on the better the chance for the transformational shift that is going to happen and spring us all into the age of Aquarius where we all smoke weed and enjoy nature and ourselves…

but very few by definition become enlightened and it is only though their will that this can occur which sounds a little Nietzschean…

it’s all about the power says Foucault and i go along with Robert Payne who argues its all about Hubris who is the God to keep things interesting…

who said the planet gets to live forever and why are so many people trying to save her?

…not the Muslims…

be nice to life.            

An Economic Blog

Inflation

has come, energy, food, telephone and the internet are all getting more expensive…this is a result of money being printed…in all first world countries

and because of the weak labour movement wages have actually declined…in above mentioned first world countries…but we’re not hungry

                   (at least you have a job                                                                    the unemployed shout from the sidelines…)

Costco  

A beautiful woman from Shanghai exclaims the prices are cheaper here than they are in China as i throw 12 pairs of socks priced at under $14 into the cart…or maybe it was just half a dozen.

Bought a few things and returned to a woodstove where i was amazed to see the energy released in the burning of the packaging…                                            when cheap energy ends…

The City

Vancouver has a large number of Chinese and Russians and the system appears to be working.

Public transport is operational, food is abundant, the vast majority have a roof

over their heads…

public health and education are  viable…

the community centers and libraries remain open                                                                                                       and universities are affordable…

There is lots of opportunity to shop and entertain oneself…

Freelance Friday

A Welsh poet wrote:

egoism 

narcissism…fathers, overlords…religion

                             reason for being…

an intellectual justification

commits suicide

to explain our predicament

 

a systemic failure

an individual achievement

 

“as the games get better

the times get worse…”

 

the testaments we hold dear

                       philosophy, poetry and music

slip into the abyss. 

some one else:

There are no large comprehensive statements, but as the philosophers have told us, poetry makes no statements anyway.

                                                         Statements,

                                               Nichol will tell us later,

                                             are what the state meant.

An Economic Blog

 

 

 

 

freelance friday

 

ummm…

i could go on and on

about the problems in the world…

and lots of people are doing that…

 

the waste of capitalism

people complaining about

what it is they are

exaggerated in global warming 

 

we have all heard

of the man or woman

who wants to leave

but won’t/can’t … doesn’t …

                                             complain complain complain

 

the problem is structural not personal

don’t worry…

there is no time

hey the stars still hang in all the right places…    

Wednesday

 

farm

i dug a ditch

and the chickens

ate the worms

 

rumor has it

we are sustained

by

our earth

our air

and

our water.

 

(orporations not farmers

control the food supply…)

and so on

"The American loves speed, and that is the secret behind the alliance between American policy and dictatorships, but what it gains quickly, it loses quicker, for America ) despite its love for speed -

is in the habit of missing the train, but then it notices and it runs after the train, it even buys a car especially for that purpose, but that does not help, so it buys a plane, and just like that it pays the price of the train doubled!”

“Maybe America gains a lot when it exports to us arms and cars or planes, but it loses more when it does not export the best that its civilization has produced which is ’Freedom and Democracy and Human Rights.’ The value of America is that it should defend this product, not only in its country but throughout the world!

It may harm some of its interests, but it will make gains that will live hundreds of years, for the friendship of peoples live forever, because the peoples do not die, but governments change like the winter weather.”

Tuesday

On a Piece of Land

Moved bales of hay…

                         not too heavy.

Moved a trailer

saw stars…it was heavy…

the owner bought beer

took home a case…

 

CBC

internet providers are charging

in the cabin i am on a limited plan                                                                  exceed that number you pay extra…

tapping in to more…

 

the medium is the message…

telephone is one thing 

the internet  is more

                       100% of young people,

dependent on the channels

controlled

by corporations

or government…

 

Canadian politics

more and more attack ads

and things are heating up

in Alberta