Ship’s Log Day 3

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Given the weather, one may as well be on the 40th parallel (every stop from Denver to Philadelphia). The temperature lingers between 30°F and 34°F. Rain is spotty, ranging from mist to deluge. As we gain altitude, the rain turns to heavy snow. Fortunately, we visited a chandlery before we left – a nice lunch is onboard as we hold the lay line.

Flagstaff AZ is a waypoint about midday. Flagstaff is buried under a foot of snow with another 8 inches predicted today. Fortunately, Flagstaff is our bearing to change our course to the southwest for the final leg to Phoenix.

The terrain is a series of mountain ridges slowly dropping in altitude. Eventually an occasional palm tree can be spotted and the landscape fills with Saguaro cactus and other interesting desert plants. Sailing into Phoenix, an overnight motel is welcome. Docked 18:00 hours local time.

Ship’s Log Day 4

A cold wind blows through Phoenix; the temperature hovers around 45°F with light rain. The mariner’s first thought is that Phoenix (a) is too far to travel for a temperature increase of 15°F above that in Iowa. (b) Phoenix is a large, overgrown city with poor commercial zoning and a monolithic housing architecture. It is not the warm idyllic retreat the mariner had in mind. However, he will refrain from final judgment; mariner and his wife look forward to greeting their children and their partners – Altogether, a rare event.
It is likely mariner will depart Phoenix following the Mexican border into Southern Texas in search of a bone warming retreat.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Cruising the Southwest

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The mariner and his first mate are cruising toward Albuquerque, our second port. We are passing through the Texas Panhandle. Hour after hour, there is no sign of human life, no notable elevations other than some that remind the mariner of ocean swells. There is nothing to do except hold the lay line. As time rolls by, one becomes aware that the Panhandle has permanence – a stillness. It is a forgotten land while the rest of the world sails into an unknown future.

Suddenly, a very tall structure looms on the horizon. Quickly, one discovers it is a giant Christian Cross. It stands easily 120 feet tall – a proselytizing presence by itself. Mariner has a new understanding for the gargantuan, hyperbolic nature of the divine symbols of kings and gods typical of the ancient Abyssinian, Babylonian and Egyptian religions. Perhaps that is a weakness in Islamic and Christian religions today: their God denies images – let alone 120-foot images.

We cruise into New Mexican waters. The deserts seem more amenable to sharing with humanity – though barely. Occasionally, there are signs of managed fields and abandoned wooden huts. A new phenomenon occurs called a mesa. The mesa fires the imagination of travelers, realizing that, at the top of these flat, seemingly displaced forms, was the bottom of a body of water large enough to be a small ocean.

Before that, though, it was a mountainous region that collapsed when tectonic activity drew away the deep magma. The land we cross today is older than the Rocky Mountains – 80 million years old. The mesas resist erosion longer than surrounding surfaces, sustaining a fascinating, somehow historically obligated role to remind humans that they are indeed a short term renter of Earth’s sphere.

The mariner sails into an expected front of rain and snow that will encompass us all the way to Albuquerque. Hold the lay line.

Ancient Mariner

 

Travel may be Broadening but it’s also Different

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Ship’s Log Day 1

In his newly acquired vessel, a van of recent vintage, the mariner set sail for Phoenix, Arizona, USA. When his first mate took the helm, he decided to lounge luxuriously aft in the Captain’s quarters. Opening his laptop to write to his readers – note the mariner’s skill at hitting both the right key and only the right key is already challenged – typing while moving has a fail rate approaching 75%. It is wise that programmers have provided voice-driven software. Now, if the mariner can reduce road noise enough for the software to hear his voice, things will be fine. Another tip for typing while moving is to turn off the mouse and use the inboard pad; all the mouse wants to do is escape.

The first day’s course is set for Oklahoma City; it involves foregoing the fastest course, due south, to avoid rain and flooding. At Leon, IA, we changed bearing to southwest; without incident docked in Oklahoma City 20:30 hours. 

Ship’s log Day 2

In the morning, as we ate our free breakfast, we encountered the first sign that we were traveling in foreign waters: the restaurant TV is on FOX channel. Regular readers know the mariner, on occasion, is not wholly conservative. Nevertheless, he considers himself a tolerant soul. It’s simply that he is unaccustomed to traveling abroad. Things are different.

The first impression, as we sail further into Southwest waters, is the tone of the media – not just TV but newspapers and advertising. Conversation, too, is less tolerant – or perhaps more judgmental about unaccustomed topics. It makes mariner think about chicken and egg relationships: what came first, the media or the people? Thinking about it, the people came first but what sustains public opinion? Would folks anywhere have more thoughtful opinions if the media didn’t harp on headline grabbing interpretations that induce separatism as a way of life? The mariner decides the same undue influence is universal but different in each region.

Since communication corporations decided that news is also a profit center and not just a public service, the public has been abused in its desire to know just the facts, ma’am. News departments are now required to obtain market share; not only does the public not receive important but unentertaining news, it receives altered news focused on market share at the cost of encouraging close-mindedness. It is not hard to know why there will never be another Ed Murrow, Walter Cronkite or Huntley-Brinkley.

It is time for the mariner to take a turn at the helm. Today our course takes us to the port of Albuquerque.

Ancient Mariner

 

The Western States – Independence versus Federal Management

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Everyone who follows the reality of our times is aware of the complex priorities surrounding the nurturing of the Earth and its biosphere. The priorities range from global issues like chemical contaminants that destroy the ozone layer and the destructive effects of excessive Carbon on the environment, to more political and philosophical issues like international agreements to slow Carbon discharge and whether the Federal Government has the right to own and manage land in behalf of a balanced biome in the western states of the US. To understand the scope of this issue, the Federal Government owns fifty percent of the land in eleven western states; Federal Government owns over fifty percent of Nevada land – the State where Cliven Bundy took issue with the Federal Government over his “right to use Nevada’s land.”

This last issue, an argument today about the right of a national government to seize and hold land in behalf of a larger objective, provides an unusually clear dialogue about a person’s right to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness versus global values required to sustain human wellbeing in a global context. Right now, a test case is playing out – regarding the Cliven and Ammon Bundy confrontations with the Federal Government over the right to use Federally preserved property for farming and other private enterprises and, in Ammon’s case, the right of the Federal Government’s justice system to prosecute individuals for abusing “Government property.”

Beside the conflict between private enterprise and Federal control, this case provides a clear picture of the cultural shift in Federal objectives over time. Originally, very large sections of land were acquired by the Federal Government to assure that it would not be divided into disorganized uses that would prevent using the land for its natural resources, primarily lumber and grazing. The original intent, as the west became settled, was to sell off the Federal land in large acreages to private owners who would continue to pursue renewable practices for lumber and grazing. Later, around 1880-1890, there was a fear that private enterprise would strip the western resources of a ready supply of wood – as important then as oil is today – that would lead the nation into a natural resource crisis. As a result of this concern, the Federal Government’s attitude toward a sell-off faded.

In 1947, the Federal Government created The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) – the agency that attempted to seize Cliven Bundy’s cattle in 2014. The BLM is tasked with multiple and different interests, many of which conflict with each other. Objectives managed by the BLM include commodity production, grazing, recreation, ecological functioning, endangered species habitats, and revenue.

Fed Land west

In Cliven Bundy’s case, he refused to honor the rights of the Federal Government as owners of the land where he grazed his cattle and never paid over one million dollars in fees for the right to graze there. Fees began in 1993 when the BLM moved to reduce grazing to protect the endangered Desert Tortoise. When the BLM began removing cattle to be auctioned to pay overdue fees, the situation became an armed standoff as militant groups arrived ready to defend Bundy with weapons if necessary. BLM did not want this kind of escalation so they withdrew. Currently, the BLM plans to move through the Federal Court system. This is a slow process. The Bundy family, including Ammon, who is leading a takeover of a firehouse in Oregon, feels they won in Nevada and plan to expand their resistance as opportunities arise.

However, the case has much broader ramifications than a family feud with the Federal Government. Does the Federal Government have the right not only to seize and manage property, but to threaten citizens/businesses with confiscation of property if they fail to comply with Federal regulations? Substitute cap and trade for coal burning companies; can the Federal Government enforce environmental policy with the threat of a takeover? Hugo Chavez thought so when he nationalized Venezuela’s oil industry. Can the Federal Government take over power companies like Duke Electric in Georgia because of blatant and severely damaging abuse to local water resources? Can the Federal Government stop production of automobiles outright if Carbon standards and miles per gallon are in violation of Federal regulations? There are several precedents for government takeover in one form or another; remember prohibition? Remember the Keystone pipeline?

The Bundys have turned over a huge rock! The mariner suspects our capitalist-dominant culture is not ready for this much governmental authority. Nevertheless, science and technology are defining a path that leads to catastrophic disruption of Earth’s biome within a comparatively short time.

Who can make unbiased – and enforceable – decisions in this increasingly chaotic situation?

Ancient Mariner

Data is Free – Insight, Logic and Deduction is Not

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Occasionally, a reader may comment to the mariner that he must know a lot to be able to post so frequently and about so many different subjects. That is a nice compliment but the truth is the Internet is only a click away; the Internet has not failed mariner in providing voluminous detail about even the most arcane and obscure subject. The reader’s compliment should go to the Internet.

A common term is that we live in the information age. This is true. As Ed McMahon used to say, “The [Internet] has everything a person would ever want to know….” If all human data were on paper, as it used to be, we would be living between mountainous hills of paper that would put an old fashioned dump to shame. The amount of electronic information collected today has outpaced the places to store it. Here is a quote from Economist Magazine:

“Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, predicts that the job of statistician will become the “sexiest” around. Data, he explains, are widely available; what is scarce is the ability to extract wisdom from them.” (Note that mariner did not know this quote until he looked for related information on the Internet. Incidentally, the whole article will explain more about information than mariner chooses to cover in this post – thanks to Economist Magazine online – a magazine mariner recommends for every household coffee table. See:

http://www.economist.com/node/15557443 ).

Not too long ago, the best search engine was a sharp reference librarian at the local library. Sometimes, customers had to wait a week or more if the information were complex or obfuscated or had to be retrieved by inter-library loan. The function of a reference librarian still is needed but more at assisting with the relationship between subjects and sorting and the data that may link the subjects together. When a strategy has been mapped, everyone goes over to the Supreme Master and God of Reference – the computer and the Internet.

Traditionally, one would marvel at memory gurus, people with photographic memories and lots of education. Now, one can still marvel – would we all be blessed with photographic memory – but the Internet is a classic example of cybernetic symbiosis. Anyone can collect large amounts of data in a dozen different ways without having to memorize the data; the Internet memorizes data for us. What is difficult is the ability to know what specific data one needs and how that data can be used to achieve the goal; further, how does one draw meaning from raw data?

Just having a ton of data in a database does not make one knowledgeable or more functional. Even if one could memorize the entire table of data, it would be of no use unless one can process the data properly. The simplified steps for leveraging our symbiotic relationship are:

  1. Why do you need data? This step assures that you have a specific need that requires data. This step sharpens focus; identifies the topic, subject, or problem that will be resolved.
  2. What don’t you know that would be known if you had specific data? This step clarifies data element requirements.
  3. At the end, what objective will be resolved? This step uses answers to the first 2 steps and often is the source of the query posted with your search engine.

In the information age, there is plenty of data. What does it imply? Which data is important to provide the values for many different types of decisions? How does one invent ancillary data to augment the data table? We may be able to generate enough data to match the number of grains of sand on the planet but if we don’t know the definition of ‘beach,’ all the sand in the world is useless.

Responding again to the compliment at the beginning, mariner knows little about where data comes from; what mariner contributes is the question and subsequent reasoning. Once having the data to support comparative reasoning, the mariner will offer the reader his reasoning of the objective.

REFERENCE SECTION

Religion – While scanning the news of the day, mariner came across some interesting issues. An article in the Denver Post covered a labor dispute between Muslims and Cargill. The Muslims walked off the job and were subsequently fired because eleven wanted to pray together. What the mariner found interesting is that this situation is quite similar to that of Kim Davis, the county clerk who went to jail rather than approve homosexual marriage licenses. In both cases, workers chose religious principles over economic opportunity. See:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29330180/cargill-tried-resolve-issues-before-firing-colorado-muslim

Other religious news is a poll taken by the Christian Science Monitor on the issue of freedom of religion (protected by the First Amendment). The poll says 82% of Americans believe it is important for Christianity to practice freely but only 61% say the same is true for Islam – an oxymoron it seems to mariner. See:

http://www.csmonitor.com/

Ancient Mariner

A Short Reminiscence

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In a day or so, the mariner and his family are gathering in Phoenix for a vacation get together. Mariner and his wife are escaping the harsh winter of the plains while offspring are gathering for celebrations of various sorts. It is a time to relax in a blissful place – mentally, spiritually and physically.

So today, there will be no complaining, no panicking, and no passing of judgment. A forgotten object in a corner of a dusty bookshelf on the second floor landing has called up memories of a unique character in mariner’s life – his father-in-law.

He went by the name “Bos” (Boz) and owned the town’s hardware store for 50 years, finally retiring at the age of 81. Bos had a quirky sense of humor that entertained folks across the entire county. One of the mariner’s favorites goes as follows:

Around Christmas, Bos placed a galvanized bucket with a barren tree branch resting in it on a prominent spot on the counter. From one of the twigs on the branch, he tied a string; at the bottom of the string hung a bullet. Bos would sit back and, like a cat eager to pounce, watch customers come in, see the bucket, branch and bullet and ask, “What is that, Bos?” With great delight in the moment, he would say, “That’s my cartridge in a bare tree.”

Back in the sixties, when we all were younger, Bos played golf once a week like clockwork with three cronies. The foursome was a sorry lot as far as scores were concerned but the keen game for them was to be the first to hole out so they could race off to the trash can at the next tee. The prize was soda cans redeemable for five cents. The winner of the round was the one with the most soda cans. Having the most cans was nice but Bos relished the nickel refunds, which, characteristically, he stored away in a multitude of cigar boxes, pouches and tins. When the Hunt brothers were buying all the silver they could to push up the price and make a profit, the price of silver skyrocketed enough that Bos gathered his silver dimes, cashed them in and bought a new Ford truck for cash. That was Bos.

This tight fisted nature was common among the oldies in the town. Bos was always holding up the foursome while he searched for golf balls lost by others. He boasted that he had never bought a ball in all his times on the links. Bos had five-gallon buckets full of all brands, new and old. Most of the balls had seen their day and with a mighty swing may have traveled 125 yards.

One day, we were sitting in the parlor after dinner. Bos was fiscally conservative and would not invest in the stock market. Most of his invested holdings were in EE Bonds. He mentioned that he had to find somewhere to reinvest the bonds because they were maturing. The mariner suggested rolling them over into HH Bonds tax free. Bos was reticent to believe the government would offer such a favor that evades taxes. Mariner reassured him it was so but Bos still did not believe it. The mariner bet him a new, store bought golf ball that it was true. Sure enough, the rollover could be done tax free.

The object found on the second floor landing was the only golf ball Bos ever bought BosBall-2enshrined on a wooden base with a bell jar cover. A brass plate reads, “ONLY NEW BALL BOS EVER BOUGHT – Cousin Reunion August 20,1981” The ball has a patina now but it still retains the fun and sport from 35 years ago.

Bos passed on in 2001. Folks who knew him still remember his quirky humor and how active he was in the life of their small Iowa town.

Ancient Mariner

The Big Race – 12-31

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For readers who don’t frequent bookie sites, the mariner provides today’s odds versus two weeks ago that a candidate will be elected President.

Two Weeks Ago     ————-     12-31-2015

Hillary Clinton 8/11 72% 8/11 72%
Marco Rubio 5/1 20% 11/2 18%
Donald Trump 8/1 12½% 8/1 12½%
Ted Cruz 12/1 8% 10/1 10%
Jeb Bush 22/1 4½% 22/1 4½%
Bernie Sanders 28/1 3½% 20/1 5%
Chris Christie 33/1 3% 33/1 3%
Ben Carson 200/1 ½% 200/1 ½%
John Kasich 200/1 ½% 250/1 2/5%
Rand Paul 200/1 ½% 200/1 ½%
Martin O’Malley 250/1 2/5% 250/1 2/5%
Mike Huckabee 250/1 2/5% 500/1 2/10%
Carley Fiorina 250/1 2/5% 500/1 2/10%

Despite a few dropping in odds and only Bernie improving a smidge to move ahead of Jeb, positions have not changed in two weeks. Of course, two weeks is not meaningful before the primaries and November. Still, bettors with money where their mouth is instead of a free pollster are settling in. Take into account the democrats have an edge in the Electoral College (1.8 votes – typically enough to win) and the race is Hillary’s to lose. Too bad the DNC deliberately hides their debates to avoid public exposure to Bernie. All’s fair in love, war, and politics.

To reiterate, as we enter the primary season, give some thought to the undercard, that is, the reader’s senators, representatives, state legislators, governors and mayors. Many states are so tightly bound by grotesquely gerrymandered voting districts that the winners can be predicted without voting. This is not a healthy sign for a democracy. Only nine states are swing states – worth 130 Electoral College votes. They are:

Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and New Hampshire. In the last election, Colorado was the state that brought it  home for the democratic candidate.

217 electoral votes are necessary to win the Presidential election. If the reader wants to track changes, a good site is: http://www.electoral-vote.com/ or http://www.bing.com/search?q=which+states+tossup+for+presidential+election&qs=n&form=QBLH&pq=which+states+tossup+for+presidential+election&sc=0-19&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=CC555DFBC2CF4D5F88AFB548D98F4E22

This is a very important election. The mariner strongly, strongly urges the reader to attend your caucus or primary. Then, especially strongly, vote in November.

Ancient Mariner

IMF Says Poor Economic Outlook

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The International Monetary Fund chair, Christine Lagarde, says global economy will be poor in 2016 citing among other things that the West has an ageing population. That, coupled with very low oil prices affecting oil producing nations and China struggling with its own economy, Lagarde suggests growth will be spotty at best.
Western nations, including the USA, should be willing to receive as many immigrants as possible from any source to balance their populations. Already, extremely conservative economists are predicting total economic failure in the US and predict that next year is the last year for Social Security (SS). This is not likely, of course, but we all know that the fund is in trouble for a variety of reasons including an ageing population.
Many financial structures within the nation’s discretionary spending group, most of which is SS followed by health, are in need of restructuring and refunding. Al Gore campaigned for President saying he would put SS funds in a black box not to be transferrable to other uses; this should have been done from FDR’s time! The issue with opening Pandora ’s Box of restructuring SS is that the republican party wants to throw it to the wolves of Wall Street or do away with it altogether. Democrats, on the other hand, want to reinvest in SS by throwing borrowed money at SS without fixing its issues.
Restructuring SS requires a number of things:
Put a cap on coverage. Wealthier folks and retirees who have other supplemental income, do not need SS. Require payroll deductions for employers and employees for all hours worked, not just for full time. Remove some of the expanded coverage that belongs in other programs, for example, disability. A difficult but culturally necessary task is to develop new employment regulations, job descriptions and programs that keep older employees in their jobs as primary contributors to production; today, it is common for employees in their fifties and older to be pushed out before retirement age while SS qualification is raised to older and older ages. Business should return to its role of offering some form of retirement which funds can’t be used for other purposes – a barrier removed by the Reagan administration. Finally, the tax relationship between SS and earned income should be modified to treat both as earned income, thereby refunding SS as retirees increase earned income. Even better would be to add a graduated SS tax on investment income.
Across the board every discretionary program is long overdue for a restructuring of the tax code. Income and business taxes are grotesquely skewed to favor the wealthier end of the spectrum. Part of this issue is to disassemble the oligarchy and give governments back to voters – which is a subject of its own.
Further, returning to Lagarde’s prediction for a spotty economic future and assuming SS is not rescued, our next generation will not have SS. Further, do not be drawn into consumer debt regardless of what banks say. If the reader is young enough, use the 401k or SEP to its fullest extent. Establish a savings and investment budget matching no less than 10% of gross income; establish a ROTH IRA and pay in your limit each year. Chances are SS will be trimmed back in one way or another for all of us.
Ancient Mariner

Signs of Citizen Rebellion

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The mariner is challenged about the dark side of plutocracy suggesting that the citizen and labor rebellions described in history do not exist today – a challenge that has merit. First, Mariner wrote a recent post that said watching culture change was too slow, unfocused, and too broad to watch closely. What everyone notices, however, are incidents that seem unusual; incidents are signs of cultural shift but one must step back to measure broad circumstances, that is, to observe cultural shift.

Second, here using extremes to demonstrate differences, the wave of bankruptcy that occurred in Massachusetts in 1786 was caused by the same manipulation of mortgages that caused the recession in 2008. Yet, times were greatly different in a cultural sense. One doesn’t have to grab the shotgun in the corner and march down to the bank offices and blow the door off or threaten the courts with physical harm if they didn’t clear the docket and get out – though this older behavior seems more gratifying. Note that the age of one corner, one gun has returned; is that an indicator of dissatisfaction with government, concern with exposure to physical harm and mistrust on a grand scale? Today, is this is a form of rebellion framed in a more mature culture with millions of citizens?

Continuing in today’s “mature” culture, has society allowed law enforcement to deal with the underclass just as the sheriffs in 1920 that shot first and shot again to keep dissidents in line? Has one noticed the relative innocence of the victims and the number of bullets used in today’s shootings? Were the riots in Ferguson and Baltimore not a replication of labor riots in 1920?

Is denying a share of the “company’s” profits to the workers who were virtual slaves in 1885 the same as denying worker raises in line with inflation and productivity since 1980 – yet raising prices at what constitutes modern Company stores so much that the husband and the wife have to work?

Today, using collusion between government and corporations permits blatant destruction of unions by using the “right to work” law. (This is bordering on short-fuse behavior in some industries)

Has one noticed, in a more mature culture, that the “Company” (corporations) has the same resistance to regulations and imposed responsibility for citizens?

Has one noticed the war-mongering bully who leads the republican party in the 2016 Presidential campaign? His followers certainly are in a rebellious mood – particularly toward a do nothing government fully owned by corporations.

Has one noticed the history-making difference between fat cat wealth and flaunted waste compared to public wages that oppress sharing success with the disappearing middle class? Does one remember the “Occupy” movement that protested abuses in Wall Street? Mariner suspects that when the middle class becomes sufficiently abused, there will be more outbreaks over the cost of living and the loss of a great democratic dream.

The mariner makes the case that we live in different times than we did 100 years ago. Still, even in today’s litigious culture, the issues are simmering and rebellion grows more and more obvious.

A lot hangs on changes in Congress, state legislators, Governors and especially who the next President will be.

REFERENCE SECTION

Regarding the puzzle from the previous post: The question was posited “How was the conman able to correctly project whether stocks would go up or down ten weeks in a row?”

The conman started with a large mailing list, perhaps 1,500 recipients. To one half he sent a flyer saying the price would go down; to the other half he sent a flyer saying the price would go up. The next day, he discarded the half that was wrong; to the half that was right, a week later he repeated the process with half saying “up” and half saying “down.” Again, the next day he discarded the half that was wrong; a week later, he divided the correct remainder in half sending half with an “up” prediction, the other half a prediction that was “down.” This continued for ten weeks. Eventually, a mark would respond willing to make a large investment through the broker – an amount that never reaches the stock market because the conman absconds with the cash. From How Not to Be Wrong: the Power of Mathematical Thinking, by Jordon Ellenberger.

Ancient Mariner.

Plutocracy – The Dark Side

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The mariner used the word ‘plutocracy’ recently and realized it was an empty word but growing in importance. 99.9% of US citizens have not witnessed an armed workers rebellion since the coal miner’s rebellion near the turn of the twentieth century; who has memories of Warren G. Harding? If, in the next two to three years, we experience another deep recession or the travesty Ron Paul predicts in his commercials, we citizens may suffer hardship in large enough numbers to take on the police, the National Guard, the hired thugs called ‘detectives’ and the property of the corporate bosses who hired the thugs. That’s how bad the coal miner rebellion was – and there have been similar confrontations in the twentieth century.

This is not just a phenomenon of America’s recent past. Plutocracy was around in 1786 resulting in Shay’s rebellion.

US history books recount the colonial years with events that follow a narrow gauge track describing the wonderful advances in government, politics, and business. But day-to-day life was hell. None of the working class or laborers had any protections that exist today. Working class jobs had no required wage, no safety requirements, no health requirements, no limits on hours, and no limits on hiring the youngest child at the least expensive wage. Further, many businesses, especially isolated ones like coal and lumber companies, had a ‘company store’ which employees were required to use to buy groceries and supplies. This unfair game of very low wages and very high prices meant that no employee had money of consequence and eventually was deep in debt to the store. As Ernie Ford sang in ‘Sixteen Tons’ in 1955:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go;

I owe my soul to the company store…

A pleasant song sung by a nice person – all clean and neat in his string tie. The real life experience could not have been more oppressive. Business, politics, and law enforcement worked together to contain worker resistance. Troublemakers often were gunned down in the middle of the street. Employees received little cash because they had their Company Store bill taken out first. They owned no property because they were required to live in very cheap business-owned housing. The truth of the matter is they were slaves – not an iota’s difference.

The real history of citizens is not recorded in history books. The next paragraph is a quote from http://www.alternet.org/ Alternet.org is a website that posts liberal and progressive articles. The author is writing about today.

“The sedimentary nature of power fears the chaos of protest. What the plutocrats know as stability, the middle class knows as convenience. Struggle is unstable and inconvenient. It pushes here and there, seeking ruptures in the fabric of the present. Success is not guaranteed. What is clear, however, is that the time of the present, of the possible, has become irrelevant to millions of people. They are seeking the time of the future.”

What brought the mariner to this subject was the feeling that the word plutocracy (the rich control society) did not have the meaningful clout that it should have. The more he pondered why the word seemed out of sort, the more he realized that society in twenty-first century USA is a full-blown plutocracy in every respect – and it carries the same threat of rebellion.

When he watched a new film called Plutocracy: Political Repression in the USA, mariner made note of how identical today’s oligarchy is to the class conflict during terrible rebellions in the past. Worker rebellions occurred under conditions exactly like the conditions that exist today. In fact, a housing bankruptcy occurred in 1786 in Massachusetts just like the one that brought down the US economy in 2008. Having relatively no rights, citizens back then were on their own to push back. Carrying arms, the citizens forced the banks and courthouses to close. This rebellion is in the film. The film tells the story of the workers; something seldom seen in history books. It is a free download at:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/skt261c6c2ebmnd/Plutocracy-%20Political%20Repression%20In%20The%20U.S.A..mp4?dl=0

Mariner recommends that you download the film to your computer. It is free. Some may have noticed that the situation is such that the US has a poor man’s army; best trained but virtually all working class folk. Richer people don’t worry about their children going off to die in a useless war. Remember George W. Bush and his assignment to a flight squadron that never was called up? In fact, George didn’t report for a year. This situation is a classic example of plutocracy. One wonders if the US actually would have had these wars if the upper classes had to fight in them.

Another example is the continuous pressure by powerful people to eliminate government services that protect the common citizen. For example, The Environmental Protection Agency, The Atomic Energy Commission, anything proposed by Senator Elizabeth Warren to protect citizens from banking abuse, the Security Exchange Commission, The Federal Department of Agriculture, The Federal Aviation Administration, Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, Unemployment Insurance and Social Security. All these agencies impose regulations in behalf of public interest – and they are openly opposed by business and financial firms because they add overhead, reduce profits, and require concern for human lives – a throwaway that is easily replaced.

These behaviors are plutocracy in action. Add to this behavior salary oppression and disappearing benefits since 1968 and it feels very much like 1786 or 1920. Clearly, the voter’s future is in the hands of plutocrats.

One solution not requiring armed rebellion is to take back the government from control by the plutocrats. First is to wrest the election process from the plutocrats. Do that by requiring political campaigns to go on a diet. Remove redistricting from political control; institute term limits to anyone reaching age 70 in their next term (this ensures a more understanding official that at least can relate to changes in the nation’s gestalt); limit fund raising to the local area of representation; rewrite a fair taxing system that uses excess profit to fund a fair USA.

The mariner feels that dealing with the crooked election scheme is the first step in moving policy control back to the voters who in the past represented this nation’s moral character, that is, reinstitute democracy as the mechanism that keeps our country in a leadership role for the entire planet. We may not even have to go to war.

REFERENCE SECTION

http://www.shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/shaysapp/scene.do?shortName=Petition

The new documentary ‘Plutocracy’ is a comprehensive and powerful study of America’s early working class made up of farmers, miners and industrial laborers from Shays’ Rebellion in 1786-87, through rapid industrialization and inequality in the post Civil War 19th century era of the Robber Barons to the intense labor struggles of the 1920s.

A new book is out about common sense mathematics: How Not to Be Wrong: the Power of Mathematical Thinking, by Jordon Ellenberger. It is a nice companion to Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise. Here is a conundrum from Ellenberger’s book:

A person receives a flyer from a stock broker. It says that a certain stock will go up tomorrow. Sure enough, the next day the stock goes up. A week later, the person receives another flyer from the broker. It says a certain stock will go down tomorrow. Sure enough, the next day the stock goes down. This scenario goes on for ten weeks. The broker never makes a mistake. Needless to say, the person is ready to entrust the broker with a large investment – but it is a con. How is the broker arranging always to be right?

The answer will be provided in the next post if you haven’t worked it out.

Ancient Mariner