More of the same…
Right now, I am trying to cheer myself up…
Not that I am not already cheerful. Just running a little science experiment to see if one can overdose on good cheer…
And why not? Everything can be overdone, it seems.
Danger! everywhere!
To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II:
In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
(You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
God Save the Queen!
[Please, please, please, spend 25:16 of your valuable time viewing this...]
A voice of sanity in the wilderness…
Tom Paine thought it was bad: How John Adams and Thomas Paine Clashed Over Economic Inequality
Adam Smith argued, (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRsmithA.htm),that capitalism promoted inequality although free markets could also mitigate its effects:
Smith argued that capitalism results in inequality. For example, he wrote about the impact poverty had on the lives of the labouring class: “It is not uncommon… in the Highlands of Scotland for a mother who has borne twenty children not to have two alive… In some places one half the children born die before they are four years of age; in many places before they are seven; and in almost all places before they are nine or ten. This great mortality, however, will every where be found chiefly among the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the same care as those of better station.”
To protect the poor Smith argued for government intervention: “The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life… But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.”
In the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Smith argues that progressive taxation is a vital ingredient in the creation of a fair society: “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation.
The Instability of Inequality, by Nouriel Roubini
Unparalelled Levels of Inequality Is [sic] Killing Our Economy and Society, by Washington’s Blog.
Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies
I don’t agree with every idea expressed above, but the theme is clear. (In particular, with regard to the conclusions made by Wilkinson in the video, I believe the adverse effects are not caused by lack of self-esteem but by denial of fulfillment. Every human being needs to fulfill his or her own potential rather than being merely a cog in someone else’s machine.)
If you don’t understand what #Occupy is getting at, you should at least be able to understand why it is protesting the rotten system.
[An anecdote from Steve Keen regarding a meeting with actor Peter Ustinov in Australia.]
“This dialectic in the Australian character was brought home to me very vividly and comically when as a young man I found myself scheduled to meet the famous actor, wit and humanitarian Peter Ustinov. My employers had arranged to bring him to the country on a speaking tour, but hadn’t sent anyone to collect him from the airport; instead, he had to get a taxi himself and come to my office. I thought this decision was insane, and said so: surely we should meet him at the airport and accompany him to his hotel? But I couldn’t persuade my boss, so I knew that at some stage one morning the most famous person I’d yet met would walk into my office, and I spent the morning considering how I would greet this famous person when he arrived.
“When he did, I said:
“What on earth happened?!
“He had simply strode into my office, and collapsed into a chair in apparent shock. He replied:
I’ve just had the worst taxi drive of my life!
“My opinion that it was ridiculous to ask him to get a taxi himself was confirmed. I imagined that he’d copped a reckless driver who’d sped dangerously along the narrow street that was then the main route from Kingsford Smith Airport to the city. I repeated “What happened?”, and Ustinov elaborated:
As soon as I sat in the cab, the driver took one look at me in the rear vision mirror, saw that I was white, thought that since I was white I’d have the same opinions as him, and launched into the most vile racist diatribe I’ve ever heard. He said how he had flats in the suburbs that he rented out to “Wogs”, and how he’d happily smash their TV sets when he came to collect the rent, and otherwise terrorise them.
“Then he took another look in the rear vision mirror, and saw that I was appalled. His whole demeanor changed, and he suddenly snarled:
“(Ustinov put on a rough Australian drawl and said)
“I suppose you don’t give a fuck what I think. I suppose you think all us Australians are descended from fucking convicts.”
“What did you say?”, I asked. Ustinov replied:
“I said “On the contrary, my dear man, I’m convinced you’re descended from one of the warders”.
“That’s been my mental picture of Australian society ever since: a society with its convict-derived rebels–many of whom were political prisoners from struggles in England and Ireland–and its warder-derived enforcers of the status quo.”
From, Australia: beautiful one day, police state the next, by Steve Keen.
