Wednesday, May 19, 2010

An Anonymous Response

I'm always over joyed when someone reads and comments on my thoughts. But being the madman that I am I have to respond, especially when I don't think my point came across the first time (based on the comment under greedism which I'll the reader peruse at their pleasure).

Here is my response to my reader:

Dear Anonymous...

The point behind the title of the post (Greedism) is that buzzwords don't describe what's going on.

Capitalism is a useful technique, if used morally, to nurture and develop a technically advanced economy.

Capitolism (ed. note spelling from comment), which could be defined as a mindless allegiance to dogma spouted by neo_fascists has used to justify laws violating the constitution, and the very nature of our freedoms. Need to be careful there.

What we need isn't more laws, but more morality. BP acted immorally endangering their employees as well as the ecosystem of the Gulf despite direct and correct advisement by technical experts. Their management should be put on a Texas chain gang and left to clean up the coast by hand, the assets of the company sold off to offset the costs of closing the well and the whole business of risky oil wells considered too dangerous to pursue.

We'd get as far with Wave generators and hydrogen manufacturing plants. But that's the subject of another rant.

The purpose of this rebuttal is to question the gut reaction (make laws) and suggest alternative actions (dismantle the company and punish the guilty).

Just some thoughts.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Greedism

Mankind creates society to support greed.

There I said it. We want to believe in human kindness and the basic Godness in all of us but that's crap. Society is/was and apparently always will be a support structure for greedy self serving bastards.

Capitalism is an economic philosophy that says it takes money to make money. Concentrated wealth or capital, when used to fund means of production or distribution, not only gathers wealth to itself but shares it with all participants.

Sounds altruistic huh?

After all it's MY money, why give it to anyone else? Isn't that what the bankers on Wall street say? They keep their money, grab ours from the government and from our wallets, and then insist we give them MORE money in interest to return OUR money. Got it. Greed works.

Is there a magic word to end this? Is there a man (read politician) strong enough to end this unfair siege? Nope. We are in a spider's web. Thrash all you want and all you get is further entangled.

The only way out of the spider's web is to step carefully where the spider steps.

That's what I love about the recent spate of 'walk aways' : people who can afford to pay their mortgages but don't see the economic sense in paying for a property that no longer has recoverable value.

The banks hate this. They claim the people are dishonoring their financial obligations.

The people say, 'It's just business.'

Yeah.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The New World

I love facebook. It has allowed me to reconnect with people I haven't seen in forty years. Absolutely wonderful.

Except when they start posting hate propaganda like we're not real Americans if we don't sign up to keep the foreigners out of our country.

Wait a minute. Five hundred years ago some freeloaders showed up on the beach, pitched tents and started looking for gold. When they got hungry and couldn't support themselves they turned to the local government and its citizens to feed them and help them survive the winters.

Who were these bums? We call them the pilgrims and the founding fathers of our nation. We celebrate their welfare dinner every year at thanksgiving.

So yeah, the uncontrolled migration of people is hard on our society. The working poor are always a better target for the anger of the disenfranchised than the greedy bankers who are manipulating us, but shouldn't we act like Real Americans and share our bounty with the less fortunate, using the Wampanoag's generosity as our guide?