Sound and Fury

                You might be surprised by the amount of research that forms the basis of an opinion for these articles. We try to be aware of the often elusive difference between fact and interpretation. We all experience reality through the filters of our own experiences and prejudices - and in the age of information every prejudice imaginable is available to anyone with access to the web. The technology that brings us unprecedented access to information is often less a means of discovering truth and more a tool for reinforcing belief.  Whatever it is that you want to believe (or are afraid not to) you can find support for it on the Internet or in the electronic media.

                A downside to using the Internet and corporate media for research is the “other ingredients” which accompany the medicine. Scholarly studies are certainly available. You can read scientific journals and research papers to your heart’s content, but when there is a need to follow current events you must plunge into a bubbling vat of information reminiscent of the popular energy drinks with names like, “Full Throttle,” “Zipfizz,” “Monster,” and “Red Bull,” (though “bull” comes in all colors in the media.) Soap selling media gives us information that is imminent and dangerous: “North Georgia today experienced the hottest temperatures IN 48 HOURS!!” Soap selling media selects information designed to capture that part of our attention that slows down to rubberneck at the scene of an accident:  Live reports with police tape in the background have become a nightly indigestive aid for many.

                With a constant background noise of daily disaster, we reach a crescendo of negativity and misinformation in an election year. Truth has become the first casualty of the political campaign. The Obama and the Romney campaigns are BOTH lying, though the candidates themselves can sit at a comfortable distance from the fray and disavow any responsibility for their respective political action committees. The remarkable thing is that the campaigns are lying with impunity. Fact check organizations are abundant and the debunked claims of both campaigns are many – but where is the outrage, or even the interest on the part of the voting public?

                Perhaps campaign managers have realized a sad truth of the human condition, which is that we are more comfortable with belief than with truth. The search for truth requires personal responsibility. Truth takes work. With belief, someone else has done the work for us. In religion we are often more comfortable with someone else’s interpretation of reality. In politics, we are more comfortable with the candidate that presents an image more in tune with our own beliefs and prejudices. In America we have been conditioned to believe that politics and religion are inseparable and in both, we accept the facts which support our preconceived notions and reject the facts that don’t.

                The two  (or two and a half) party system is failing us, and while we angrily defend party lines and parrot talking points, dividing into camps guarded by passions often reserved for sporting events, our pockets continue to be picked by a bloated system that exists primarily to perpetuate itself. If I lament the coercive powers of government I am labeled a tea partier. If I express a belief that what people do with their personal lives in the privacy of their own homes is no government’s business, I am called a Libertarian. If I think that society should secure the health and the dignity of the aged, the weak and the infirm, then I must be a Liberal. If I express a belief that capitalism (without the cronies) is vital to the economy then I am pegged as a conservative. If I believe all of these things I will not find a home in any political party.

                I have never seen the country so polarized by phantom beliefs, by the loosely fitting labels of conservative, liberal, democrat or republican. I have seen friendships end this year because one person liked the pepsi candidate and the other preferred coke.  Shakespeare wrote that life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But our lives are not insignificant. Our families and friendships, our dreams and our hopes, our faith and our love – are not insignificant – and yet we allow our tale to be told by idiots;  parasites who will say anything to sell soap, tell any lie to get elected and spin any tale to keep us content.

                Recently I was asked by a friend familiar with my disaffection for the election process whether I planned to vote this year. Absolutely and emphatically, yes. I would encourage everyone to vote, but to do so without the emotional baggage. It matters very much that we continue to vote. It matters less who we vote for – until our society is able to produce better choices. More on that next week.

Safe to Grow

                I hope most sincerely that everyone who is eligible will vote on Tuesday. We cling to the crumbling remains of democracy by a fingertip ledge, those of us who have not already released our grip on accountability and self-reliance, too weary or too afraid to chart our own course or too distracted by the seductions of instant gratification and popular culture to care. An iron hand in a velvet glove waits to catch us if we fall, financed by the ability to conjure money out of thin air and backed up by the labors of millions of wage slaves content to sacrifice the vital years of their lives for the fuzzy promises of casino style retirement accounts and socialized security.

                This hand has been busy attaching “safety lines” to protect us from ourselves. (Any resemblance to puppet strings is coincidental.) The nanny state monitors what we spend, in case we want to buy anything “bad,” and to make sure that we all pay our fair share. The state monitors our travel in case someone who hates our freedom tries to blow us up. The state sends armies overseas to protect our oil from terrorists who insist on living where our oil is found. (Our freedom depends on having plenty of cheap gasoline so that we can drive to work and back.) The state monitors our communications. It listens in on our phone calls, reads our emails and scans our texts to protect us from bad opinions.

                As we grow weary of having to form our own opinions, of having to choose the best options, in short, of having to think for ourselves, the state will again provide. What a comfort it must be for New Yorkers to have a mayor who will choose for them what size soft drink they can buy; an old man, successful, experienced, who will choose for mothers how they should feed their newborn babies. Residents of Boston and Chicago can sleep well at night knowing that their protectors will not allow them to buy chicken tainted by an opinion which does not conform to the popular notion of tolerance and diversity. We will tolerate no dissenting opinions when it comes to diversity.

                By the time this newspaper goes to print, our own state will have decided whether we should pay more so that our area is not constrained by the inability to grow. We must always grow. That opinion rarely leaves room for dissent, and the best way to ensure growth must be for the state to extract more wealth from the stream of economic activity. Perhaps it would be best if all economic activity were channeled through the state, which could then provide for all of us equally, from the cradle to the grave, nurtured, secure, growing…drones protecting us overhead, watching, listening, always deciding in our own best interests.  How simple life would then be.

               

A Tax By Any Other Name

                The hypesphere of infotainment has chewed on the Affordable Care Act, disaffectionately known as “Obamacare,” for months.  After Thursday’s ruling by the Supreme Court, the hype hawkers are choking on it.

                Among the small group of corporate behemoths that control the lion’s share of what we see and hear, “the most trusted name in news” and “fair and balanced” are both doing damage control after erroneously reporting that the keystone of Obamacare, the individual mandate, had been struck down.  CNN and Fox News both might have avoided embarrassment had someone bothered to actually read the court’s decision rather than apparently just glancing at the first couple of paragraphs.

                Perhaps it was the rush to be the first to report the breaking news that contributed to their oversight.  Perhaps it was the inability of a new generation of producers and reporters weaned on the abbreviated communication of the 21^st century - sound bites, streaming headlines, texts, blogs and status updates – to digest compound sentences.

                The Age of Information is delivered to us in endless streams of 0’s and 1’s. Computers “think” in binary code.  Imagine two switches. Both can be off. Both can be on. The first one can be on and the second off, or first off second on.  Everything digital from a simple text to a sophisticated animation is, at the root of its existence, nothing but ones and zeros.

                People are not computers. Our brains are vastly more complex than even the most sophisticated thinking machines. Unfortunately, many of us do not even begin to tap into the potential abilities nestled between our ears.  Perhaps it is just easier to see everything in terms of black or white, good or evil, conservative or liberal, yes or no…zero or one. 

                Whether we agree or disagree with the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, many of us would be more comfortable with a zero or one decision by the court. Fox and CNN certainly tried to provide us with that comfort.  Unfortunately for the reputations of those popular providers and unfortunately for those of us weary of the endless talk about Obamacare, that is not what happened Thursday.

                The Affordable Care Act had its genesis in the idea that Congress could require Americans to make a purchase under the commerce clause. The Supreme Court ruling struck down that idea and said that Congress does not have the power to require Americans to purchase anything.  Zero -and that is what CNN and Fox reported. However, the court also said that the ACA can be funded through the power of Congress to tax. One? No; not exactly.

                The Supreme Court’s decision gave us a new tax, which is no surprise to readers of this column. “Tax” is not a word to be tossed around lightly in an election year. “Mandate” or “penalty” sounds better, but candy coating a suppository does not improve its basic qualities. If we want everyone in America to have healthcare and if we want them to have quality healthcare (two very different propositions) then someone has to pay for it, and this legislation crafted by the insurance industry will not be cheap.

                Now back to our binary discussion. Did Obamacare stand or fall – one or zero? Well, Congress can’t force us to buy insurance, but they can tax us to pay for someone else’s insurance, just as current workers are taxed to pay for someone else’s retirement – zero and one.  The court went a step further.  The original ACA relied on the states to implement the program and threatened to pull Medicaid funding if a state did not comply. The Supreme Court said that this was unconstitutional – zero. So what we are left with in the Affordable Care Act is a completely different piece of legislation than was originally intended – a string of zeros and ones entirely appropriate to the digital age.  We will pay for it. That part was never in question. However, the states can choose to comply or not. The democrats will head into the elections defending a tax increase. Last but not least Congress, should they decide that everyone in America should purchase a subscription to CNN or the Fox News Channel, will be forced to call the measure what it truly is – a tax.

From Babel to Baltic Avenue

                Wiley Coyote would today make a fine professor of economics.  W.C. understood quite well that it is possible to walk on air – until you look down.

                This is the virtual world of economics in which we live. It is a system of exchange based on smoke and mirrors, words, opinions, breaking news and high speed computers trading on the crest of every wave.  It is a system in which the mere possibility that a country with .17% of the world’s population might abandon one form of virtual money (the euro) for another (the drachma) sends the “value” of North American companies plummeting or skyrocketing.

                The word “value” in the previous sentence is in quotations because the only thing that changes about these companies during these brief, dramatic rises and falls is their virtual value in virtual markets. Exxon doesn’t sell any more or less oil; Walmart doesn’t sell any more or less Chinese plastic during these brief ups and downs, but if the “downs” prevail, wage slaves across the land might see the “value” of 10 years or more of 401K contributions vanish into thin air.

                That’s the beauty of virtual money. As easily as it vanishes from one location, it can reappear in another. Between 2007 and 2010, the Federal Reserve secretly conjured over $16 trillion from thin air and gave it to the largest banks in the world. It was arguably the largest transfer of wealth in human history.

                Some people (banks, presidents and Congressmen) view the actions of the Fed as a necessary measure to stabilize the world economy.  Some of us view it as theft. A good example of this latter point of view can be gained by including the virtual board game, Monopoly, played by over 750 million people around the world, in our discussion. Suppose the banker simply handed out monopoly money to a select few players when they needed to pay a bill or make a purchase.  The price of everything from Boardwalk to Baltic Avenue would go up as the players flush with cash bid up the prices. The players not included in the “stimulus” would soon find it hard to purchase anything at all and some would go bankrupt very quickly. Before long, most of the board would be owned by the players with the most play-money.

                In the virtual world of economics, this is precisely what has happened over time. Witness the remarkable transfer of wealth to a very small percentage of the population over the last two decades.  There is a reason for this transfer, and it is not because 1% of the population worked harder or smarter than the rest.  This transfer occurred because the “banker” in our virtual game is cheating.

                Unfortunately, this is not a game for anyone who must buy gas to drive to work so that they can earn money to buy groceries to feed the kids before they buy more gas to drive to work. It is not a game for the unemployed. It is not a game for the elderly beginning to discover that what remains of their life savings buys much less than it did last year or the year before.

                As I scanned the headlines this morning, headlines provided by the 6 major corporations who own what we see and hear in media, I witnessed a remarkable discordance of opinion. I have never been to Greece, but I feel like I now know much more about the tiny nation than I ever cared to know.  The euro survives, but cash is evaporating. Storm clouds are gathering, but the Dow could skyrocket before the end of the year, if the world doesn’t end in December.  I believe I can begin to understand the message behind the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

                It is easy to switch it all off. A single click on the computer; a press of a button on the remote and the sun still shines, the earth still spins its way through the heavens and the birds still sing. The corn in my garden needs hoeing, and the world is peaceful and green again in our beloved mountain home. It would be very easy to leave it all switched off, but an ostrich with his head in the sand will soon find that he can’t afford to keep his little plot of sand. Sadly, the noise, the drama, the irritating, nauseating incessant flow of opinion – is our medium of exchange.  Once we had gold as a measure of value. Now we have glitter and gloom. If we sincerely want to change things, there would be a good place to start.

Time to Remember

                 

                The Memorial Day which just passed is a holiday that I hope everyone remembers in particular this year.  Many of us took time to remember the sacrifices made in service to our nation, but I would like to add to that reflection a memory of how we spent our time during the long weekend.

We need more holidays. Granted, from the boardroom this might be considered a contrarian opinion in the face of concerns about productivity and competitiveness, but from the freeway crammed with travelers driven to arrive at their holiday destinations as quickly as possible, from the parking lots filled with shoppers in search of holiday sale items or hot dog buns, from the long line of cars waiting to get through Helen, Georgia, more time off might seem a good idea. With relatively few holidays many of us feel pressure to “relax” harder and faster within the brief window of time away from the construction site or the cubicle.

                When holidays are scarce they can become imbued with an aura of expectation and obligation. We are obligated to take the kids to visit grandma, who lives three hours away on the other side of interchanges and exit ramps. We feel obligated to gather and gorge with friends, which requires driving, parking and shopping. We expect to be able to recreate those images from the commercials of joyful friends cooking meat over a grill in some wonderful natural area, again requiring driving, shopping, and more driving.

                As a brief member of the motoring mob over the weekend, I had a chance as a passenger to observe the behavior of my fellow travelers more closely than I normally do as a driver.  I saw anxiety, impatience and anger in many who were working hard to position themselves to have a great holiday. I had to wonder how rested many of my fellow travelers would feel at the end of their marathons, or whether returning to the office on Tuesday would actually be a relief.

                I hope that you all enjoyed the long holiday weekend, and that within the bit of extra time away from work you were able to relax, to recreate, or perhaps to just sleep late for a change.   I congratulate those of you who were able to stay at home and enjoy the simple pleasure of time – time with family and friends, time puttering in the garden, time stretched out on the sofa:  time free from obligations and expectations.

                Hopefully, at some time during the holiday you paused to reflect upon the lives that have been spent to purchase our ability to enjoy these freedoms. They were dearly bought, and the price continues to rise. Free time and the ability to choose what to do with it is becoming more expensive; not because of enemies overseas, enemies at home or enemies around every corner, but because of the pressures pushing us deeper into wage slavery, pushing us to work more for a dollar that buys less. Those of us who were gifted with a day off on Monday can thank Congress.  Most of our meager set of holidays has been rescheduled to Mondays so that Congress can have a long weekend. Perhaps they need to rest up for the laborious task of finding ways to extract more from our labor in the ongoing search for revenue to pay for their excess.

                By Memorial Day next year, it is likely that the government will be extracting more tax from our paychecks, our purchases, our dividends and our capital gains. It is likely that the deficit will be considerably higher. It is likely that the fewer dollars we have to spend during our brief holiday will buy less, which is not likely to increase our ability to relax and recreate. By the time you read this, Memorial Day 2012 will be a fading memory, but remember, if you can, the troops that will still be overseas all year long. Remember the increasing cost of the grand schemes of government and empire in terms of blood and treasure. Remember all of this on Election Day.

Picture This

                I saw an amazing sight Saturday night as the “super perigee moon” rose up out of the Atlantic Ocean.  Moonlight on water is hypnotic, mesmerizing. It is a window into infinity. A full moon big enough to reach out and touch, barren and beautifully scarred by impact craters as old as the solar system reminds us that we are blessed to float suspended in space on a unique and irreplaceable life raft.  The beauty of the night was enhanced by ocean breezes and waves rolling onto the shore. It was a magical night.

                As my wife and I walked along the shoreline, drinking in the enchanting sights and sounds, I witnessed a scene that seemed strangely at odds with the tranquility of nature and the rich feast for the senses.  A woman driving a new sedan whipped into a beach access parking lot and jumped out of her car. Motor running, music blasting and headlights glaring, she proceeded to point her I-Pad at the moon. Poking her glowing slab a few times with her fingers she was apparently taking snapshots of the scene, but before we had gone five paces she hopped back into her car and sped off into the night.

                I do not know what necessity drove this woman. Perhaps she was late for work or late for a gathering, but chances are that her entire memory of that beach scene will be compressed into a few pixels stored on a computer.  As we walked along the beach that night, I noticed many more people recording the experience in similar ways, and my wife and I will undoubtedly be posting our own images of the night on Facebook.

                Taking pictures is certainly not a new phenomenon, but now that every phone is a computer and every computer is a camera, it seems that we are becoming a people who experience reality in a radically different way than our ancestors.  Long before the camera became ubiquitous, people shared experience by word of mouth. More recently when we did take pictures, we had to wait for them to be developed. With great anticipation we would pick up our photos from the drugstore, and as we looked through them, we would talk about the experiences behind the images and then carefully preserve our favorites in a photo album for future reminiscence, future conversation.

 A few of us still enjoy the written word. Some of us still keep old photo albums with captions underneath or written on the back of the pictures.  These are all second hand experiences, reflections of reality, but they do require some processing, some effort on our part. A life experience dominated by fleeting images is bleached flour, missing the nutrients found in the whole grain. Every passing year brings new technology that further separates us from nature, from a direct experience of reality. We cannot run, jog or hike without ear buds. We cannot gather without smartphones. We experience nature from a parking lot, through a lens, on a pixelated screen.

Taxed And Taxed Again

                No matter where we find ourselves on the map that describes the landscape of political philosophy, most of us have at least some libertarian tendencies. We do not like to be told what to do. Nevertheless, every April we are reminded of just how much we dislike being told what to do when we get the bill from those who presume to tell us. The hole where our checking account used to be reminds us that tax season has come and gone again.

                Of course tax season never really leaves us. It is with us in every purchase we make, every paycheck we receive and every hard-fought gain that we achieve. We are surrounded by entities grasping for our wallets and the money that leaves our hands finds its way from around the corner to around the world as it pays for the upkeep of unelected money-spenders from the smallest incorporated hamlet to the largest military bases of “our” international empire.

                When I say “we” in reference to taxes, I am referring to the 59% of us who actually pay the bill. You read that right, and if you are among that number you have already done the math which reveals the 41% of us who pay nothing. You may not be aware that the IRS paid out $105 billion in refundable credits to those 58 million non-payers.  Twenty-six million who paid no taxes received $56 billion in “refunds” through the Earned Income Credit. Twenty one million non-payers received $27 billion from the Refundable Child Credit.

                “It makes me want to storm the castle with pitchforks and burning torches,” a friend quipped recently after filing his income tax. Indeed the tax issue has become a perennial political football, but it would behoove us to know which goal posts we really want to run for. The real numbers do not concur with the political rhetoric and the populist notion that the financially successful must be punished for not paying their fair share. These numbers are from the Tax Foundation, which uses the government’s own data to compile statistics. Warning:  Fact can be detrimental to our favorite paradigms. Here are the numbers…

                The effective tax rate of people making more than $250,000 a year was 23.4% and those people paid 45.7% of all taxes. The effective tax rate of people making more than $50,000 was 14.1% and they paid 93.3% of all taxes collected.  The effective tax rate of people making less than $50,000 a year was 3.5%. That is correct. The largest group of taxpayers had an effective tax rate of 3.5% - and they paid 6.7% of all taxes collected.

                Unfortunately for all of us and particularly for retirees, this is not the worst of it. The government also conjures a hidden tax which affects the purchasing power of every American. Inflation has robbed the dollar of about half of its purchasing power in the last 20 years and we are on course to continue this trend for the next 20. Every time the Fed adds to the money supply, the value of our money decreases, but government must fabricate some way to pay its enormous bills.

Our tapeworm economy is saturated by government from the smallest to the largest components. Every hamlet wants a city hall stuffed with officials. Every county wants the same. In most cities in Georgia if you live in a city you get to pay city as well as county taxes. The states are flush with departments and agencies that must be paid for. The federal government itself has become one of the largest segments of the economy. Meanwhile, as government strangles the economy with taxation and regulation, the ranks of those dependent on the state continue to grow, which in turn inflates the size of the state again. The result is an increasing tax burden levied upon a decreasing segment of the population.