Finding the Dream

Calling the Better Angels of Our Nation

2012-01-24T22:41:00.000-06:00

Do we want to be a people, one people? This is the fundamental question that most often divides our representatives -- how are we to be together. Loosely? If all people have some evil in their hearts, then loosely would seem best. But if we are born innocent, and any evil we have is only learned, then we might be redeemed by a helping hand. One might reach out to grab and rescue a

Refreshing Talk From a Candidate

2012-01-08T22:47:00.002-06:00

It's such a pleasure to hear a truly sane Republican candidate I just had to post this video: Washington profoundly underestimates how deeply and broadly Americans want to end our endless interventions around the world. Americans don't like these military foreign adventures and these foreign entanglements. Americans do not believe in the false ideas of the think tanks. Average Americans are

2012 Approaches, But U.S., German Consumers Still Spending

2011-12-20T16:28:00.004-06:00

A variety of important economic news of the last 2 months shows some hopeful possibilities and some increasing dangers to the world economy. As the holidays approach, let's quickly lay out the dangers and move on to the hopeful. Dangers: The Chinese land price bubble looks like it is beginning to burst, and much Chinese investment and economic activity has relied on this bubble. Investment

Steve Keen on the Way Out

2011-12-08T19:59:00.001-06:00

One thing about giving a dozen or more interviews where the same question comes up -- you get good at brevity. As I've pointed out, we need more debt relief: The Coming Great Depression, and How to Avoid It.

The Savings Conundrum Writ Large -- Global Depression Threatens

2011-11-10T22:10:00.002-06:00

As the first breezes of a gathering storm of great depression begins touching many shores, awareness of the driving forces is starting to spread. For instance, in this link Ambrose Evans Pritchard nails our current situation -- we are in a global spiral into depression. This is a good time to reprise and refine views I've presented before. You see, all of this economic tumult around the globe

A Truly Fair Tax Structure In A Nutshell

2011-11-01T15:42:00.003-05:00

After seeing tax proposals and much wrong analysis thereof in the media and blogs, I've taken time to summarize my ideas from this blog on how to change our tax system to boost American jobs and our economy. The key to protecting and enriching working American families is boosting our economy and thereby boosting wages. Key to boosting the American economy is to put American labor on an equal

(Updated) Mitt Romney Becomes Visible

2011-10-24T21:20:00.001-05:00

(10/26, see updates near bottom) Forget the other debates, including the most recent one. As of late October this is the debate (link below w/Charlie Rose) that really shows the main candidates as they are.... If there's one thing you can trust, it's that mainstream media excerpts from long programs, such as the recent Republican Presidential Debate, will reveal little about what the

Tocqueville on Cantor and Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

"Despotism, which is fearful by nature, looks upon the isolation of men as the surest guarantee of its own duration and ordinarily does all it can to insure that isolation.... ...a despot will be quick to forgive the people he governs for not loving him, provided they do not love one another.... Minds that aspire to combine their efforts to promote the common prosperity he [a despot] calls

America!

2011-10-20T10:47:00.003-05:00

Inspiring sight this weekend. We were going to a festival and traveled along a commercial boulevard in a big suburb, on a nice sunny and windy day, when a truly novel sight met my eyes in that landscape. To get this scene, imagine an archetypal suburb shopping road, all chain stores, restaurants, gas stations, totally consumers jockeying along wishing there were less people doing the same

Rallies Sweep the Globe (Update 10-17)

2011-10-16T00:08:00.001-05:00

Click on image for a larger picture. Pictures of the protests from The Guardian. If your news source isn't informing you that rallies sparked by Occupy Wall Street are now sweeping the globe, then I suggest upgrading to a better source for news. If your news source characterizes the rallies as only "leftist" or "hippies" I suggest you upgrade to a more informing news source. If your news

Steve Jobs

2011-10-05T21:10:00.000-05:00

In 1982, while a freshman working my way through college, I used all my savings and bought an Apple II+ w/48K ram. It was one of the smartest things I did. I programmed in my spare time and had a lot of fun. Through the 1980s and 1990s I followed the news of Jobs' latest efforts with interest, and was so thrilled when he returned to Apple. I expected great things finally, by then, and he

The End of the World Order We've Known -- Great Depression Threatens

2011-10-03T00:58:00.014-05:00

At a moment when the first stirrings of a gathering storm of global depression/economic collapse is now touching onto every shore, Ambrose Evans Pritchard nails our current situation -- a global spiral into depression created by current policies of a few nations alone. He summarizes much that has appeared in this blog, with new details. Governments around the world are tightening budgets,

Yes, He Can, If He Will (Update)

2011-09-13T13:23:00.008-05:00

Can Obama speak to Americans, in language that works for a larger portion of the populace?Yes, he can. He showed us during the address to Congress.Here's a newer bit I'm listening to now. We want to know if Obama's new way of speaking might stick, as we need it to.... I'll give the address to Congress an A, and this effort (the C-Span video) below a C+.It's not easy to change. What's needed:

Will Obama Speak to Americans?

2011-09-08T11:32:00.006-05:00

Typically, President Obama speaks very well to me, and that's a problem.I'm definitely more of a reader than average Americans, with a tendency towards nuances and complexity.As I write, I'm always trying to avoid convolution, because my wife says many paragraphs are unclear in my initial drafts.And I find Obama's rhetoric, his paragraphs, to be engaging and quite good.Which means he loses too

What We Really Need Now (Updates: Martin Wolf; Krugman and Rogoff)

2011-08-23T17:00:00.003-05:00

(Update 8/23: Krugman and Rogoff at bottom) (Update 8/2: see Martin Wolf below) 7/29 -- As the popular American dialogue -- which our media blows into a theatrical crisis of the day/week/month -- tends to obscure reality, I thought it would be useful to remember where we really are. We are on an economic bridge -- a support of deficit spending/investment on education/infrastructure/unemployment

National Debt Illusion and Reality

2011-07-19T10:30:00.011-05:00

The national debate on the budget has two primary issues:A) Ideological: What Government is for -- what it should and should not do.B) Practical: Whether we have to quickly reduce deficit spending to avoid a loss of confidence in US debt sustainability and a resulting rise in interest payments on US debt (this idea illustrated below)....The first issue -- What Government Is For -- is the real

Obama's 6-29 Press Conference

2011-06-29T23:39:00.000-05:00

What Government Does Well/Poorly (Updated 6-20: fixing Social Security & Medicare)

2011-06-11T22:52:00.029-05:00

Among the popular American commentariat -- that is, the "Left" and the "Right" -- seeking out real insights from many views is simply absent. Other views are presented in caricature or included only if they have some obvious flaw, as a convenient straw man. A substantive alternative view isn't of value for the ideological purpose of the forum, and if one appears, it is ignored or shouted down

Congress Almost Enacts The Will Of The People On Afghanistan

2011-05-27T10:36:00.014-05:00

The U.S. House of Representatives came tantalizingly close to enacting the will of the majority of Americans yesterday. AP:A measure requiring an accelerated timetable for pulling out the 100,000 troops from Afghanistan and an exit strategy for the nearly 10-year-old conflict secured 204 votes in the House, falling just short of passage but boosting the hopes of its surprised proponents. "It

Spent Fuel Pools Impose Risk Costs On The Public

2011-05-26T11:24:00.008-05:00

Reporting on the Japanese Dai-ichi nuclear situation, this blog emphasized the risk from the spent fuel pool in building #4.While the large risk from the Dai-ichi spent fuel pool at building #4 has been reduced significantly, the risk of spent fuel pools at reactors in general is ongoing. The U.S. has many spent fuel pools perched high in reactor buildings, where under massive natural disasters,

The Paranoid Style in American Commentary -- Are we 1920s Germany?

2011-05-18T13:00:00.007-05:00

Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay/book The Paranoid Style in American Politics offers many examples of its title. I find the quotes fascinating.The examples ring so familiar, but readers will find them new and interesting.We hear unflinching voices telling us the real intentions of our previously hidden enemies.These voices can be strident, confident, passionate, even erudite. If anything, this

Dai-ichi Risk Reduced Further -- Update on Spent Fuel Pool at Dai-ichi #4

2011-05-04T10:05:00.025-05:00

8/1 -- While the media has finally reported lately a little on the uncertainty that Japanese residents near the exclusion zone have felt, that isn't news exactly. The worthwhile information lately is only that locals have finally taken cleanup into their own hands in a notable way -- replacing the topsoil on school playgrounds, one of the most obvious and needed mitigations.There is new news

Now is a Good Time To Get Out Of Afghanistan

2011-05-02T00:42:00.009-05:00

I've published two posts in quick succession here, which I rarely do, and readers will find a post I think is of unusual interest just previous to this post....Nothing would be so convincing, now that we have eliminated our public enemy #1, and fulfilled our public reason for coming to Afghanistan, than to follow through on our initial public rationale for the war, and exit.Talking about exiting

The Left, The Right, and...The Sane

2011-05-02T00:25:00.004-05:00

By now, some of you may have heard some version of the idea that our left vs. right daily/weekly political show is a diversion, a pumped up drama through the media meant to distract the masses, divide people against one another, and generally drug the public with soap opera so as to keep people unaware of reality.For instance, such reality as corporate graft and the corruption of congress,

Updated 5-18: Reverse Corruption And Breathe Easier

2011-04-20T14:30:00.017-05:00

Some facts speak for themselves:"Coal-fired power plants...produce more hazardous air emissions than any other industrial pollution sources....Over 386,000 tons of 84 separate hazardous air pollutants spew from over 400 plants in 46 states."Fine particle pollution from U.S. power plants cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 people each year, including 2800 from lung cancer.The average number of