Fault!

Government activity has slowed to an impressive level of inefficiency. Progressively greater polarization has crippled congress and the nation. Government spending produces less benefit. The influence of corporate power and wealth now far exceeds that of the citizenry.  

A common citizen's voice is irrelevant; no individual apart from the mega-financed world of political lobbying has a voice in governmental activity, relevance in the discussions of oversight, or power to affect decisions of importance.   

The president didn't do any of that.

Wailing on Obama for such things is perhaps less thoughtful than one would hope. 

Disappointingly little help is available from
the common media.

Offering trivialities in venues that can't be described or understood in less than 100 or so pages; well, that's not intellect at work.

Armchair quarter-thinking ...

As I was reminded by a friend, we know enough to understand that we should be honoring those who serve and praying for them. Obama and the others find themselves in a world of power players, money grabbers, and the most wicked of mankind.  If they attempt to serve, it's a noble sacrifice; they could use our prayers.

Like them or not, agree with them or not, that's the way it is.  We could participate like many do these days by being whining complainers.  Not recommended.

NOTE:  among the issues for which the parties at large are responsible, we find the following - 

How happy?

Happy vs. unhappy; it's a challenging question of interest to us all.  What are the factors that make us satisfied with our lives and comfortable about our prospects?


The question has been of interest to psychologists, politicians, economists, preachers, and parents since the beginning. Interestingly, the answers emerging from modern studies are what we might expect.  Food and shelter, safety and security, home and family, health and stability, all are part of the equation.

Referred to as 'subjective well-being' (since 'happy' is perhaps an imprecise term), the measurement is complex when applied across cultural and international borders, but the results are enlightening.  What emerges from the studies is that wealth is not the key factor.  Having enough checks the box, having more is of rapidly decreasing significance when subjective well-being is the goal.  We knew that.

[Ref:  More money makes less difference in terms of happiness, and getting it takes up more and more of your life.  Chasing wealth (and more 'things') will likely deprive you of the happiness you hoped to gain.]

In recent years, governments have been challenged to refocus on the well-being of their citizenry rather than on economic factors alone.  A recent survey (Easton, 2006) found that 81% of the UK population agreed that the Government’s primary objective should be the creation of happiness not wealth. David Cameron, HM Leader of the Opposition, put happiness firmly on the political agenda by arguing that “It’s time we admitted that there’s more to life than money, and it’s time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB – general well-being" (BBC, 2006).

Poverty, as one might expect, is a significant impediment to happiness, but it is not just the lack of money.  The factors involved in poverty cover all categories.  Lack of a way out is the big one, but the list of relevant factors affecting 'subjective well-being' includes adequate food and shelter, safety and security, healthcare, equal access to education, opportunity for upward mobility, a voice in things that matter.  

Poverty is not a circumstance anyone chooses, and given the opportunity, all will take the first exit regardless of how hard the path might be.  From every study, we understand that poverty is externally imposed as a sub-category under oppression.  It is something that is done to others by policy, prejudice, corruption, indifference, and selfishness.  The results are marginalization and disempowerment. 

What does the map show?  It might easily and accurately be described as a representation of the degree of freedom a nation provides.  A recognition of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Not that any nation is perfect, of course; so much remains inadequately addressed and unresolved in even the best of the lot, but such freedom as they provide has remarkable impact on how people view their lives, their well-being.

So, what do we have to offer the world?

Note from generations past:  "Happiness is for pigs," according to my father and his side of the family, but they were farmers and had pigs that rolled around happily in the mud, so you can perhaps allow them their perspective.  "Joy," however, he would go on to explain, "comes from doing for others."  That, and a lot more; he was a wise gentlemen.  After so many years now, I'm inclined to agree, and fortunately, my wife thinks the same way.  Thank you Dad.  Thank you Father.

You wonder where the money went ...

Henry Ford possessed the clarity that is perhaps lacking in today's corporate leadership. Ford gave his workers substantial salary increases so that they could afford the products of their labor. It worked. Soon, his employees were filling the factory parking lots with the "tin Lizzies" they were making on his innovative and successful production lines.

Our current crop of corporate leaders are products of the bottom-line thinking taught in business curricula. It began in the 70's.  Did you notice?

Right Thinking

Thoughts follow culturally defined paths, it seems. Not uniformly in every individual, but more or less in line across a given cultural group.

Did you know that the way you think about something may never cross the mind of someone from another culture?

Us and Them

"I was once in charge of an English language summer course in North Wales for adult students from three countries - Italy, Japan, and Finland. Intensive instruction was relieved by entertainment in the evenings and by day excursions to places of scenic or historical interest. We had scheduled a trip up Mount Snowdon on a particular Wednesday, but on the Tuesday evening it rained heavily. Around 10 o’clock that night, during the after-dinner dancing, a dozen or so Finns approached me and suggested that we cancel the excursion, as it would be no fun climbing the muddy slopes of Snowdon in heavy rain. I, of course, agreed and announced the cancellation.  Immediately I was surrounded by protesting Italians disputing the decision. Why cancel the trip - they had been looking forward to it (escape from lessons), they had paid for it in their all-inclusive fee, a little rain would not hurt anyone and what was the matter with the Finns anyway - weren't they supposed to be tough people? A little embarrassed, I consulted the Japanese contingent. They were very, very nice. If the Italians wanted to go, they would go, too. If, on the other hand, we cancelled the trip they would be quite happy to stay in and take more lessons. The Italians jeered at the Finns, the Finns mumbled and scowled, and eventually, in order not to lose face, agreed they would go. The excursion was declared on. It rained torrentially all night and also while I took a quick breakfast. The bus was scheduled to leave at half past eight, and at twenty-five past, taking my umbrella in the downpour, I ran to the vehicle. Inside were 18 scowling Finns, 12 smiling Japanese, and no Italians. We left on time and had a terrible day. The rain never let up, we lunched in cloud at the summit, and returned covered in mud at 5 o'clock, in time to see the Italians taking tea and chocolate biscuits. They had sensibly stayed in bed. When the Finns asked them why, they said because it was raining..."

~ Richard Lewis, from the preface to When Cultures Collide, 3rd Edition

The GAP - Part VI - global

Friends in Djibouti; they struggle against a 

difficult international economy.

What happens in the developing world when Wall Street extracts their profit from the international market place?

The billions made at the top of the marketplace come from the productivity and resources of workers around the world.  It doesn't trickle down, and the rising tide doesn't float all boats equally.  Wealth is extracted from developing countries in the form of debt, perhaps primarily, and from trade in goods and raw materials.

International participation in Kenya's marketplace affects local prices; did you know?

A family in Kenya, dear friends of ours, has an income of around $60 a month.  About half is spent on cornmeal (maize meal) which is their staple.  In '07 when a few hundred Wall Street players crashed the marketplace, the price of cornmeal doubled in Kenya.  They had to choose between school and food for their children.  Many kids lost a year from their schooling.
 Wealth didn't trickle down, it trickled away to the rich people.

Such things are deliberate.  One Wall Street executive at Chase Manhattan described his job as (1) analyzing a developing country and determining its max earnings, and (2) creating a debt instrument by which that max could be extracted in the form of interest payments.  Sucking wealth out of a developing country; deliberately maximizing the cash flow despite the deadly effect on the targeted country.

In the 80's, western businesses moved from multidimensional focus to just the bottom line of profitability.  Gone were the community benefit considerations, the fair business practices, and the win-win collaborations.  Just the money was left as the definitive metric.  Did you notice?

That's where we are today; what are the possible paths forward?

Note:  I was encouraged by a town in Texas; family there tells me the community is aggressively pursuing local business with no ties to the larger marketplace.  Local workers, local suppliers, local customers; seems to be going well, at least on the small scale.



The only way for a small group of people to become obscenely rich is for huge masses of others to be kept quite poor. 

The GAP - Part V - the money flow

Despite this administration’s rhetoric against oligarchy, we have seen a rapid concentration of wealth and depressed conditions for the middle class. The trend began in earnest in the Reagan years and is now firmly entrenched.  Is that good or bad?
In today's economy, money flows away from the communities where people work, off down the road and across the country it flows to the coffers of corporations.  These are the companies that now are larger than many of the world's countries, economically speaking.  Money now flows out from every community to the coffers of Wall Street and Wal-Mart.

Business began as local labor and collaboration and mutual benefit.  Farmers and stores, suppliers and consumers, locally connected.  As industries grew, some problems arose, like unfair competition.

It's been against the law for a hundred years to monopolize a segment of the business arena.  Monopolies emerged with large business ventures.  Steel mills and railroads were early examples.  Railroading was widely viewed as a “natural” monopoly.  It didn't make sense to have two railroads laid side by side in competition with each other because of the cost. Problems arose when the powers in that monopoly were left unregulated, and powerful people like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Carnegie used those natural monopolies to capture control of other businesses that had to ride the railway to get to the market.

For a little while, the railroad corporations themselves became the most powerful enterprises in America, but then a few people figured out how to leverage the railroad monopolies to make something even bigger, like Standard Oil.  Rockefeller’s greatest skill was in leveraging the railroad monopolies to make his company more powerful.

Interestingly, the first public uprising against monopoly was the Boston Tea Party. Everyone nowadays says it was a rebellion against taxation. But if you go back and read the actual writings of that moment, it was a purposeful rebellion against the British East India company which had swallowed the trade and transport segment of the economy. 

So, we eventually made laws and limited the marketplace.  ITT got broken up into competitive smaller companies.  The goal was at least 4 or 5 companies in any business segment to keep things under control.  Mergers required federal approval and if they consolidated more than 5% or so of a business segment, they weren't approved.  The biggest company couldn't buy its nearest competitors.

During the Reagan years, the administration with informed congressional concurrence directed a reinterpretation of antimonopoly laws that opened the door to abuse by big business.  Mergers went ahead with government approval, citing 'efficiency' and lowered costs after they fired all the unnecessary people.

Today, we have all sorts of monopolies and near monopolies in the United States. Many are created simply by one company purchasing all their competitors. Some years back a company named Tyco decided to take over the business of making plastic clothes hangers. It went out and bought at least four companies, and that gave it the power to jack up prices to clothing retailers. 


In the glasses and corrective lens market, one company holds 80% of the market; the world market. Most brands come from the one company; Luxottica. Monopoly.

Small town stores, family businesses that are part of the community, they've failed and closed as Wal-Mart steps in across the country.  Small towns have changed.  Is it for better?  Or worse?


The real issue with Wal-Mart is not that it sucks to live in a small town, it’s that the Walton family now controls more wealth than the bottom third of all Americans. One family with as much wealth as 100 million Americans. Now, who’s gonna get listened to when they show up on Capitol Hill? Or in the State House? Or the Town Hall? Is it Mrs. Smith? Or is it going to be the Walton family? (cross check 1, 2 3)

Rather than business and profit going to local folks who do the work, the profit runs away to corporate coffers in another state.  Or country.  Wealth is sucked from every locale by big business with no commitment or involvement in the well-being of the communities.  

The GAP widens from such practices.  What is the impact and what are the future implications of the money flow?




The only way for a small group of people to become obscenely rich is for huge masses of others to be kept quite poor.