Econ 101/2

Understanding our current economy  isn't a simple task.  One course may not be enough.  

The brief provided here should fill in any gaps in our understanding.  

Entertaining Work

Perhaps the best part of work is getting things done, making progress, reaching good goals.

Remember the first time in school when you had a team assignment and you depended on the work of your teammates? Maybe it was a chemistry class assignment ... we hated it, mostly. We needed each to take responsibility and do their part, and it didn't work very well.

Ever thought about what happens when the players don't do their part?

1. Timelines extend.
2. Performance declines.
3. Frustration rises.
4. Goals morph.
5. Excuses escalate.
6. Blame erupts. 
7. Higher ups complain.
8. Stress increases.
9. Good workers get thrown under the bus as 'good' reasons for the failure.

It's only funny from a distance.  If you're caught up in the middle of it, it's depressing.

So how might someone in the middle provoke reasonable progress?
The missing piece is LEADERSHIP, of course.
You can help the process.

1. Identify and agree on the goal, the vision.
2. Explain goals in the big picture.  What’s the purpose?  Who is impacted by success?
3. Do your part and more.
   
4. Get commitments.
   • What are you going to do?
   • When are you going to deliver it?
   • How will you achieve your goal?
   • When will you work on this?
   • What will you do if you realize you might fall short?
5. Provide a path to success.
   
   • What resources do you need? How will you get them?
   • What skills might need developed?
   • Who needs to participate?
6. Respond to sincere failure gracefully. But, before you do, examine excuses.
   • When did you realize you would fall short?
   • What did you do when you faced obstacles?
   • When did you begin working on this project?
   • What did you actually do? Don’t accept, “I did my best.”
7. Create incremental milestones. Monitor progress; refine to goal.  
8. Give feedback now, not after all the work is done.
9. Don't throw people under the bus. Stand with people who fall short, if you are going to keep them on the team.

That's all leadership stuff, but somebody's gotta do it if we're going to reach the good goals.

Meaningful work and being able to benefit others with our effort is a great opportunity and worth doing well.  Passing the time, drawing a paycheck for minimal work isn't an adequate response, is it.   Serving well is more fun.

God Never Said

"God never said make the world a safe place.   He said bring sinners to him and he will do it."

~Paul Cline

True?  Well, not really.  He has given us plenty of direction and counsel regarding justice, defense of those mistreated, and right thinking.  This would be a good time for His help, though.  Conflict and upheaval surround the issues of making things right and safe and the way they should be.  We'd hoped our world would be more reasonable.

ISIS claims to be doing what's right, ridding the earth of those apostate Shiites.

Hitler claimed to be restoring the Reich and cleansing the earth of those Jewish vermin. Himmler claimed he was a decent person while he was doing it.

Planned Parenthood claims to be helping women by disposing of those babies, and Gosnell (pictured) claims he was a decent fellow, meeting the health needs of those poor folks. 

Making things right requires right thinking, of course.  

It's absence is the problem we face each day.

Happy Anniversary to Kermit Gosnell (it's been two years since his murder convictions and imprisonment for life without parole).  I wonder if perhaps his thinking will get adjusted a bit.

God, deliver us from such strangely inhuman people in this world.  What's the right response?

Gosnell the abortionist serial killer was not unusual, by the way. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

If only

If there were only a few of us, like maybe one or two hundred family members scattered across some farm land, how would we do collectively?  What would it look like?

The Kraemer family farm in Oregon where 

everybody does their part for the benefit of all.

So there's perhaps a few dozen really capable adults, perhaps the same number of really young and really old people, plus the young adults making their way into responsible life.

Would the productive members take care of the ones without the skills or perhaps without the strength to do the hard work?  Of course.

Would the skilled take the time to teach and equip the youngsters who wanted to step up?  Yes, absolutely.

Would the oldies with a lifetime's accumulation of resources share with those who hadn't yet developed their own and help them become productive?  You know they would.  Families watch out for each other even if there's sacrifice involved.

What you wouldn't see in the family is the grandfathers and grandmothers enslaving their youngsters.  You wouldn't find moms and dads indebting their kids and extended family members just to get more wealth.

If you did find such things, that would be Wall Street World, of course, and modern capitalism, the bottom-line driven culture of acquire and consume, a continuation of mankind's record of pillage and plunder.  What a shame.


The world is just a couple hundred countries, humanity's extended family. Most could be prosperous, but currently about 80% of the family members live on less than $10 or so a day. The rich gain their wealth at the expense of the poor, and continue to do so deliberately despite the visible harm being done.

Ever thought about your part in all of that?
You've got options.  You don't have to play by those rules.

Yes We Can. Should We?

Mars, terraformed over time (artist's modeling)

Emerging capabilities mean we could transform Mars into an Earth-like planet in just a few centuries.  But should we?

Absolutely! ... provided some questions can be answered adequately.

Having a new home in space opens incredible possibilities.  What issues must be settled as we move forward?

• Who will own the finished product?
• How will the new region be governed?

• Do we follow the 'colonial' model from our history?
• Is this an effort for all mankind?  Or is it an investment for the benefit of some?
• ... and the business model?  

• Startup, development, deployment, O&M, ROI, shareholders
• Settlers and their descendants will be ... employees? citizens?  occupants?

Yes we can, but should we?
     How are we doing with the world we have?
          In a half-century, we've completely transformed the world economic system.

• Financial corporations are now larger than countries.
• Interconnected corporations control segments of the world economy.
• The financial industry extracts wealth here from countries on the far side of the world.
• Corporations (and a short list of powerful individuals) can own government policies.

In the 'business model' we see today, wealth rules without conscience.  Life for 80% of humanity is constrained by fiscal practices to living on $10/day or less.  Often. much less.  Poverty is not the result of bad luck, ignorance, or unwillingness to work.  Poverty is done to you.  Know who did it?

Many are surprised to find that the poverty of 5.6 billion people is the byproduct of deliberate choice by the wealthy and powerful throughout history.  In a chilling, recent example from the finance industry, one analyst describes his task as determining the GDP of a developing country and how it could be extracted by his company through debt instruments.  That's what you get when the business goal is the bottom line.  'Serving well' is a better purpose, but it's generally lost in the upper ranks of finance.

Following the money, the 'student loan' initiative, as a recent painful example, has devolved into a similarly destructive trap fraught with practices that preferentially benefit the lenders.  Like the welfare program's effect on poverty, there are few exits for those who get trapped inside.  Though it started as a helpful idea, now a graduate can spend a decade or more in the equivalent of indentured servitude.  (11 May 15: CNN this morning - 70% of millennials say their parents still pay a significant portion of their living expenses.)

Solutions:
Disassemble (or prosecute) the 'too big to fail' corporations?
     Probably an essential step for several reasons.
Refocus government on service and quality of life instead of GDP?
     The U.K. has begun discussion on such things ...
Perhaps every corrupt politico and business exec should be permanently exiled to the world's poorest country.

Should we hold the players accountable for the fallout of their actions?  A deliberate failure of ethical diligence in the 07-08 collapse resulted in the transfer of $trillions from the many to the pockets of the few.  Every household in the world (yes, the world) suffered financial loss.  The poor at the survival level lost the ability to school their children, to feed their families, and millions suffered permanent harm or death from deprivation as a direct result of finance industry actions.

History repeats itself - monopoly, legislation, taxes, the Robber Barons of the middle ages and today

No enemy has caused greater destruction. Ever.
Questions about going forward must include resolving such injustice, or we'll take the plague with us into the new world.  Again.  

From history:  Engulfed in Flames, 1848 Again?

Rule vs. Role

What role should the more experienced among us play?  Should they rule from far above?  Or might they perhaps work alongside and equip others for life and service.

In a vertical arrangement, power and position carry the risk that one person can take everything and everyone down.  We've seen it in many attempts at such rule, whether it's national government or organizational leadership, the flaws of one can affect all.

We're given prophets and apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.  It's that equipping that's their goal, not rule and authority, of course.

Churches were dragged in under emperors and governments centuries ago.  Rulers of nations merged themselves with rulers of churches and gave us the Crusades, the Inquisition, pursuit of empire, and other corruptions of intent.  Despite deliberate separation, that framework of hierarchical governance persisted in much of the church.

That which remains of the living church ... equips all to serve well.  The calling is not to sit and listen but to live and worship together and shine like a light on a hill, and we're changed by it all.

There must, perhaps, be authority for decisions, for law, to ensure freedom and justice, but in each case, the higher the hierarchy, the greater the risk.  In business, in the marketplace, in organizations and administrations, the risk is there.  Dictatorial rule can be the most destructive.  Such are the reasons for checks and balances.  Here's hoping it works.