What's hard about life?

This young fellow came to the teacher and asked what he needed to do to finish well.  He was told to love God and obey the rules.  The guy said he'd done all of that, and the teacher told him to prove it, but he couldn't or perhaps wouldn't.  His wealth and position, it seems, had tainted his thinking, his view of himself, his comfort and luxury and future. He couldn't imagine changing course to a better purpose.

It's hard, the teacher said, for a rich person to finish well. Really hard. Later, the teacher's friends were struggling to understand.  "If that rich fellow can't do it, how can we or anyone?"   There is a way, but it's perhaps not obvious once wealth and class obscure things.

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Just to put things in context, that rich young upper class fellow was at the top of the food chain.  He had position and influence, income and a retirement plan, pretty much everything he would need for a good long life.  Only a few folks were well off like him and his family.  Apparently, that can be an impediment.

Back then, regular folks had no wealth.  None.  They depended on a little business, a successful crop, a healthy herd for getting by day to day.  They're like subsistence farmers, perhaps, or the village fisherman of developing countries, or like most of the world today, folks who live on less than $5 per day.  When they pray, "give us this day, bread ...," it's probably for real.

Fitting such truth onto the framework of today's world suggests western culture will face the greatest obstacles to doing anything well; anything at all.

Okay, so we're warned that wealth can become too important in our lives, and we're encouraged to help others, to go all in and really make a difference, ...  and then there's that larger part, the better purpose; we're supposed to follow the teacher.

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"We’re the physical evidence, the tangible proof on this planet that God is good. There’s no higher calling, and there’s no greater truth." -Graham Cooke

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Ed vs Ad

If we spent our efforts on education instead of advertising, imagine how well informed we might be.

Education consists of information and context, objectivity and principles considered.  Tedious but necessary for an honest life.

Advertising consists of presentation for quick persuasion, exclusion of alternatives, and hiding the real cost.  It's a business strategy to influence our choices and instill product loyalty whether it's fast food or fast news.

There is little education available via the mainstream media.  Most of what we're offered by commercial media is more appropriately categorized as advertising.  Objective reporting has been generally removed from modern journalism, and perhaps deliberately. (ref)(ref)(ref)

Do your own analysis.  Watch for the 'poison pills'.

• BECAUSE - a commentary that goes beyond the facts to 'because' (the supposed reason someone did something) often assigns a preferred motive.
      "He did this, obviously because he hoped to ...."
  Attributing a motive allows the commentator to define the character and integrity of an individual without evidence beyond their own preferential interpretation of events.  

Motivation cannot be so simply assigned, and doing so is extraordinarily inaccurate, always.  What I think you think is not useful.

• RESTATING the alternate interpretation - confident reiteration of false information will often persuade.
    "His testimony completely vindicates our ...," is one side's preferred interpretation.
    "The testimony unveils even deeper collusion between ...," is another side's preferred interpretation of precisely the same event.
  If you follow the news just on your favorite commercial media, you'll likely believe the biased version offered without legitimate reason for doing so.
  

• EMOTIONAL INCITEMENT - an emotionally charged presentation of the news (product) attempts to engage us in their favor by emotional rhetoric.  Simple statements about complex subjects are easy to inflate and bend.
  "He met with the Russians!  He's a traitor!"  "She deleted her emails!  She's a traitor!" "He tapped my phones!"
  The issues are more complex, and the simple, emotionally charged presentation tends to reinforce bias rather than inform.  The technique is designed to engage and satisfy a particular market segment.

• VISUAL MANIPULATION - sponsors spent $74.7 billion on tv ads.  The figure does not include print and web.  Advertising and neuromarketing target us and our children, and it's done for profit, not as a service.  From a sexy book cover to a cute dog driving a car to a fun clown with fast food, what we're offered by the media is persuasion, not information.

Most media output (including commercial news) is more appropriately categorized as advertising than as information.  Today, they're all competing for sales, working for revenue and not for public service.

 Teach your children well; and yourself.  If we don't clearly and fully understand, we're likely to be misinformed, perhaps even biased without adequate reason.  We desperately need objectivity and principle in discussions today, and it's a difficult battle, one for which our children must be equipped.  
As my wife would suggest, don't be an idiot.     

Prove it!

From the 17th century to today, scientific method looks like this - you begin with your thoughts (hypothesis) on a subject - 

• observe
• measure and experiment
• review and revise the hypothesis based on the result

The method proves or disproves your thinking.  It's proved if you're able to to reliably reproduce the expected result.

That's how we learn, and if we're smart, we'll change and grow.

Relationship is a good example.  Today's thought - in relationships, anger does harm.

• by observation, we note that anger produces division and weakens the bond between us.
• by measure, 
• the more often anger intrudes, the more fractured the relationship becomes.  
• the more intense the anger, the greater the fracture.
• by experiment, we find that understanding and objective communication strengthen the relationship and provide a positive experience for the parties.
• if we're smart, we'll review and revise our communication methodology accordingly.

Okay, that's helpful, but we'll only benefit if we actually do what we've proven is best.
We've all known folks with regular anger content in their relationships.  Even ourselves, perhaps.  Knowing the truth is not the same as doing it.

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So here's another life issue.
“Try this test," God says.  "Bring a small part of your harvest to me so there can be food in my house. Test me!  If you do this, I will bless you.  Good things will come to you like rain falling from the sky.  You will have more than enough of everything."
And again, "Give and it will be given to you, in full measure and more than enough."

We can prove or disprove the offered hypothesis.

Interestingly, the science agrees.  

• Most folks are naturally clingy about their finances.  Over time, it can become a fear-based character trait, a lifestyle.
• Those who give are less concerned about having, about getting ahead.  
• Giving seems to relieve them of the fear associated with perhaps not having enough, and they're able to live more confidently, more reasonably.  
• The change in them enables opportunity and productivity that before perhaps was hidden under the rug of insecurity.
• And interestingly, it opens relationships for helping each other.  It's a life changer.
• Note: the change comes following a more benevolent heart, BUT if you give in order to get something in return, no change.  You'll still be unchanged and emotionally crippled.

Understanding the science (psychology, in this case) doesn't minimize the offer our Lord makes.  Most of the instructions we find in scripture are practical advice, things that work best in life.  He instructs us practically like a father teaching his children would.  He lays out how things are likely to play out based on the choices we make.  Is that a blessing?  Of course.  Miraculous?  Yes; miraculous as in giving us a path none would find without His help.

Givers worry less, smile more, and enjoy life more.  There's more involved than just the gift, of course.

Okay, I'll shut up.

A Trillion Dollars

We've spent that much on LBJ's war on poverty, or maybe more.*  When Johnson was president, the national poverty rate was about 23% (Census Bureau figures).   It's about 13.5% now, but more people are in poverty because of our population growth.  We've fluctuated between 10% and 15% for fifty years.

We've spent a lot on the war.  How did we do? Our effort centered around four pieces of legislation:

• The Social Security Amendments of 1965, which created Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits for retirees, widows, and the disabled, financed by an increase in the payroll tax cap and rates.

• The Food Stamp Act of 1964, which made food assistance, at the time only a pilot program, permanent.

• The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which established the Job Corps, the VISTA program, the federal work-study program and a number of other initiatives. It also established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the arm of the White House responsible for implementing the war on poverty and which created the Head Start program.

Household wealth distribution; household income figures are similar.

• The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, signed into law in 1965, which established the Title I program subsidizing school districts with a large share of impoverished students, among other provisions. ESEA has since been reauthorized, most recently in the No Child Left Behind Act.

Actually, it worked, but did it work well?  

Many do find their way out of poverty each year, and many enter.  Common detrimental circumstances are a change in head of household, job loss, unexpected health-care costs, and the decline in value of wages over the years.  

The intent of our war was to help folks rise out of poverty to self-sufficiency.  Was there any downside to our efforts?  Do the programs need to be reviewed and regularly refined.  Yes, certainly.  We're the world's wealthiest nation, yet more than 20% of our children still live in poverty.  

Impediments to progress:  

• Businesses count on public assistance for their low-paid employees. Walmart, as an example, costs the community around $1 million per year for each super-center because of their labor practices and low wages. Referred to as 'corporate welfare' by many, the company depends on federal assistance for their employees; it's part of a common business model.  
• According to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), the federal minimum wage would be $21.72 per hour if it had kept pace with increases in productivity since 1968. Those productivity increases have raised incomes for the wealthy alone, not for the workforce.
• Wages for the lower 80% have stagnated or declined.  The minimum wage is worth 20% less than it was fifty years ago.
• Real college costs are up 800% since 1965 when a summer at minimum wage would pay for it.  At $1.44 trillion, student loans now exceed auto loans and credit card debt.
• Health-care costs have risen similarly, more in our country than others.  As costs increase without commensurate gains in income, families fall down the ladder.

  Imagine the opportunities available to the wealthiest quintile compared to the rest.  Imagine the differences in education and employment available to those same groups.  Our hope is to make it at least fair, to open doors for everyone.

   Everyone needs a hand.  I was particularly impressed by one wealthy fellow.  He has spent $11 million so far.  Harris Rosen, the Orlando-based founder of Rosen Resorts and Hotels, adopted a Florida neighborhood called Tangelo Park, cut the crime rate in half, and increased the high school graduation rate from 25 per cent to nearly 100 per cent.  He did it by helping, by providing needed daycare, and funding scholarships for high school graduates.
A successful businessman, he's done well for his own family and for others.  He has funded teachers and preschools, tutoring projects, and much more.  Helping others is part of his lifestyle.

     Imagine how different it might be if every Wall Street player and billionaire CEO understood such things.  And perhaps the rest of us, too.
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*Estimates for the war's cost vary, depending on your methods, up to fifteen trillion (Paul Ryan), and more.  Opponents include in the total the outlays of Social Security and Medicare (for which we pay) as though it was the 'government's money' being spent.   Retirees and others receiving Social Security are described as receiving 'welfare benefits'.  Do your own detailed inquiry.

See Apples and Oranges for another look.

What Nature Provides

Suppose we lived on this tiny island with palm trees and beaches, fruit and fishing, and suppose we depended on a rain barrel for fresh water.  

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Rainfall Accumulation greater than or equal to our Water Needs means we'll have enough.    RA ≥ WN = OK

Rainfall Accumulation less than Water Needs means some will not have enough, inequality intrudes.   RA < WN = NOT OK

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That's an obviously simplistic introduction to the question of sustainable existence. Nature replenishes what resources it can, but there are limits.  We store what surplus we can, but there are limits there as well.

The natural cause-vs-effect is mathematically predictable. In a finite system such as an island or a planet, resources and consumption can be mapped over time. The system will progress toward equilibrium or toward exhaustion.

We suspect that current trends in population and resource-use are unsustainable, but how it might play out remains unknown. Might modern civilization collapse? We commonly portray human civilization as a relentless flow toward greater social and political complexity, economic specialization, and the development of more complex and capable technologies, all sustained by the mobilization of ever-increasing quantities of material, energy, and information. Yet this is not inevitable. In fact, cases where this seemingly near-universal, long-term trend has been severely disrupted by a precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common. A brief review of some examples of collapses suggests that the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.

Human and nature dynamics: Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies

Safa Motesharrei -- School of Public Policy and Department of Mathematics, University

of Maryland; National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)

Jorge Rivas -- Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota; Institute of

Global Environment and Society (IGES)

Eugenia Kalnay -- Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science; Institute of 

Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland,
and a family friend.  Interesting lady.  :)

For today, such modeling can be reasonably applied to arable land use, water, forestry, fishing, pollution, toxic waste, population density, and inequality between elite and commoners.

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The Colorado River, for example ...

Texas Senator Troy Fraser says, “The health and safety of the public overrides both industrial and environmental issues.”  

The senator is speaking about the Colorado River that flows through Austin, the state capital that is almost entirely reliant on the river for water. There is a competition among farmers, tourism, residents, and fishermen for the river's water. Rainfall has become sporadic in recent years, and the river's threshold for sustainability has been passed. For central Texas, now comes the choice of who gets the water.  Much is at stake.  What might the outcome be?

There are limits in every finite system.  Beyond the basics of consumption, the first critical variable is population size. Efficiencies of use will determine how much is wasted. Inequality will amplify risk for the majority.  Environmental changes introduces an additional variable.

Fortunately, there are solutions to each problem,
but you can't fix what you don't acknowledge.  

We'll perhaps need a more comprehensive discussion than we've managed so far.
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The debate continues among scientists and interested observers, of course.  This isn't the first time doomsday criers have filled the air with dire predictions.  It continues to be difficult to extract objectivity from it all.  Meanwhile, things continue to change, and several thresholds are now behind us.

The Most Mocked Man in the World

Can we objectively consider the viewpoint of another and understand, or do we quickly decide their perspective is without merit? Here's a chance to find out.  Read this excerpt from a well-written piece with a different point of view and perhaps different value system.  Which points might be relevant to today's discussion?

“He is, as of this writing, the most mocked man in the world.”

 ~From Rebecca Solnit‘s recent piece on Donald Trump

     A man who wished to become the most powerful man in the world, and by happenstance and intervention and a series of disasters was granted his wish. Surely he must have imagined that more power meant more flattery, a grander image, a greater hall of mirrors reflecting back his magnificence. But he misunderstood power and prominence. This man had bullied friends and acquaintances, wives and servants, and he bullied facts and truths, insistent that he was more than they were, than it is, that it too must yield to his will. It did not, but the people he bullied pretended that it did. Or perhaps it was that he was a salesman, throwing out one pitch after another, abandoning each one as soon as it left his mouth. A hungry ghost always wants the next thing, not the last thing.

     This one imagined that the power would repose within him and make him great, a Midas touch that would turn all to gold. But the power of the presidency was what it had always been: a system of cooperative relationships, a power that rested on people’s willingness to carry out the orders the president gave, and a willingness that came from that president’s respect for rule of law, truth, and the people.  A man who gives an order that is not followed has his powerlessness hung out like dirty laundry.  One day earlier this year, one of this president’s minions announced that the president’s power would not be questioned. There are tyrants who might utter such a statement and strike fear into those beneath him, because they have instilled enough fear.

     ... This would-be tyrant didn’t understand that he was in a system where many in government, perhaps most beyond the members of his party in the legislative branch, were loyal to law and principle and not to him. His minion announced the president would not be questioned, and we laughed. He called in, like courtiers, the heads of the FBI, of the NSA, and the director of national intelligence to tell them to suppress evidence, to stop investigations and found that their loyalty was not to him. He found out to his chagrin that we were still something of a democracy, and that the free press could not be so easily stopped, and the public itself refused to be cowed and mocks him earnestly at every turn.

     The man in the white house sits, naked and obscene, a pustule of ego, in the harsh light, a man whose grasp exceeded his understanding, because his understanding was dulled by indulgence. ... One way or another this will kill him, though he may drag down millions with him.  One way or another, he knows he has stepped off a cliff, pronounced himself king of the air, and is in freefall.  Another dungheap awaits his landing; the dung is all his; when he plunges into it he will be, at last, a self-made man.

______________________________________________(the author is a liberal activist, obviously)

Thoughts?  
Apart from the prophesied disaster for millions, is there some measure of usefulness in the description, that he is perhaps unfamiliar with the workings of political office, checks and balances, and limits of authority?  And rule of law?  And truth?  Has he in some measure bullied his way to the office?  Of course.  Is he a prolific liar?  Consider: 70 percent of Trump’s statements (those checked by PolitiFact during the campaign) were false, 4 percent were true, and 11 percent mostly true.  The statistics since inauguration are similar.  Is that a problem?

To keep things in perspective, critics of Clinton were equally and accurately derogatory.  She was portrayed as a behind-the-scenes manipulator, untruthful, ethicless, and conscienceless.  The DNC was unveiled as unrepresentative of the party.  All such elements are necessary to our understanding and discussion if we are to make our way forward.

Americans are generally dissatisfied with governance and politicians.  Public approval of our Congress has reached historic lows in recent years, and little has been accomplished to the satisfaction of the general public.  Healthcare has seen great change but not improvement in quality, cost, or availability.  International trade has seen great change but not without extraordinarily harsh impact on the developing nations.  The economy has made great progress but only for the wealthiest, particularly in the developed nations.  The GAP between rich and poor continues to widen at an accelerating pace, and the middle class has declined below the 50% threshold.  

We've taken our step toward change.  Can we understand the various concerns of the citizenry?  Can we discuss them thoughtfully?