From Bill Maher RealTime: July 25, 2009
New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit
How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are. Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? But now our war zones are dominated by private contractors and mercenaries who work for corporations. There are more private contractors in Iraq than American troops, and we pay them generous salaries to do jobs the troops used to do for themselves -- like laundry. War is not supposed to turn a profit, but our wars have become boondoggles for weapons manufacturers and connected civilian contractors.
Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason -- who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition you're going to have trouble with the tenants. But now prisons are big business. A company called the Corrections Corporation of America is on the New York Stock Exchange, which is convenient since that's where all the real crime is happening anyway. The CCA and similar corporations actually lobby Congress for stiffer sentencing laws so they can lock more people up and make more money. That's why America has the world;s largest prison population -- because actually rehabilitating people would have a negative impact on the bottom line.
Television news is another area that used to be roped off from the profit motive. When Walter Cronkite died last week, it was odd to see news anchor after news anchor talking about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it."But maybe they aren't. Because unlike in Cronkite's day, today's news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate. That's why it wasn't surprising to see the CBS Evening News broadcast live from the Staples Center for two nights this month, just in case Michael Jackson came back to life and sold Iran nuclear weapons. In Uncle Walter's time, the news division was a loss leader. Making money was the job of The Beverly Hillbillies. And now that we have reporters moving to Alaska to hang out with the Palin family, the news is The Beverly Hillbillies.
And finally, there's health care. It wasn't that long ago that when a kid broke his leg playing stickball, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun put a thermometer in his mouth, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle and you were done. The bill was $1.50, plus you got to keep the thermometer.But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. America's largest hospital chain, HCA, was founded by the family of Bill Frist, who perfectly represents the Republican attitude toward health care: it's not a right, it's a racket. The more people who get sick and need medicine, the higher their profit margins. Which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O. Because medicine is now for-profit we have things like "recision," where insurance companies hire people to figure out ways to deny you coverage when you get sick, even though you've been paying into your plan for years.
When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross/Blue Shield. If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism. And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!
Some of this has been covered in previous DaG posts but, a tip of the hat to Bill for being so succinct, factual, and witty.
DaG Out
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Let's help Kucinich and Sanders change the debate
In mid-May, in an effort to reach consensus, President Obama secured a deal with the health insurance companies to trim 1.5% of their costs each year for ten years saving a total of $2 trillion dollars, which would be reprogrammed into healthcare. Just two days after the announcement at the White House the insurance companies reneged on the deal which was designed to protect and increase their revenue at least 35% The insurance companies reneged on the deal because they refuse any restraint on increasing premiums, copays and deductibles - core to their profits.
No wonder a recent USA Today poll found that only four percent of Americans trust insurance companies. This is within the margin of error, which means it is possible that NO ONE TRUSTS insurance companies. Then why does Congress trust the insurance companies? Yesterday HR 3200 "America's Affordable Health Choices Act," a 1000 page bill was delivered to members. The title of the bill raises a question: "Affordable" for whom?.
Of $2.4 trillion spent annually for health care in America, fully $800 billion goes for the activities of the for-profit insurer-based system. This means one of every three health care dollars is siphoned off for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing and the cost of paper work, (which can be anywhere between 15 - 35% in the private sector as compared to Medicare, the single payer plan which has only 3% administrative costs).50 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are under insured while for-profit insurance companies divert precious health care dollars to non-health care purposes. Eliminate the for-profit health care system and its extraordinary overhead, put the money into healthcare and everyone will be covered, everyone will be able to afford health care.
Today three committees will begin marking up and amending HR3200. In this, one of the most momentous public policy debates in the past 70 years, single payer, the only viable "public option," the one that makes sound business sense, controls costs and covers everyone was taken off the table. In contrast to HR3200 ... HR676 calls for a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, Medicare for All. It has over 85 co-sponsors in Congress with the support of millions of Americans and countless physicians and nurses.
How does HR-676 control costs and cover everyone? It cuts out the for-profit middle men and delivers care directly to consumers and Medicare acts as the single payer of bills. It also recognizes that under the current system for-profit insurance companies make money NOT providing health care. This week is the time to break the hold which the insurance companies have on our political process. Tell Congress to stand up to the insurance companies.
Ask members to sign on to the only real public option, HR 676, a single-payer healthcare system.Hundreds of local labor unions, thousands of physicians and millions of Americans are standing behind us. With a draft of HR3200 now circulating, It is up to each and every one of us to organize and rally for the cause of single-payer healthcare. Change the debate. Now is the time.
The time to act is now!
If you don't know your Senator's phone number: Call the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request. To find your congressman or woman click on the link below:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
DaG Out
No wonder a recent USA Today poll found that only four percent of Americans trust insurance companies. This is within the margin of error, which means it is possible that NO ONE TRUSTS insurance companies. Then why does Congress trust the insurance companies? Yesterday HR 3200 "America's Affordable Health Choices Act," a 1000 page bill was delivered to members. The title of the bill raises a question: "Affordable" for whom?.
Of $2.4 trillion spent annually for health care in America, fully $800 billion goes for the activities of the for-profit insurer-based system. This means one of every three health care dollars is siphoned off for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing and the cost of paper work, (which can be anywhere between 15 - 35% in the private sector as compared to Medicare, the single payer plan which has only 3% administrative costs).50 million Americans are uninsured and another 50 million are under insured while for-profit insurance companies divert precious health care dollars to non-health care purposes. Eliminate the for-profit health care system and its extraordinary overhead, put the money into healthcare and everyone will be covered, everyone will be able to afford health care.
Today three committees will begin marking up and amending HR3200. In this, one of the most momentous public policy debates in the past 70 years, single payer, the only viable "public option," the one that makes sound business sense, controls costs and covers everyone was taken off the table. In contrast to HR3200 ... HR676 calls for a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, Medicare for All. It has over 85 co-sponsors in Congress with the support of millions of Americans and countless physicians and nurses.
How does HR-676 control costs and cover everyone? It cuts out the for-profit middle men and delivers care directly to consumers and Medicare acts as the single payer of bills. It also recognizes that under the current system for-profit insurance companies make money NOT providing health care. This week is the time to break the hold which the insurance companies have on our political process. Tell Congress to stand up to the insurance companies.
Ask members to sign on to the only real public option, HR 676, a single-payer healthcare system.Hundreds of local labor unions, thousands of physicians and millions of Americans are standing behind us. With a draft of HR3200 now circulating, It is up to each and every one of us to organize and rally for the cause of single-payer healthcare. Change the debate. Now is the time.
The time to act is now!
If you don't know your Senator's phone number: Call the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request. To find your congressman or woman click on the link below:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/
DaG Out
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The end of an empire
BRIC or BRICs is an acronym that refers to the fast growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Why do you need to know this?
The BRIC is currently holding an economic summit in YEKATERINBURG, Russia . A summit that we asked to be invited to but, were turned down. It was reported today by the AP that Russia is trying to persuade the other countries to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. If this happens it will throw the United States into an unimaginable state of economic chaos. The end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency will be the beginning of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. Our status as a super power will be gone, hyper inflation will rival any in the world's history, and we will become all but, a third world country. If the dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency, the dollar could lose over 60% of it's value. . . . kiss our standard of living and the middle class good bye. And what is to follow will be very, very painful.
From Chris Hedges of Truthdig: " If they succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that will make the last few months look like boom times. State and federal services will be reduced or shut down for lack of funds. The United States will begin to resemble the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. Obama, endowed by many with the qualities of a savior, will suddenly look pitiful, inept and weak. And the rage that has kindled a handful of shootings and hate crimes in the past few weeks will engulf vast segments of a disenfranchised and bewildered working and middle class. The people of this class will demand vengeance, radical change, order and moral renewal, which an array of proto-fascists, from the Christian right to the goons who disseminate hate talk on Fox News, will assure the country they will impose."
China has already replaced the U.S. as Brazil's number one trade partner. We are being squeezed out of the worlds economy. And probably for good reason. We've been in control for so long and we've blown it. Beginning with the Reagan Administration we have done all we can to destroy our manufacturing base and replace it with a service industry. Rather than making things we can sell, which produces actual wealth, we consume on credit, work at jobs that only requiring the skill to ask "Do you want fries with that?" , and make just enough $ to remain in debt without filing bankruptcy. Which by the way, only big business can do and still profit by doing it. Add to this the theft that is taking place at the Federal Reserve. Over the past year they have quietly printed over $9 trillion (with a t) and refuse to tell oversight panels who is receiving that money. Remember that The United States GDP is only 13 trillion. This makes the Bush / Paulson $750 billion bank heist look like a lemonade stand robbery. Obama and his administration isn't doing anything to stop this, if anything they are facilitating this financial breaking of America. If the Fed isn't stopped, what little value the dollar might retain after it is no longer the world's reserve currency, will be decimated. The United States could literally be bought for pennies on the dollar, and social services will be sold to private corporations. Police, Fire, and Postal service will be for profit entities and all highways will become toll roads, cats will chase dogs, rats and snakes will marry, boogers will eat 4 year olds . . .
Let's all hope I'm over reacting.
DaG out
The BRIC is currently holding an economic summit in YEKATERINBURG, Russia . A summit that we asked to be invited to but, were turned down. It was reported today by the AP that Russia is trying to persuade the other countries to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency. If this happens it will throw the United States into an unimaginable state of economic chaos. The end of the dollar’s reign as the world’s reserve currency will be the beginning of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. Our status as a super power will be gone, hyper inflation will rival any in the world's history, and we will become all but, a third world country. If the dollar is no longer the world's reserve currency, the dollar could lose over 60% of it's value. . . . kiss our standard of living and the middle class good bye. And what is to follow will be very, very painful.
From Chris Hedges of Truthdig: " If they succeed, the dollar will dramatically plummet in value, the cost of imports, including oil, will skyrocket, interest rates will climb and jobs will hemorrhage at a rate that will make the last few months look like boom times. State and federal services will be reduced or shut down for lack of funds. The United States will begin to resemble the Weimar Republic or Zimbabwe. Obama, endowed by many with the qualities of a savior, will suddenly look pitiful, inept and weak. And the rage that has kindled a handful of shootings and hate crimes in the past few weeks will engulf vast segments of a disenfranchised and bewildered working and middle class. The people of this class will demand vengeance, radical change, order and moral renewal, which an array of proto-fascists, from the Christian right to the goons who disseminate hate talk on Fox News, will assure the country they will impose."
China has already replaced the U.S. as Brazil's number one trade partner. We are being squeezed out of the worlds economy. And probably for good reason. We've been in control for so long and we've blown it. Beginning with the Reagan Administration we have done all we can to destroy our manufacturing base and replace it with a service industry. Rather than making things we can sell, which produces actual wealth, we consume on credit, work at jobs that only requiring the skill to ask "Do you want fries with that?" , and make just enough $ to remain in debt without filing bankruptcy. Which by the way, only big business can do and still profit by doing it. Add to this the theft that is taking place at the Federal Reserve. Over the past year they have quietly printed over $9 trillion (with a t) and refuse to tell oversight panels who is receiving that money. Remember that The United States GDP is only 13 trillion. This makes the Bush / Paulson $750 billion bank heist look like a lemonade stand robbery. Obama and his administration isn't doing anything to stop this, if anything they are facilitating this financial breaking of America. If the Fed isn't stopped, what little value the dollar might retain after it is no longer the world's reserve currency, will be decimated. The United States could literally be bought for pennies on the dollar, and social services will be sold to private corporations. Police, Fire, and Postal service will be for profit entities and all highways will become toll roads, cats will chase dogs, rats and snakes will marry, boogers will eat 4 year olds . . .
Let's all hope I'm over reacting.
DaG out
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
How it all began . . .
Ever wonder how we got here? How did a strong middle class with an American Dream get crushed into indentured servitude? What or who came up with the business first, individual second political, legal, and financial priority? Who or what influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations that began paying off handsomely in the 1980s? How is it that a previously ridiculed Milton Friedman's "free market-no tariff" capitalistic society, became the mantra for the Reagan Administration and future administrations? Who's responsible for the "hands-off business" philosophy that got us into this the unregulated debacle and corporate greed that have contributed to the bankrupting of our country?
Let me introduce you to former conservative corporate lawyer and supreme court justice . . . Louis Powell.
In 1971 Powell wrote a memorandum or a conservative manifesto if you will. In an extraordinary prefiguring of the social goals of business that would be felt over the next three decades, Powell set his main goal: Changing how individuals and society think about the corporation, the government, the law, the culture, and the individual became, and would remain, a major goal of business.
He had been a board member of Philip Morris between 1964 until his appointment in 1971, and had acted as a contact point for the tobacco industry with the Virginia Commonwealth University. Through his law firm, Hunton Williams Gay Powell & Gibson (later just Hunton & Williams) he represented the Tobacco Institute and the various tobacco companies in numerous law cases.
Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the conservatives and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades.
Here are some of the highlights of Powells memorandum that outlined the steps necessary for corporate America and the conservative ideology to take precedence over individual rights, social safety nets, and progressive ideology :
1. Balancing of Faculties Perhaps the most fundamental problem is the imbalance of many faculties. Correcting this is indeed a long-range and difficult project. Yet, it should be undertaken as a part of an overall program. This would mean the urging of the need for faculty balance upon university administrators and boards of trustees. (Balancing, Mr. Powell? Isn't that a nice word for "quotas" something you despise about affirmative action)
2. A staff of scholars (or preferably a panel of independent scholars) should evaluate social science textbooks, especially in economics, political science and sociology. This should be a continuing program (This is why our students text books no longer include mentions of labor unions, political science and why Civics is no longer taught in our schools.)
3. The national television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance. This applies not merely to so-called educational programs (such as "Selling of the Pentagon"), but to the daily "news analysis" which so often includes the most insidious type of criticism of the enterprise system. Whether this criticism results from hostility or economic ignorance, the result is the gradual erosion of confidence in "business" and free enterprise. (Really? I thought conservatives were against a "fairness doctrine" Oh I get it! You're only against it when the left wants it.)
4. Reaching the campus and the secondary schools is vital for the long-term. Reaching the public generally may be more important for the shorter term. The first essential is to establish the staffs of eminent scholars, writers and speakers, who will do the thinking, the analysis, the writing and the speaking. It will also be essential to have staff personnel who are thoroughly familiar with the media, and how most effectively to communicate with the public. (Rush, Hannity, and O'reily etc. etc ).
5. The news stands -- at airports, drugstores, and elsewhere -- are filled with paperbacks and pamphlets advocating everything from revolution to erotic free love. One finds almost no attractive, well-written paperbacks or pamphlets on "our side." (Now we see the flowing blond hair of Ann Coulter and handsome face of Joe Scarborough. )
At the time Powell wrote this memo, academia in America was decidedly more liberal. Once corporate America followed the steps laid out by Powell, politicians like Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2, and our legislative branches began to dismantle all the things that allowed the middle class to prosper. And what's really sad is they did it with the majority of the middle class's blessing. Many many lower middle class folks vote for those politicians who consistently vote against their best interests, and for the interests of big business.
Example: Newspapers didn't used to have just business sections, they had labor sections as well. Few of us remember those days but it's true. Monopoly ownership of our media outlets put an end to that.
The same type of methodology has convinced a large number of Americans that private for profit health care insurance companies provide better coverage than would a single payer or a universal medi-care plan. Their media propaganda has convinced so many of us that we don't want a government bureaucrat to come between us and our doctor, all the while ignoring the fact that currently our insurance company comes between us and our doctors.
Back to Powell: Even though he and I are on opposite ends of the political and societal spectrum, I have to agree with his premise. All he left out of his blue print was the bribing of elected officials via lobbyist.
DaG Out
Let me introduce you to former conservative corporate lawyer and supreme court justice . . . Louis Powell.
In 1971 Powell wrote a memorandum or a conservative manifesto if you will. In an extraordinary prefiguring of the social goals of business that would be felt over the next three decades, Powell set his main goal: Changing how individuals and society think about the corporation, the government, the law, the culture, and the individual became, and would remain, a major goal of business.
He had been a board member of Philip Morris between 1964 until his appointment in 1971, and had acted as a contact point for the tobacco industry with the Virginia Commonwealth University. Through his law firm, Hunton Williams Gay Powell & Gibson (later just Hunton & Williams) he represented the Tobacco Institute and the various tobacco companies in numerous law cases.
Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the conservatives and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades.
Here are some of the highlights of Powells memorandum that outlined the steps necessary for corporate America and the conservative ideology to take precedence over individual rights, social safety nets, and progressive ideology :
1. Balancing of Faculties Perhaps the most fundamental problem is the imbalance of many faculties. Correcting this is indeed a long-range and difficult project. Yet, it should be undertaken as a part of an overall program. This would mean the urging of the need for faculty balance upon university administrators and boards of trustees. (Balancing, Mr. Powell? Isn't that a nice word for "quotas" something you despise about affirmative action)
2. A staff of scholars (or preferably a panel of independent scholars) should evaluate social science textbooks, especially in economics, political science and sociology. This should be a continuing program (This is why our students text books no longer include mentions of labor unions, political science and why Civics is no longer taught in our schools.)
3. The national television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance. This applies not merely to so-called educational programs (such as "Selling of the Pentagon"), but to the daily "news analysis" which so often includes the most insidious type of criticism of the enterprise system. Whether this criticism results from hostility or economic ignorance, the result is the gradual erosion of confidence in "business" and free enterprise. (Really? I thought conservatives were against a "fairness doctrine" Oh I get it! You're only against it when the left wants it.)
4. Reaching the campus and the secondary schools is vital for the long-term. Reaching the public generally may be more important for the shorter term. The first essential is to establish the staffs of eminent scholars, writers and speakers, who will do the thinking, the analysis, the writing and the speaking. It will also be essential to have staff personnel who are thoroughly familiar with the media, and how most effectively to communicate with the public. (Rush, Hannity, and O'reily etc. etc ).
5. The news stands -- at airports, drugstores, and elsewhere -- are filled with paperbacks and pamphlets advocating everything from revolution to erotic free love. One finds almost no attractive, well-written paperbacks or pamphlets on "our side." (Now we see the flowing blond hair of Ann Coulter and handsome face of Joe Scarborough. )
At the time Powell wrote this memo, academia in America was decidedly more liberal. Once corporate America followed the steps laid out by Powell, politicians like Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2, and our legislative branches began to dismantle all the things that allowed the middle class to prosper. And what's really sad is they did it with the majority of the middle class's blessing. Many many lower middle class folks vote for those politicians who consistently vote against their best interests, and for the interests of big business.
Example: Newspapers didn't used to have just business sections, they had labor sections as well. Few of us remember those days but it's true. Monopoly ownership of our media outlets put an end to that.
The same type of methodology has convinced a large number of Americans that private for profit health care insurance companies provide better coverage than would a single payer or a universal medi-care plan. Their media propaganda has convinced so many of us that we don't want a government bureaucrat to come between us and our doctor, all the while ignoring the fact that currently our insurance company comes between us and our doctors.
Back to Powell: Even though he and I are on opposite ends of the political and societal spectrum, I have to agree with his premise. All he left out of his blue print was the bribing of elected officials via lobbyist.
DaG Out
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Bankruptcy Losses Make Hedge Fund Profits
By DAN STRUMPF and KIMBERLY S. JOHNSON, AP Auto Writers Dan Strumpf And Kimberly S. Johnson, Ap Auto Writers – 34 mins ago
NEW YORK – General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as part of the Obama administration's plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government.
"Our agreement with the U.S. Treasury and the governments of Canada and Ontario will create a leaner, quicker more customer and completely product-focused company, one that's more cost competitive and has a competitive balance sheet," CEO Fritz Henderson said at a news conference in New York. "This new GM will be built from the strongest parts of our business, including our best brands and products."
The Detroit automaker said warranty coverage, service and customer support will continue uninterrupted, plants will continue to make cars and trucks, and employees and essential suppliers will continue to be paid. GMAC Financial Services said in a statement that it will continues to provide automotive financing to GM and Chrysler dealers and customers.
GM will follow a similar course taken by smaller rival Chrysler LLC, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in April. A judge gave Chrysler approval to sell most of its assets to Italy's Fiat, moving the U.S. automaker closer to a quick exit from court protection, possibly this week.
The plan is for the federal government to take a 60 percent ownership stake in the new GM. The Canadian government would take 12.5 percent, with the United Auto Workers getting a 17.5 percent share and unsecured bondholders receiving 10 percent. Existing GM shareholders are expected to be wiped out.
The Pontiac, Mich., and Wilmington, Del., assembly plants will close this year, while plants in Spring Hill, Tenn., and Orion, Mich., will shut down production but remain on standby. One of the idled plants will be retooled to build a small car that GM had originally planned to build in China.
The company plans to cut 21,000 employees, about 34 percent of its work force, and reduce the number of dealers by 2,600. (Any cuts in CEO's or their multi million dollar salaries? )
"There is still plenty of pain to go around, but I'm confident this is far better than the alternative," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "It's a new beginning, it's a rebirth, it's a new General Motors."
GM shares fell as low as 27 cents in Monday morning trading, their lowest price in the company's 100-year history, but rebounded to rise 13 cents from Friday's close to 88 cents in afternoon trading. The bankruptcy filing represents a dramatic downfall for GM, which was founded in 1908 by William C. Durant, who brought several car companies under one roof and developed a strategy of "a car for every purse and purpose." Longtime leader Alfred P. Sloan built the global automaker into a corporate icon.
When GM failed to do so by a March 31 deadline, Obama forced out CEO Rick Wagoner and replaced him with Henderson.
It was an all-out sprint to Monday's filing, as GM quickly sought to nail down deals with its union, bondholders and sell off brands and along with most of its Opel operations in Europe in an effort to appear in court with a near-complete plan to quickly emerge as a leaner company with a chance to become profitable.
In the U.S., the UAW's ratification of concessions, announced Friday, will save GM $1.3 billion per year. The new deal freezes wages, ends bonuses and eliminates some noncompetitive work rules.
It also moves billions in retiree health care costs off GM's books. In exchange for its ownership stake, (Great so retirees get worthless stock in lieu of healthcare. Seems like a fair trade.) Higher health care costs alone accounted for a $1,500-per-car cost gap between GM and Japanese vehicles. (National single payer health care would solve this problem. Hello!!!!)
GM will offer buyouts and early retirement packages to all of its 61,000 hourly workers as it plans to shrink overall employment. The company also has about 27,000 white collar employees. In contrast, GM employed 618,000 Americans in 1979, more than any other company.
But just cutting labor and overhead costs won't be enough to save the company. It also has been working to streamline its engineering and design, as well as standardize many parts so they can go into multiple models. (Taking money away from engineering and design? Are you kidding me? How can their priorities be so out of whack?)
So, what isn't getting any media coverage is the hedge funds and credit swap derivatives that helped push the auto companies into bankruptcy. The very same people like Goldman Sacks and other financial institutions bet against the auto companies solvency. If the government bailed out GM and Chrysler like they did so many Wall Street companies, Congressmen and their lobbyist clientele would have lost money. As it stands Wall Street hedge funds that our tax payer dollars subsidized, are going to clean up while the UAW takes it in the shorts, Joe six pack laborer loses his job and any stock they owned in the company is pretty much worthless.
Where's the outrage?! Where's the 60 minute expose'? Why aren't any of the media outlets covering this scam?! WTF?!
DaG Out
NEW YORK – General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as part of the Obama administration's plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government.
"Our agreement with the U.S. Treasury and the governments of Canada and Ontario will create a leaner, quicker more customer and completely product-focused company, one that's more cost competitive and has a competitive balance sheet," CEO Fritz Henderson said at a news conference in New York. "This new GM will be built from the strongest parts of our business, including our best brands and products."
The Detroit automaker said warranty coverage, service and customer support will continue uninterrupted, plants will continue to make cars and trucks, and employees and essential suppliers will continue to be paid. GMAC Financial Services said in a statement that it will continues to provide automotive financing to GM and Chrysler dealers and customers.
GM will follow a similar course taken by smaller rival Chrysler LLC, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in April. A judge gave Chrysler approval to sell most of its assets to Italy's Fiat, moving the U.S. automaker closer to a quick exit from court protection, possibly this week.
The plan is for the federal government to take a 60 percent ownership stake in the new GM. The Canadian government would take 12.5 percent, with the United Auto Workers getting a 17.5 percent share and unsecured bondholders receiving 10 percent. Existing GM shareholders are expected to be wiped out.
The Pontiac, Mich., and Wilmington, Del., assembly plants will close this year, while plants in Spring Hill, Tenn., and Orion, Mich., will shut down production but remain on standby. One of the idled plants will be retooled to build a small car that GM had originally planned to build in China.
The company plans to cut 21,000 employees, about 34 percent of its work force, and reduce the number of dealers by 2,600. (Any cuts in CEO's or their multi million dollar salaries? )
"There is still plenty of pain to go around, but I'm confident this is far better than the alternative," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "It's a new beginning, it's a rebirth, it's a new General Motors."
GM shares fell as low as 27 cents in Monday morning trading, their lowest price in the company's 100-year history, but rebounded to rise 13 cents from Friday's close to 88 cents in afternoon trading. The bankruptcy filing represents a dramatic downfall for GM, which was founded in 1908 by William C. Durant, who brought several car companies under one roof and developed a strategy of "a car for every purse and purpose." Longtime leader Alfred P. Sloan built the global automaker into a corporate icon.
When GM failed to do so by a March 31 deadline, Obama forced out CEO Rick Wagoner and replaced him with Henderson.
It was an all-out sprint to Monday's filing, as GM quickly sought to nail down deals with its union, bondholders and sell off brands and along with most of its Opel operations in Europe in an effort to appear in court with a near-complete plan to quickly emerge as a leaner company with a chance to become profitable.
In the U.S., the UAW's ratification of concessions, announced Friday, will save GM $1.3 billion per year. The new deal freezes wages, ends bonuses and eliminates some noncompetitive work rules.
It also moves billions in retiree health care costs off GM's books. In exchange for its ownership stake, (Great so retirees get worthless stock in lieu of healthcare. Seems like a fair trade.) Higher health care costs alone accounted for a $1,500-per-car cost gap between GM and Japanese vehicles. (National single payer health care would solve this problem. Hello!!!!)
GM will offer buyouts and early retirement packages to all of its 61,000 hourly workers as it plans to shrink overall employment. The company also has about 27,000 white collar employees. In contrast, GM employed 618,000 Americans in 1979, more than any other company.
But just cutting labor and overhead costs won't be enough to save the company. It also has been working to streamline its engineering and design, as well as standardize many parts so they can go into multiple models. (Taking money away from engineering and design? Are you kidding me? How can their priorities be so out of whack?)
So, what isn't getting any media coverage is the hedge funds and credit swap derivatives that helped push the auto companies into bankruptcy. The very same people like Goldman Sacks and other financial institutions bet against the auto companies solvency. If the government bailed out GM and Chrysler like they did so many Wall Street companies, Congressmen and their lobbyist clientele would have lost money. As it stands Wall Street hedge funds that our tax payer dollars subsidized, are going to clean up while the UAW takes it in the shorts, Joe six pack laborer loses his job and any stock they owned in the company is pretty much worthless.
Where's the outrage?! Where's the 60 minute expose'? Why aren't any of the media outlets covering this scam?! WTF?!
DaG Out
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Open letter to Dick Cheney
Dear Mr. Cheney, (once appointed and once unlawfully elected ex vice president of the United States)
You sir, are a lying, military service dodging chicken shit actively doing all you can to undermine a duly elected president of the United States, and our national security with your persistent pessimistic fear mongering. You show a true lack of class the way you berate a sitting president elected by a vast majority. It is classless at best and treasonous at worst. During your time as vice president, if a former president or vice president would have been half as critical of your administration as you are of the current one, they would have been labeled traitors, terrorist appeasers, and condemned for demoralizing the troops.
As I'm sure you are aware: in May 2001, several months before 9/11 the Bush administration announced that you were to head our country's task force on domestic terrorism, energy, and global warming. While in this capacity you never as much as organized a single meeting with other department heads involved with our national security. Even though memos and reports chocked full of warnings and Intel on suspicious activity were presented to you, the secretary of state, and the president.
For example: FBI memo from summer 2001 was released that warned of the dangers of Middle Eastern men going to flight school and gaining skills to hijack planes, and the dangers of the al Qaeda network carrying out such hijackings. Moreover, the arrest of Zacarias Moussaouri, the alleged 20th al Qaeda hijacker, in Minnesota in late August 2001, who had been taking flying lessons and acting suspiciously, should have raised warning signals. Over the summer of 2001, there had been reports that there were dangers of an airplane terrorist attack on the G8 economic summit in Genoa that GeorgeW. Bush attended. There were reportedly so many intelligence reports circulating in summer 2001 of the dangers of imminent terrorist attacks on the U.S. that a government official Richard Clarke, charged with coordinating anti-terrorist responses, warned FBI, aviation, INS, and other crucial government agencies to be on the highest alert and not to take vacations during a six week period over the summer. John Ashcroft, U.S.Attorney General, was ordered to take government jets instead of commercial airlines and the FAA passed down several alerts to the commercial airlines.
And now you have the balls to show your face again and again taking credit for 7 years without another terrorist attack on our soil. Under your watch sir, our country experienced the worst terror attack in our history. Why don't you ever take responsibility for the gross lapse in security that preceded 9/11? We continually hear you and your ilk complain that those who don't agree with you suffer from a September tenth mentality. It seems to me that it was you that either knowingly or unknowingly disregarded warnings. Then after 9/11 when you crawled out from the safety of your underground bunker, began the fear mongering in order to terrorize the American people and their representatives into rubber stamping every disgusting piece of legislation you wanted passed. You rail against Obama and claim that his desire to close Guantanamo and cease the enhanced interrogation has somehow made us less safe. Hogwash. Your neo-con cabal that chose to invade 2 sovereign countries is what has made us less safe. (Afghanistan, in the failed attempt to capture one man and Iraq because it had " good targets" and the rebuilding contracts for your buddies would be enormous)
If heaven forbid this country is attacked again I for one will place the blame solely on your shoulders. I figure if you can say that Obama's efforts to undo immoral policies you help put in place is making out country more susceptible to a terrorist attack with no evidence or logical basis for your assertion then I can say that your ignoring of good solid police and intelligence work holds you directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Instead of perpetuating the myth that your administration's civil rights abuses and pre-emptive war is what has kept us safe why don't you tell the truth? Since 9/11 their have been several terrorists plots thwarted in other countries as well as this one and in every single case it was FBI and police work that uncovered the plot.
Most recently:
May 21, 2009 Posted: 9:35 am May 21, 2009
Four homegrown Muslim terrorists on a mission from hell were arrested last night as they planted what they thought were high-powered plastic explosives at two Bronx synagogues, authorities said. The men were also allegedly plotting to use a Stinger missile to shoot a military plane out of the sky in upstate New York immediately after the bombings. Mayor Bloomberg said, "The good news is that the NYPD and the FBI did exactly what they're trained to do and they prevented what would have been a terrible event in our city."
As far as your Hawkish war rhetoric is concerned, it amazes me that you can talk so tough and use our service men as pawns in your game of military industrial complex chess. It amazes me because you never served a day in the military. The only SOB in your neo-con hierarchy that did serve was Rumsfeld, and he was a only a flight instructor and a naval aviator during peace time. So now I must call you a chicken shit chicken hawk.
In closing, your ridiculous defense of torture sickens reasonable people and has been proven over and over again by experts in the field to be counter productive. We now know why you subverted our justice system in order to get it accomplished. You are an neither a patriot nor an honest man, Dick Cheney and this world would be a better place without the likes of you. Now please crawl back under the rock from which you came.
Sincerely,
DaG
You sir, are a lying, military service dodging chicken shit actively doing all you can to undermine a duly elected president of the United States, and our national security with your persistent pessimistic fear mongering. You show a true lack of class the way you berate a sitting president elected by a vast majority. It is classless at best and treasonous at worst. During your time as vice president, if a former president or vice president would have been half as critical of your administration as you are of the current one, they would have been labeled traitors, terrorist appeasers, and condemned for demoralizing the troops.
As I'm sure you are aware: in May 2001, several months before 9/11 the Bush administration announced that you were to head our country's task force on domestic terrorism, energy, and global warming. While in this capacity you never as much as organized a single meeting with other department heads involved with our national security. Even though memos and reports chocked full of warnings and Intel on suspicious activity were presented to you, the secretary of state, and the president.
For example: FBI memo from summer 2001 was released that warned of the dangers of Middle Eastern men going to flight school and gaining skills to hijack planes, and the dangers of the al Qaeda network carrying out such hijackings. Moreover, the arrest of Zacarias Moussaouri, the alleged 20th al Qaeda hijacker, in Minnesota in late August 2001, who had been taking flying lessons and acting suspiciously, should have raised warning signals. Over the summer of 2001, there had been reports that there were dangers of an airplane terrorist attack on the G8 economic summit in Genoa that GeorgeW. Bush attended. There were reportedly so many intelligence reports circulating in summer 2001 of the dangers of imminent terrorist attacks on the U.S. that a government official Richard Clarke, charged with coordinating anti-terrorist responses, warned FBI, aviation, INS, and other crucial government agencies to be on the highest alert and not to take vacations during a six week period over the summer. John Ashcroft, U.S.Attorney General, was ordered to take government jets instead of commercial airlines and the FAA passed down several alerts to the commercial airlines.
And now you have the balls to show your face again and again taking credit for 7 years without another terrorist attack on our soil. Under your watch sir, our country experienced the worst terror attack in our history. Why don't you ever take responsibility for the gross lapse in security that preceded 9/11? We continually hear you and your ilk complain that those who don't agree with you suffer from a September tenth mentality. It seems to me that it was you that either knowingly or unknowingly disregarded warnings. Then after 9/11 when you crawled out from the safety of your underground bunker, began the fear mongering in order to terrorize the American people and their representatives into rubber stamping every disgusting piece of legislation you wanted passed. You rail against Obama and claim that his desire to close Guantanamo and cease the enhanced interrogation has somehow made us less safe. Hogwash. Your neo-con cabal that chose to invade 2 sovereign countries is what has made us less safe. (Afghanistan, in the failed attempt to capture one man and Iraq because it had " good targets" and the rebuilding contracts for your buddies would be enormous)
If heaven forbid this country is attacked again I for one will place the blame solely on your shoulders. I figure if you can say that Obama's efforts to undo immoral policies you help put in place is making out country more susceptible to a terrorist attack with no evidence or logical basis for your assertion then I can say that your ignoring of good solid police and intelligence work holds you directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Instead of perpetuating the myth that your administration's civil rights abuses and pre-emptive war is what has kept us safe why don't you tell the truth? Since 9/11 their have been several terrorists plots thwarted in other countries as well as this one and in every single case it was FBI and police work that uncovered the plot.
Most recently:
May 21, 2009 Posted: 9:35 am May 21, 2009
Four homegrown Muslim terrorists on a mission from hell were arrested last night as they planted what they thought were high-powered plastic explosives at two Bronx synagogues, authorities said. The men were also allegedly plotting to use a Stinger missile to shoot a military plane out of the sky in upstate New York immediately after the bombings. Mayor Bloomberg said, "The good news is that the NYPD and the FBI did exactly what they're trained to do and they prevented what would have been a terrible event in our city."
As far as your Hawkish war rhetoric is concerned, it amazes me that you can talk so tough and use our service men as pawns in your game of military industrial complex chess. It amazes me because you never served a day in the military. The only SOB in your neo-con hierarchy that did serve was Rumsfeld, and he was a only a flight instructor and a naval aviator during peace time. So now I must call you a chicken shit chicken hawk.
In closing, your ridiculous defense of torture sickens reasonable people and has been proven over and over again by experts in the field to be counter productive. We now know why you subverted our justice system in order to get it accomplished. You are an neither a patriot nor an honest man, Dick Cheney and this world would be a better place without the likes of you. Now please crawl back under the rock from which you came.
Sincerely,
DaG
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Grunch by Bucky Fuller
Fee-fie-fo-fum I smell the blood of a Britishman Be he alive or be he dead I'll grind his bones To make my bread.
There is no dictionary word for an army of invisible giants, one thousand miles tall, with their arms interlinked, girding the planet Earth. Since there exists just such an invisible, abstract, legal-contrivance army of giants, we have invented the word GRUNCH as the group designation--"a grunch of giants." GR-UN-C-H, which stands for annual GROSS UNIVERSE CASH HEIST, pays annual dividends of over one trillion U.S. dollars. GRUNCH is engaged in the only-by-instrumentsreached-and-operated, entirely invisible chemical, metallurgical, electronic, and cybernetic realms of reality. GRUNCH's giants average thirty-four years of age, most having grown out of what Eisenhower called the postWorld War II "military-industrial complex." They are not the same as the pre-World War II international copper or tin cartels. The grunch of giants consists of the corporately interlocked owners of a vast invisible empire, which includes airwaves and satellites; plus a vast visible empire, which includes all the only eighteen-year-old and younger skyscraper cluster cities around the world, as well as the factories and research laboratories remotely ringing the old cities and all the Oriental industrial deployment, such as in Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It controls the financial credit system of the noncommunist world together with all the financial means of initiating any world-magnitude mass-production and -distribution ventures.
By making pregraduation employment contracts with almost all promising university science students, it monopolizes all the special theoretical know-how to exploit its vast inventory of already acquired invisible know-how technology. Who runs GRUNCH? Nobody knows. It controls all the world's banks. Even the muted Swiss banks. It does what its lawyers tell it to. It maintains technical legality, and is prepared to prove it. Its law firm is named Machiavelli, Machiavelli, Atoms & Oil. Some think the second Mach is a cover for Mafia.
GRUNCH didn't invent Universe. It didn't invent anything. It monopolizes know-where and know-how but is devoid of know-why. It is preoccupied with absolute selfishness and its guaranteed gratifications. It is as blind as its Swiss banks are mute. Much, much more about GRUNCH later on.
When blimp photographs are taken of giant stadia packed full of rock-concert or football fans, we get an idea of what 100,000 people look like. We all think of Hiroshima as the worst single killing of humans by humans. That was about a 75,000-capacity-coliseum-full. Each day of each year, year after year, a 75,000-capacity-stadiumfull of around-the-world humans perish from starvation or its side effects, despite an annual average 5-percent world food-production overage of the amount of food adequate for the total world's population. This daily kill of innocents dwarfs the awful Auschwitz killing. GRUNCH did not bring this about, but it could very profitably bring it to an end. Just because it is possible does not mean that it is easy. With the computers' guidance, however, and some executive vision, courage, initiative, and follow-through, it can be done very profitably in terms of money and lasting kudos for GRUNCH and prohumanity enterprise. It would cost only 3 percent of Grunch's annual dividend earnings to not only feed all those now starving to death but also to alleviate the dire poverty around the entire planet, since the population explosion is occurring strictly amongst impoverished people. Such a world initiative on the part of Grunch would eliminate one of the two great threats to humanity's continuance on planet Earth: nuclear bombing and overpopulation. The great communism vs. capitalism, politico-economic world stand-off assumes a fundamental inadequacy of life support to exist on our planet. So too do the four major religions assume that it must be you or us, never enough for both. Jointly the two political camps have spent $6.5 trillion in the last thirty-three years to buy the capability to kill all humanity in one hour.Jointly, we Earthians have always had adequate physical resources to take care of all humanity but lacked the metaphysical know-how resources with which to employ effectively the Earth's physical wealth. Adequate knowhow could only accrue through trial-and-error experience combined with synergetically acquired wisdom, altogether employed with absolute faith in the intellectual integrity omni-lovingly governing regenerative Universe. However, in 1970 our cornucopia of ever more swiftly accruing know-how overflowed and its content integrated synergetically, so that we may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire's level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet's daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us and safely interlinked with us by photosynthesis, wind, rain, wave, and all other weather behaviors.In technology's "invisible" world, inventors continually increase the quantity and quality of performed work per each volume or pound of material, erg of energy, and unit of worker and "overhead" time invested in each given increment of attained functional performance. This complex process we call progressive ephemeralization.
In 1970, the sum total of increases in overall technological know-how and their comprehensive integration took humanity across the epochal but invisible threshold into a state of technically realizable and economically feasible universal success for all humanity.This actual but invisible threshold crossing began in 1969 when humans' scientific knowledge and technological ingenuity, backed exclusively by adequate citizens' tax-raised government financing, learned how to do so much with so little as to be able to place humans on the Moon and return them safely to Earth. Other typical 1970 to 1980 manifests of our option to do so much with so little as to be able to take care of all humanity were:
1. The single-flight delivery and installation of a 140foot-diameter, 23,000-square-foot-floor-space, stainless steel and aluminum geodesic dome at the mathematically exact South Pole of our planet, together with its capability of carrying the snow loads of complete burial;
2. The rocket-launched satellites able to relay Eartharound TV and other programs;
3. The solar system's planetary inspection by TV-communicating, Earth-dispatched explorer satellites;
4. The computer revolution, and its progressive miniaturization;
5. The laser-beam and its many capabilities, such as its color-TV-reading of polished disc records;
6 . MacCready' s successful human-muscle- powered, over-the-English-Channel flight; and
7. His subsequent Paris-to-England, exclusively by direct-Sun-powered flight; and finally,
8. That MacCready's ninety-five-foot-wingspan plane weighed only forty-five pounds due to its carbon-fiberalloy structuring and mylar skinning.
In 1970 it could, for the first time, be engineeringly demonstrated that, applying the most advanced knowhow to the conservation and use of the world's resources, we can, within ten years of from-killingry-to-livingry reoriented world production, have all humanity enjoying a sustainably higher standard of living than any humans have ever heretofore experienced. It could further be demonstrated that we can do this while simultaneously phasing out all further Earthians' use of fossil fuels and atomic energy.Humanity is so specialized and these epochally significant technological facts are so invisible that it seems an almost hopeless matter to adequately inform humanity that from now on, for the first time in history, it does not have to be "you or me"--there is now enough for "both" --and to convince humanity of this fact in time to permit it to exercise its option and save itself.There is now plenty for all. War is obsolete. It is imperative that we get the word to all humanity--RUSH--before someone ignorantly pushes the button that provokes pushing of all the buttons.What makes so difficult the task of informing humanity of its newborn option to realize success for all is the fact that all major religions and politics thrive only on the for-all-ages-held, ignorantly adopted premise of the existence of an eternal inadequacy of life-support inherent in the design of our planet Earth.That it is possible for us all to win--and how--is what Grunch of Giants is about. (Grunch of Giants is an intimately related sequel to Critical Path, published by St. Martin's Press, New York, 1981.)
DaG Out
There is no dictionary word for an army of invisible giants, one thousand miles tall, with their arms interlinked, girding the planet Earth. Since there exists just such an invisible, abstract, legal-contrivance army of giants, we have invented the word GRUNCH as the group designation--"a grunch of giants." GR-UN-C-H, which stands for annual GROSS UNIVERSE CASH HEIST, pays annual dividends of over one trillion U.S. dollars. GRUNCH is engaged in the only-by-instrumentsreached-and-operated, entirely invisible chemical, metallurgical, electronic, and cybernetic realms of reality. GRUNCH's giants average thirty-four years of age, most having grown out of what Eisenhower called the postWorld War II "military-industrial complex." They are not the same as the pre-World War II international copper or tin cartels. The grunch of giants consists of the corporately interlocked owners of a vast invisible empire, which includes airwaves and satellites; plus a vast visible empire, which includes all the only eighteen-year-old and younger skyscraper cluster cities around the world, as well as the factories and research laboratories remotely ringing the old cities and all the Oriental industrial deployment, such as in Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It controls the financial credit system of the noncommunist world together with all the financial means of initiating any world-magnitude mass-production and -distribution ventures.
By making pregraduation employment contracts with almost all promising university science students, it monopolizes all the special theoretical know-how to exploit its vast inventory of already acquired invisible know-how technology. Who runs GRUNCH? Nobody knows. It controls all the world's banks. Even the muted Swiss banks. It does what its lawyers tell it to. It maintains technical legality, and is prepared to prove it. Its law firm is named Machiavelli, Machiavelli, Atoms & Oil. Some think the second Mach is a cover for Mafia.
GRUNCH didn't invent Universe. It didn't invent anything. It monopolizes know-where and know-how but is devoid of know-why. It is preoccupied with absolute selfishness and its guaranteed gratifications. It is as blind as its Swiss banks are mute. Much, much more about GRUNCH later on.
When blimp photographs are taken of giant stadia packed full of rock-concert or football fans, we get an idea of what 100,000 people look like. We all think of Hiroshima as the worst single killing of humans by humans. That was about a 75,000-capacity-coliseum-full. Each day of each year, year after year, a 75,000-capacity-stadiumfull of around-the-world humans perish from starvation or its side effects, despite an annual average 5-percent world food-production overage of the amount of food adequate for the total world's population. This daily kill of innocents dwarfs the awful Auschwitz killing. GRUNCH did not bring this about, but it could very profitably bring it to an end. Just because it is possible does not mean that it is easy. With the computers' guidance, however, and some executive vision, courage, initiative, and follow-through, it can be done very profitably in terms of money and lasting kudos for GRUNCH and prohumanity enterprise. It would cost only 3 percent of Grunch's annual dividend earnings to not only feed all those now starving to death but also to alleviate the dire poverty around the entire planet, since the population explosion is occurring strictly amongst impoverished people. Such a world initiative on the part of Grunch would eliminate one of the two great threats to humanity's continuance on planet Earth: nuclear bombing and overpopulation. The great communism vs. capitalism, politico-economic world stand-off assumes a fundamental inadequacy of life support to exist on our planet. So too do the four major religions assume that it must be you or us, never enough for both. Jointly the two political camps have spent $6.5 trillion in the last thirty-three years to buy the capability to kill all humanity in one hour.Jointly, we Earthians have always had adequate physical resources to take care of all humanity but lacked the metaphysical know-how resources with which to employ effectively the Earth's physical wealth. Adequate knowhow could only accrue through trial-and-error experience combined with synergetically acquired wisdom, altogether employed with absolute faith in the intellectual integrity omni-lovingly governing regenerative Universe. However, in 1970 our cornucopia of ever more swiftly accruing know-how overflowed and its content integrated synergetically, so that we may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire's level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet's daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us and safely interlinked with us by photosynthesis, wind, rain, wave, and all other weather behaviors.In technology's "invisible" world, inventors continually increase the quantity and quality of performed work per each volume or pound of material, erg of energy, and unit of worker and "overhead" time invested in each given increment of attained functional performance. This complex process we call progressive ephemeralization.
In 1970, the sum total of increases in overall technological know-how and their comprehensive integration took humanity across the epochal but invisible threshold into a state of technically realizable and economically feasible universal success for all humanity.This actual but invisible threshold crossing began in 1969 when humans' scientific knowledge and technological ingenuity, backed exclusively by adequate citizens' tax-raised government financing, learned how to do so much with so little as to be able to place humans on the Moon and return them safely to Earth. Other typical 1970 to 1980 manifests of our option to do so much with so little as to be able to take care of all humanity were:
1. The single-flight delivery and installation of a 140foot-diameter, 23,000-square-foot-floor-space, stainless steel and aluminum geodesic dome at the mathematically exact South Pole of our planet, together with its capability of carrying the snow loads of complete burial;
2. The rocket-launched satellites able to relay Eartharound TV and other programs;
3. The solar system's planetary inspection by TV-communicating, Earth-dispatched explorer satellites;
4. The computer revolution, and its progressive miniaturization;
5. The laser-beam and its many capabilities, such as its color-TV-reading of polished disc records;
6 . MacCready' s successful human-muscle- powered, over-the-English-Channel flight; and
7. His subsequent Paris-to-England, exclusively by direct-Sun-powered flight; and finally,
8. That MacCready's ninety-five-foot-wingspan plane weighed only forty-five pounds due to its carbon-fiberalloy structuring and mylar skinning.
In 1970 it could, for the first time, be engineeringly demonstrated that, applying the most advanced knowhow to the conservation and use of the world's resources, we can, within ten years of from-killingry-to-livingry reoriented world production, have all humanity enjoying a sustainably higher standard of living than any humans have ever heretofore experienced. It could further be demonstrated that we can do this while simultaneously phasing out all further Earthians' use of fossil fuels and atomic energy.Humanity is so specialized and these epochally significant technological facts are so invisible that it seems an almost hopeless matter to adequately inform humanity that from now on, for the first time in history, it does not have to be "you or me"--there is now enough for "both" --and to convince humanity of this fact in time to permit it to exercise its option and save itself.There is now plenty for all. War is obsolete. It is imperative that we get the word to all humanity--RUSH--before someone ignorantly pushes the button that provokes pushing of all the buttons.What makes so difficult the task of informing humanity of its newborn option to realize success for all is the fact that all major religions and politics thrive only on the for-all-ages-held, ignorantly adopted premise of the existence of an eternal inadequacy of life-support inherent in the design of our planet Earth.That it is possible for us all to win--and how--is what Grunch of Giants is about. (Grunch of Giants is an intimately related sequel to Critical Path, published by St. Martin's Press, New York, 1981.)
DaG Out
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