We’re Outnumbered 1 to 99.

I was casting about for a blog topic. Then Peter Moskos pointed out an excellent topic on which to comment on his blog Cop in the Hood. After reading the article he referred to, I find Rolling Stone said everything I could think of.

As I commented on Peter’s blog, the more I learn of American history, the better I understand this is how America has functioned for well over a hundred years. Maybe from the start. The difference now is that the current one percenters, in addition to having a bigger piece of the pie than ever before, lack the civility, manners, class—call it what you want—to keep from flaunting it at every opportunity, then rubbing our noses in it if they don’t like the response.

I’m no communist. I looked up what true socialists believe in, and I’m not one of those, either. It’s still early. Jamie Dimon and his cohorts can still talk me into it.

The Problems in This Country Are Pretty Obvious

From Ezra Klein's blog in today's Washington Post:

New jobless claims rose to 500,000 this week. Meanwhile:

Karin Wilzig has a hard time choosing a favorite color from among the 64 that she and her husband can use to illuminate the 14 1/2- foot, 450-gallon aquarium in their TriBeCa town house. The default is fuchsia, which turns the dozen koi a deep pink.

“Not pink,” said Mrs. Wilzig, 40, an artist and a mother of two small children. “Alan, go to the turquoise.”

Her husband, Alan Wilzig, 45, a former banker who collects motorcycles and prides himself on the orange tanning bed in his basement, goes to the James Bond-like control panel in the kitchen, where a touch of a button turns the fish — which are specially bred to be colorless — a vivid blue.

To be fair, it's actually good for rich people to buy fancy aquariums. Economic activity is economic activity. But it's odd to read these sorts of articles in a world where one of the two major political parties wants to borrow $700 billion for a tax cut for the rich but says we don't have enough money to offer further relief for the jobless and the struggling.

What I like about Ezra is that he's a lefty, but he's fair. He's spent a lot of time turning over Paul Ryan's economic proposals, examining the pros and cons, and interviewing Ryan himself. He's come out as saying most of Ryan's plan isn't workable, and Ryan's a bit (okay, a lot) disingenuous in his descriptions, but he's also out out enough information for his reader to come to a different conclusion if he's paying attention and thinking about it.

I have but one complaint with this post: "But it's odd to read these sorts of articles in a world where one of the two major political parties wants to borrow $700 billion for a tax cut for the rich but says we don't have enough money to offer further relief for the jobless and the struggling."

It's not odd; it's disgusting.

Abso-fucking-lutely

From Ezra Klein's blog in The Washington Post (read the entire post for proper context):

As Miller says, this sort of politics lends itself nicely to thinly sliced marginal tax rates. Right now, the top tax bracket begins at $373,650 and extends into infinity. But there's no reason you couldn't have a slightly higher rate starting at $500,000. And then a bit higher at $1 million and on and on...

Ooh, Shiny

The United States Mint has stopped printing buffalo head gold coins. People are hoarding gold. This is the most intelligence defying act since Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president. Granted, intelligence is defied on an almost daily basis lately, but this is bad. People have been talked into hoarding gold because it is alleged to be the standard of financial systems throughout history; the only thing of true, undeniable value.

Bullshit.

Gold is valuable because it always has been. Since the earliest recorded days of what passed for civilization, gold has been the material by which wealth has been measured. Tombs were encrusted with it. Untold hundreds of thousands have died in its search, either killed in the quest, or by those questing for it.

What is it about gold that has made it so valuable? Great medicinal power? Physical strength? Is it an aphrodisiac? (No; the wealth it implies is the aphrodisiac.) Gold became valuable to ignorant people no more than three steps removed from apes because it is shiny, and easy to make pretty jewelry with. Period. The practical uses of today's gold were undreamed of in those days. They collected it, paid dearly for it, killed and conquered for it. Because it was shiny.

Want more proof? Even today, when (most of us) will readily agree the earth is round and rotates around the sun, it is a rule of thumb for a man to spend three months' salary on an engagement diamond. The true value of this diamond is nil. Industrial diamonds have some utilitarian value, but they're not used for jewelry. Jewelry diamonds are expensive because they're shiny. They would be of more genuine use if they had remained in their previous form; at least you can heat your house with coal.

For all the talk the current crisis has inspired about what is truly valuable, few are talking about the only three things that have inherent value. Not gold, silver, or even platinum. Not uranium, stocks, or bonds. Not derivatives or real estate. In the end, those are no more valuable than tulip bulbs. The three things that have inherent value in this, and, for us, any other world, are edible food, breathable air, and potable water. That's it.

Ask someone in Somalia if he'd rather have an ounce of gold or a bushel of corn. All other measures of wealth are eventually evaluated by how well they can provide the only three we really need. Wall Street masters of the universe will die in minutes if they can't get a breath of air, no matter how much money they made on their stock options.

Much of the current crisis is due to mankind's inability to remember what is truly valuable. If we don't get a handle on our greed, we may have this lesson proven to us sooner, and more unpleasantly, than we'd like.