Of course! (Baka, Aho, Shinde kudasai)

In "cult speak," the world without mankind (Homo sapiens sapiens) in unbelievable. I use a form of belief - unbelievable - because a form of think - unthinkable - does not apply to religious (e.g. believing) cults.

We have destroyed the environment in which we can live. But, thank whatever gods may be, we have done it before - on the scale of a minicosm. THAT was Easter Island.

"In the prevailing account of the island's past, the native inhabitants once had a large and thriving society, but they doomed themselves by degrading their environment. A small group of Polynesian settlers arrived around 800 to 900 A.D., and the island's population grew slowly at first. Around 1200 A.D., their growing numbers (overpopulation) and an obsession with building moai led to increased pressure on the environment. By the end of the 17th century, the Rapanui had deforested the island, triggering war, bringing famine, leading to a vast starvation, and completing the cycle with complete cultural collapse." Call it ecocide.

Or was it the rats?

At any rate, religion is a crime against the mind.

The world WILL survive very well, thank you. It will do so without the human population it once held.

Conspiracy? No, just fate.

Secret Conspiracy? No, corporate profits from corporate prophets.

Bill Gates, on Math.

It is obvious

When I learned that the most profitable year in the history of 'Duesenberg Automobile & Motors Company, Inc' was in 1931 I thought:

"THAT was during the Great Depression following the crash of 1929."

Well, economic 'down turns' only effect the very little people (to paraphrase Leona Helmsley).

John Kenneth Galbraith wrote The Great Crash 1929, an economic history focused in part on the men of the market who brought on the crash, in graceful prose. In his last chapter, he tells us of five major weaknesses in the real economy that made it possible for the disaster to destroy a generation. At the top of his list is the badly unequal distribution of wealth.

He points out that the top 5% of the population earned about one third of all personal income in 1929*. Those figures comport well with the figures from Emanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, whose IRS data indicates that the top 5% earned about 37% of gross income in 1929. P. 194 (references are to the Penguin Books 1992 ed.). For a discussion of the 2006 figures, see this article.

Productivity increased steadily from 1920 to 1929, but wages and prices were stagnant. P. 192 Costs fell, and profits increased, but how were the wealthy to dispose of the money? The choices were consumption of luxuries (e.g. a Duesenberg) or capital investment. There is only so much that the rich can consume.

If anything happened to reduce the flow of money to capital expenditures, consumer spending could not increase to take its place, and the economy was headed down. There is insufficient evidence, according to Galbraith, to be certain that this was the central cause, but he thinks the explanation is consistent with the observed facts available to him in 1954.

He identifies four other factors:

1. Bad corporate structures. Although the business press praised the businessmen of that day, the fact (P. 195) was that American enterprise in the twenties had opened its hospitable arms to an exceptional number of swindlers, impostors, and frauds. This, in the long history of such activities, was a kind of flood tide of corporate larceny.

2. Bad banking structure. Galbraith doesn’t think bankers were any worse or better in the 20s than the 50s, but the structure of banks made runs on banks easier and more likely.

3. The balance of trade. The US was a creditor to most of the world. As the decade wore on, that status increased every year. High US tariffs made it difficult for other nations to balance their imports from the US with exports to the US, so accounts were settled in transfers of gold, or in shaky loans, like the loans made by National City Bank (predecessor, somehow, of CitiGroup) to Peru. P. 198-9. As this became more difficult, other countries had to reduce imports from the US, which caused strains in the economy, particularly agriculture.

4. Incompetent economic advice. From p. 200: The economic advisors of the day had both the unanimity and authority to force the leaders of both political parties to disavow all the available steps to check deflation and depression.

Two and three seem unlikely culprits this time. It looks to me like a good case can be made for one, with all the money lost by the great geniuses of Wall Street and their counterparts in the banking and other businesses. What kind of country did our corporate masters think would be left when they exported all the decent jobs to other nations? Actually, it doesn’t affect them at the top. They just whine that they are being put upon by the great unwashed, and have to pretend they aren’t really all that different from you and me. When Newsweek notices it, it must be obvious.

As to four, judging competence isn’t easy. What do you think about the economic crowd? If you liked them pulling the strings for Bush, you’ll love them in their shape-shifted form manipulating Obama, including their supporters in the money party (e.g. the top 0.1%), the Blue Dogs and the rump of the Republican party. John Kenneth Galbraith would recognize these people too.
after an article published HERE
In today's 'world economy,' the top 5% of the population earn about 93% of all personal income! 95% of the population grovels over 5% of the wealth - the trickle down crumbs. To be fair, within the U.S.A., 5% earn 47% of all personal income! And that excludes many of the entitlement crowd* who live on investments alone (and your money specifically).

There are solid economic arguments for the bad consequences of unequal distribution of the wealth (which the USA has been consistently moving toward since Reagan).

*the entitlement crowd* consists of the ultra rich who find ways - like the story of home ownership in America - to make the poorer classes subsidize their vast wealth.

when I was young

you could buy a "big" candy bar for ten cents:

and a nickle for five cents

the most unimaginable devastation

Today the scientific community is in almost total agreement that the earth’s climate is changing as a result of human activity, and that this represents a huge threat to the planet and to us. According to a Pew survey conducted in March, however, only 1 in 4 Americans see global warming as a major threat.

If it’s not a data deficit that’s preventing people from doing more on global warming, what is it? Blame our brains. Renee Lertzman, an applied researcher who focuses on the psychological dimensions of sustainability, explains that the kind of systemic threat that climate change poses to humans is “unique both psychologically and socially.” We face a minefield of mental barriers and issues that prevent us from confronting the threat.

Gifford lists factors such as limited cognition or ignorance of the problem, ideologies or worldviews that may prevent action, social comparisons with other people and perceived inequity (the “Why should we change if X corporation or Y country won’t?”) and the perceived risks of changing our behavior.

Lertzman has come to the conclusion that this is not because of apathy — a lack of feeling — but because of the simple fact that we care an overwhelming amount about both the planet and our way of life, and we find that conflict too painful to bear. Our apparent apathy is just a defense mechanism in the face of this psychic pain.

“We’re reluctant to come to terms with the fact that what we love and enjoy and what gives us a sense of who we are is also now bound up with the most unimaginable devastation,” says Lertzman. Read more: http://science.time.com/2013/08/19/in-denial-about-the-climate-the-psychological-battle-over-global-warming/#ixzz2cS9Kt0Gs

Concours de Flop

Well, as you well know, this weekend is the Pebble Beach Concours.

The "Buzz" on the street is the Castle 601. If you don't know what that means, google it!

The Xtians went to Hawaii to do good and they did well. Very well.

The 1921 Duesenberg Straight 8 Model A #601 sold to - that's right - a former Xtian missionary. Who else could buy a $7,500 'running chasis' and have a Cinderella Royal Coach wanna-be added to it?

Oh, to be frank, it wasn't just Xtians, the JWs were into it also.

I could go on... Richard Baker has a white "7 series" BMW.

"In 1979 the abbot acquired a $25,000 white BMW. Followers dutifully bowed their shaved heads when he motored past. Though Tassajara was earning more than $100,000 a year and Greens was operating in the black, annual deficits climbed to $155,000."

BTW, $25,000 was more than I earned during the entire 1979 tax year working full-time in a union job at top scale!