The Illuminati and Simon Says

Simon says, "X is not for everyone."

Simon says:

• Home ownership is NFE
• College is NFE

Simon is entrenched and at the top of the hill. Simon's main job is to play king of the hill. Simon is the have vs the have-nots. Easy to stay on top with a large bankroll. You can survive the draw down and volatility and pay for utility bills and vacations by making 5% yields on your money.

Subprime clients and liar loans played a part in the crisis. Like putting unattended children before a bowl of candy. But the banks were entirely complicit. They took their fees and sold the mortgages off to Fannie and Freddie who were quasi-governmental entities. No need to worry about those bad loans once they are out of your pipeline. When the cat's away the mice will play. SEC is a joke. Likewise Fed, Treasury. No governmental regulation of the securitization of mortgages. Ratings companies not doing their jobs either.

The government may have had no business saying home ownership is for everyone, but Simon, you are showing your bare-naked ass when you proclaim things to be not for everyone.

The worker is worth his keep. And that includes putting the kids through school to get a better life, and keeping a roof over his family's head. A roof that isn't subject to rent increases, fraudulent keeping of deposit money, and the prospect of being homeless within 15-30 days, should the volatility (in employment, investments, costs) be too large for the meager bankroll of those of modest means.

Anxiety, fulfillment

Away from anxiety and towards fulfillment--

Is anxiety freedom, and fulfillment destiny?
Or do we work out our fulfillment in "fear and trembling?"

All fulfillment is teleological and presupposes meaning.

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"This then is the formula which describes the states of the self when despair is completely eradicated: In relating to itself and in wanting to be itself, the self is grounded transparently in the power that established it."

~Kierkegaard "The Sickness Unto Death"

"Anxiety is neither a category of necessity nor a category of freedom; it is entangled freedom, where freedom is not free in itself but entangled, not by necessity but in itself..."

~Kierkegaard "The Concept of Anxiety" aka The Concept of Dread

The strip in Las Vegas isn't very much fun. Of course, I was there on a Sunday night. There was a bunch of construction, and the obligatory day labor folk handing out porn cards for escorts. Must be a better use for workers than this!

East End of London

I was doing some browsing and came across a couple of interesting web pages about London and the East End. One is about cemeteries in London, pretty creepy. After you read it, it seems like all of London must be over top of one. Consider this a belated Halloween post. The miseries of the poor Londoners of the East End.

http://eastlondonhistory.com/


http://www.londonburials.co.uk/

Bad management screwing the American Worker

Productivity by the American worker has had massive gains in recent years, yet incomes have not kept pace with inflation. More and more American workers do not even receive healthcare from their employers, instead burdening taxpayer funded government insurance plans.

Jobs have been offshored, this is old-hat, to finance an increase in the middle classes (or creation of) in places like China and India.

Where have the benefits of these reduced labor costs gone? Have median incomes in the USA gone up? No. Have shareholders been reaping the benefits of the cost savings through increased returns, ie Dividends? No.

Billions have been lost through the subprime debacle, and although the blame could be fairly widely spread on this - CEOs walk away with million dollar parachutes for running their companies into the ground. Who cares if you're taking on bad loans like a ship taking on water, if you have a golden yacht alongside waiting for you to depart?

Companies do not pay dividends anymore. Finally, after carnage in the stock market lately, dividend rates are up from the jokes they had been 1-3% (not outpacing inflation).

Governments and businesses are top-heavy, the American worker does the real work and will likely be shouldering the burden of cuts and lay-offs to come due to the economy.

Employees and investors are too busy pulling off incredible feats of productivity to call management on the carpet. To go to their union and complain about wages, to complain to management about the dividend policies. The time has come. The managerial revolution is over.

The American citizen should have been turned into a business owner of sorts during the offshoring of jobs (opportunities). Companies that offshored jobs should have faced taxes and/or tarrifs for so doing, and these should have been passed along to US citizens. Not as welfare, a government handout, but as a reward for making a good deal on unit labor costs. Work sucks - I'd rather be a business owner than an employee anyway.

What about employee owned companies? Eliminate management altogether. There would be an incentive to run things properly as everyone would have a stake in the success of operations.

If you don't work then you don't eat is what I say. The American worker works harder and better than any labor force in the world, and guess what? We're hungry.