With the Wall Street debacle in matinee performances and making the media marquee every business day, and weekends too, television soaps have been upstaged--who needs fiction with credit default swaps and Timothy Geithener in leading rolls? Theater of the Absurd is back and it is real!
Bernard Madoff is a fall guy, a cover for the looting of the U.S. Treasury by a politically connected financial sector. Madoff is a petty thief made into an mastermind, arch-criminal, who literally ventured out on his own to pick the pockets of those within his own socio-economic class. He was the fox watching the hen house, in plebeian imagery. He is not quite a Robin Hood. Madoff is no socialist! He wasn't going to transfer monies from those who had questionably acquired it, to those good citizens who unquestionably had it taken from them; but nevertheless, he is a hero of sorts in a Wizard of Oz setting.
A bilker of the rich by one of the same, is an example of the cliche, what goes around, comes around. The karmic consequence of greed. The rich sinking their fortunes into something to make them even richer; and, doing so because they followed the lead of one of their own! There's justice in that, is there not? Madoff's ponzi scheme is the stuff of my childhood fables. Whom among the poor and oppressed will shed a tear for anyone who had his or her pocket picked by Bernie? And he will go to prison, with luxury accommodations, to be sure. With reduced incarceration time, he will probably be out in less than five years! Of course, no one in the Wall Street Mob will suffer jail time. The Mob is too big to be guilty of anything other than having made some mistakes. In fact, the Mob continues to be rewarded by the Obama Administration, following the Geo. W. path.
If Geithener, Summers, Ruben, Paulsen, Greenspan and all the other Wall Street suspects and their Congressional accomplices can extract several trillion dollars from the National Reserve, why should anyone fuss about some fat cats losing fifty billion dollars? The rich usually get to where they are financially by government largesse of one form or another. The real concern is that all the money going to insolvent banks is lost to the public forever. We can forget about rebuilding America.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sports Over All?
First and foremost athletic competition, call it sports, is social control, for contestants, but especially for spectators, who are representative of us all. Sports are distractions from the many unresolved societal problems that the ruling elite wish to ignore or dismiss. Also, athletic programs, in school physical education and other organized sports, train youth to accept authority without question. An athletic coach is the father figure, par excellence!
Physical education at public schools was mandated after many WW I military applicants were disqualified for being physically unfit to fight in wartime! It was determined that sports programs would prepare the Nation's youth for the wars that would surely come.
Athletics is important in keeping youth on ice during an ever-lengthening adolescence, a characteristic of a moribund economic system. Young people have to be kept busy because society offers them so little. The wait to be full participants is long and frustrating. Let the anger out through competitive sports. Youth has to wait, actually, for the ruling generation to retire and die off. Sports act as a preoccupation and to quite youthful discontents.
In the military context, sports serves the purpose of training boys and young men to accept authoritarianism, to do what they are told. The coach is commander-in-chief. Team sports and an Army infantry platoon function under similar rules. State indoctrination comes easier when athletic goals merge with national values. The Greek Olympics serve as sports model; and interestingly, the Greek states were engaged in perpetual wars!
The modern Olympics are deeply political. The 1936 Berlin Olympics might as well been the Battle of the Somme. The 1968 Mexico City Olympics with the demonstration by Tommie Smith and John Carlos was one of the most dramatic examples of free-speech in all of sports history. Sadly, President Carter, who later was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize used the 1980 Olympics to further aggravate Cold War tensions by withdrawing U.S. athletes from the Moscow games. Stripping the two gold metals won by Jim Thorpe in the 1912 Stockholm, Sweden Olympics was racially motivated.
Speaking of Color and politics, Avery Brundage was a colleague of Thorpe's on the Pentathlon team in the 1912 games. He went on to dominate the IOC for many years with his brand of politics. He was an admirer of the German leader who officiated over the 1936 Olympics!
Another great moment in the history of Olympic politics was when Muhammad Ali threw his 1960 Rome gold metal for boxing off a bridge in reaction to racism in his own country.
Sports in the United States has been an arena in which the Color Line has had a persistent presence! For all minorities, it has been a battle field. Baseball is a case study. The industry first excluded Blacks; and, they set up their own Negro League in 1860, and professionalized in the 1870s. The talent in the Negro League was to great to ignore when professional baseball resumed after WW II. There were three black candidates considered for entry into Major League baseball. Jackie Robinson was chosen, I believe, for his noted athletic career at UCLA. He had academic credentials, as well. His poor health later in life testifies to the enormous pressures he endured as the first Black in what had been a White bastion. In recent decades the focus on talent has shifted from the U.S. to the Caribbean. The Dominican Republic is by far the main attraction, grooming young ballplayers is an industry with a cash crop in great demand.
There is a fine line between exploitation and slavery, with a materialistic and growth-oriented economic system the two are intertwined. Minorities have few opportunities to obtain status and financial security through regular employment channels. The entertainment field and sports offer a very few recognition and wealth. But, success in these endeavors rely on an individual's innate talents and sheer determination. Luck of the draw is another important element. Goal attainment requires superhuman effort and concentration.
Joe DiMaggio comes to mind for various reasons, ancestry and community included. What I remember most is his mother's admonishment to always look and act as one's best. DiMaggio was exemplar, even in his final days. I remember seeing him in an entirely empty section of a baseball stadium, wanting to be left alone, but harassed by a television cameraman. The pressures he endured as a sports figure and in continuing his hitting record in 1941, was not without consequence: he had, I believe, a stomach ulcer during his playing years; and, as a heavy, but secretive, cigarette smoker, he died of lung cancer. Sports gods are, after all, mortals.
The fact that some athletes have a sad life after their careers should not lead me to conclude that all do or that there is some causal factor within stardom that is a fault. But, as I run down the list of regretful endings, I wonder about balances in a person's life.For many notable sports figures, there are, unfortunately, some with sorrowful endings.
(We have heard about "late bloomers", undistinguished young people who, later in life, become somebody. Personally, I could not write reasonably well until I reached adulthood. I maintain that I simply didn't know enough about issues to write anything remotely original, or express what I did know in a grammatically and stylistically acceptable manner. It wasn't until issues became understandable and meaningful that I could muster up the motivation to learn how to write. Well, this is an example of something quite positive, but considerably off topic.)
Paul Robeson, a multi talented Black American, was put to the test during the McCarthy Era. And his fate was not unlike that of the Rosenberg's, but still a death sentence of sorts. The events of Robeson's life and his many accomplishments are well known. Of the many official acts of violence against him, one of the most blatantly racist was the removal of his likeness from photographs of the All-American football teams of 1918 and 1919. And I believe that he was the only African American while matriculating at Rutgers University. One of his most moving performances that I have heard was that with singers in Wales. Robeson was an outstanding performer in every undertaking. Other great talents have had to endure state oppression in other nations. But, we in the U.S. always expect better in a supposed democracy with a constitution of such clearly delineated individual rights and privileges.
Sports are two contraversial for me. I am uncomfortable with ownership structure, who owns the operations, what they extract from community budgets, the ethnic and racial groups that bring them power and profits. If sports are used for purposes of social control, for perpetuating the economical and political status quo, then I have no time for sports, professional or collegiate. I have other things to do with my time.
Physical education at public schools was mandated after many WW I military applicants were disqualified for being physically unfit to fight in wartime! It was determined that sports programs would prepare the Nation's youth for the wars that would surely come.
Athletics is important in keeping youth on ice during an ever-lengthening adolescence, a characteristic of a moribund economic system. Young people have to be kept busy because society offers them so little. The wait to be full participants is long and frustrating. Let the anger out through competitive sports. Youth has to wait, actually, for the ruling generation to retire and die off. Sports act as a preoccupation and to quite youthful discontents.
In the military context, sports serves the purpose of training boys and young men to accept authoritarianism, to do what they are told. The coach is commander-in-chief. Team sports and an Army infantry platoon function under similar rules. State indoctrination comes easier when athletic goals merge with national values. The Greek Olympics serve as sports model; and interestingly, the Greek states were engaged in perpetual wars!
The modern Olympics are deeply political. The 1936 Berlin Olympics might as well been the Battle of the Somme. The 1968 Mexico City Olympics with the demonstration by Tommie Smith and John Carlos was one of the most dramatic examples of free-speech in all of sports history. Sadly, President Carter, who later was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize used the 1980 Olympics to further aggravate Cold War tensions by withdrawing U.S. athletes from the Moscow games. Stripping the two gold metals won by Jim Thorpe in the 1912 Stockholm, Sweden Olympics was racially motivated.
Speaking of Color and politics, Avery Brundage was a colleague of Thorpe's on the Pentathlon team in the 1912 games. He went on to dominate the IOC for many years with his brand of politics. He was an admirer of the German leader who officiated over the 1936 Olympics!
Another great moment in the history of Olympic politics was when Muhammad Ali threw his 1960 Rome gold metal for boxing off a bridge in reaction to racism in his own country.
Sports in the United States has been an arena in which the Color Line has had a persistent presence! For all minorities, it has been a battle field. Baseball is a case study. The industry first excluded Blacks; and, they set up their own Negro League in 1860, and professionalized in the 1870s. The talent in the Negro League was to great to ignore when professional baseball resumed after WW II. There were three black candidates considered for entry into Major League baseball. Jackie Robinson was chosen, I believe, for his noted athletic career at UCLA. He had academic credentials, as well. His poor health later in life testifies to the enormous pressures he endured as the first Black in what had been a White bastion. In recent decades the focus on talent has shifted from the U.S. to the Caribbean. The Dominican Republic is by far the main attraction, grooming young ballplayers is an industry with a cash crop in great demand.
There is a fine line between exploitation and slavery, with a materialistic and growth-oriented economic system the two are intertwined. Minorities have few opportunities to obtain status and financial security through regular employment channels. The entertainment field and sports offer a very few recognition and wealth. But, success in these endeavors rely on an individual's innate talents and sheer determination. Luck of the draw is another important element. Goal attainment requires superhuman effort and concentration.
Joe DiMaggio comes to mind for various reasons, ancestry and community included. What I remember most is his mother's admonishment to always look and act as one's best. DiMaggio was exemplar, even in his final days. I remember seeing him in an entirely empty section of a baseball stadium, wanting to be left alone, but harassed by a television cameraman. The pressures he endured as a sports figure and in continuing his hitting record in 1941, was not without consequence: he had, I believe, a stomach ulcer during his playing years; and, as a heavy, but secretive, cigarette smoker, he died of lung cancer. Sports gods are, after all, mortals.
The fact that some athletes have a sad life after their careers should not lead me to conclude that all do or that there is some causal factor within stardom that is a fault. But, as I run down the list of regretful endings, I wonder about balances in a person's life.For many notable sports figures, there are, unfortunately, some with sorrowful endings.
(We have heard about "late bloomers", undistinguished young people who, later in life, become somebody. Personally, I could not write reasonably well until I reached adulthood. I maintain that I simply didn't know enough about issues to write anything remotely original, or express what I did know in a grammatically and stylistically acceptable manner. It wasn't until issues became understandable and meaningful that I could muster up the motivation to learn how to write. Well, this is an example of something quite positive, but considerably off topic.)
Paul Robeson, a multi talented Black American, was put to the test during the McCarthy Era. And his fate was not unlike that of the Rosenberg's, but still a death sentence of sorts. The events of Robeson's life and his many accomplishments are well known. Of the many official acts of violence against him, one of the most blatantly racist was the removal of his likeness from photographs of the All-American football teams of 1918 and 1919. And I believe that he was the only African American while matriculating at Rutgers University. One of his most moving performances that I have heard was that with singers in Wales. Robeson was an outstanding performer in every undertaking. Other great talents have had to endure state oppression in other nations. But, we in the U.S. always expect better in a supposed democracy with a constitution of such clearly delineated individual rights and privileges.
Sports are two contraversial for me. I am uncomfortable with ownership structure, who owns the operations, what they extract from community budgets, the ethnic and racial groups that bring them power and profits. If sports are used for purposes of social control, for perpetuating the economical and political status quo, then I have no time for sports, professional or collegiate. I have other things to do with my time.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Home Owning Revisited
In a consumer society, the Big Ticket purchase items are homes and motor vehicles. Owning both means perpetual debt! Renting a domicile and using public transit make more sense to this simplicity-oriented chap. Not only is renting no more expensive, in the long term, than home ownership, it is ideal for people who wish not to be a slave to debt and financial institutions, who want to be free to live a full life.
The vast majority of home buyers really can not afford to buy; for them a home mortgage loan is a life-sentence of indentured servitude. It could be called slavery for all the burdens it brings. The slave masters would be the finance industry that guards the reservoirs of accumulated capital.
The American Dream, owning one's home, is hyped by many industries simply to promote sales. In this context, buying a home is a rite of passage to middle class status and the respectability it supposedly fosters.
As a side commentary, having an automobile is another sign of first class status, and a rather costly one, at that! I would estimate that over three or four decades, the costs associated with automobile ownership(not counting the time spent attending to an auto)would exceed the median price of a home in California!(But, that's another issue, for another essay.)
The sub prime loans preyed on the most vulnerable people; those who bought the "Dream", but could ill-afford its consequences. The high risk mortgage loans have led to a financial industry meltdown and tens of thousands of home foreclosures, and probably continuing for the foreseeable future. The loan scandal was a direct result of deregulation and the unfettered greed it unleashed.
The financial industry's "credit default swap" instruments make a Ponzi scheme, even that of Bernard Madoff, look like a sophomore prank.(But, this too, is a subject for another essay.)
The imagined dream home is most likely a single family, subdivision dwelling on a parcel large enough for a swimming pool and barbecue patio. The tract is usually far removed from a town center or any commons. These divisions are typically economic- and often age-based, whites only ghettos.The high-end divisions are usually gated and have golf courses as design determinants. John D. Rockerfeller took the golf course option to the extreme, having a private one that flanked his great mansion outside of New York City.)
For the typical home buyer, ownership is elusive and illusory, certainly a long way off--thirty years. For the restless person who sells with only partial equity before the loan is paid off, actual ownership could never come to pass. The lender is the de facto owner until the debt is fully serviced. Whether the loan goes full term is any body's guess; and its that bet that provides easy money for speculators. Divorce,unemployment, illness, periodic collapse in the financial industry and the subsequent economic depression, make home purchasing a risky undertaking for most people.
The ongoing foreclosure crisis forces a reexamination of the American Dream. Mortgage debt is a serious matter; and home ownership is not for everyone--despite the lure of the financial industry. It would seem that renting would be less stressful in all aspects of having a roof over one's head.
As with the automobile, the price of a house is just the first of many, on-going expenses involved with ownership--which spawns a mammoth industrial and services complex beyond that of real estate and finance. And this is reason enough to advertise the Dream. Purchase a home, and you will be buying stuff, paying for various services, property taxes and insurance premiums forever after!
Social control is an aspect of mortgage debt that has not escaped the ruling elite's attention. You can't protest wars and the rollback of the New Deal or strike for better benefits and working conditions, if it would interfere with your ability to make monthly mortgage payments. It's difficult to service debt from behind bars and while unemployed. With average personal debt as burdensome as it is , there will be no revolution! And the ruling class wants to keep it that way.
Mortgage debt acts to keep wages low and job benefits few. The employer can force rollbacks by threatening to relocate offshore. In desperation, workers will make concessions to save their jobs--or so they hope. When collective bargaining becomes passe, anything can happen.
For ordinary people, mortgage debt eliminates discretionary spending and the possibility to accumulate savings. There is simply little or no money available to purchase consumer goods and services. A significantly disproportionate amount of family income goes to the financial industry. And this has a huge impact on the manufacturing and retail sectors, which then takes a toll on employment.
A case could be made that a consumer society would favor the singles lifestyle, where everyone has sole ownership and use of most everything. Anathema to market capitalism is the old credo: "Two can live as cheaply as one". In order for capitalism to continue its dominance, unit costs must continually decrease. This is accomplished by increasing production and demand. Marriage and multi-generation households can frustrate these objectives.
There is class bias and prejudice associated with home ownership, induced by interest groups, that owners are more responsible and more worthy as a class than renters. Supposedly, owners establish better neighborhoods, support civic affairs and public education. They are a political special interest group with lobby power.
Overlooked in this judgement is the resentments people harbor who are unfairly pigeonholed because they can not afford to buy, yet have to pay exorbitant rent. Today, most renters spend a large percentage of income on rent. Therefore, animosity toward landlords runs deeply! The hostility toward the system is often acted out against physical property itself. Interestingly, homeowners had reason to maintain their homes while values continued to accelerate at a breath-taking rate. Will they continue this practice as values plummet?
I would assume that there is no significant financial advantage in owning a home over renting one. That costs are approximately a draw is entirely likely. And this is why rents are so high today--maintaining profit parity with the home sales industry. Why do so many people succumb to the ownership myth? Advertising plays on vanity!
Just as socialism lends itself to a universal state-operated home rental system, market capitalism fosters privatization of and maximal profiteering from real property. Sadly, something rather strange seems to happen to people who acquire property from which they collect rent. The mindset hearkens back, surely, to feudalism and the superiority and arrogance of the landed gentry and those who fenced the commons.
Few ordinary people would freely subject themselves to the tortures of mortgage debt and home maintenance, if they had the option of renting at a fair and reasonable rate. In socialism, government would be the landlord and would rent at a very modest rate. During the Mao era Chinese Revolutionary and until recently, a family had rental leases for ninety-nine years. That has changed under pressures from globalization and restrictions imposed by the WTO. The Chinese government is now in the business of selling property.
Housing is a human rights issue and a responsibility of the state. Paying for a place to live should not constitute a financial burden! For this sojourner, renting liberates and allows a person to devote time and energies to other aspects of his or her existence, which lies beyond the toil of meeting mortgage payment deadlines.
The vast majority of home buyers really can not afford to buy; for them a home mortgage loan is a life-sentence of indentured servitude. It could be called slavery for all the burdens it brings. The slave masters would be the finance industry that guards the reservoirs of accumulated capital.
The American Dream, owning one's home, is hyped by many industries simply to promote sales. In this context, buying a home is a rite of passage to middle class status and the respectability it supposedly fosters.
As a side commentary, having an automobile is another sign of first class status, and a rather costly one, at that! I would estimate that over three or four decades, the costs associated with automobile ownership(not counting the time spent attending to an auto)would exceed the median price of a home in California!(But, that's another issue, for another essay.)
The sub prime loans preyed on the most vulnerable people; those who bought the "Dream", but could ill-afford its consequences. The high risk mortgage loans have led to a financial industry meltdown and tens of thousands of home foreclosures, and probably continuing for the foreseeable future. The loan scandal was a direct result of deregulation and the unfettered greed it unleashed.
The financial industry's "credit default swap" instruments make a Ponzi scheme, even that of Bernard Madoff, look like a sophomore prank.(But, this too, is a subject for another essay.)
The imagined dream home is most likely a single family, subdivision dwelling on a parcel large enough for a swimming pool and barbecue patio. The tract is usually far removed from a town center or any commons. These divisions are typically economic- and often age-based, whites only ghettos.The high-end divisions are usually gated and have golf courses as design determinants. John D. Rockerfeller took the golf course option to the extreme, having a private one that flanked his great mansion outside of New York City.)
For the typical home buyer, ownership is elusive and illusory, certainly a long way off--thirty years. For the restless person who sells with only partial equity before the loan is paid off, actual ownership could never come to pass. The lender is the de facto owner until the debt is fully serviced. Whether the loan goes full term is any body's guess; and its that bet that provides easy money for speculators. Divorce,unemployment, illness, periodic collapse in the financial industry and the subsequent economic depression, make home purchasing a risky undertaking for most people.
The ongoing foreclosure crisis forces a reexamination of the American Dream. Mortgage debt is a serious matter; and home ownership is not for everyone--despite the lure of the financial industry. It would seem that renting would be less stressful in all aspects of having a roof over one's head.
As with the automobile, the price of a house is just the first of many, on-going expenses involved with ownership--which spawns a mammoth industrial and services complex beyond that of real estate and finance. And this is reason enough to advertise the Dream. Purchase a home, and you will be buying stuff, paying for various services, property taxes and insurance premiums forever after!
Social control is an aspect of mortgage debt that has not escaped the ruling elite's attention. You can't protest wars and the rollback of the New Deal or strike for better benefits and working conditions, if it would interfere with your ability to make monthly mortgage payments. It's difficult to service debt from behind bars and while unemployed. With average personal debt as burdensome as it is , there will be no revolution! And the ruling class wants to keep it that way.
Mortgage debt acts to keep wages low and job benefits few. The employer can force rollbacks by threatening to relocate offshore. In desperation, workers will make concessions to save their jobs--or so they hope. When collective bargaining becomes passe, anything can happen.
For ordinary people, mortgage debt eliminates discretionary spending and the possibility to accumulate savings. There is simply little or no money available to purchase consumer goods and services. A significantly disproportionate amount of family income goes to the financial industry. And this has a huge impact on the manufacturing and retail sectors, which then takes a toll on employment.
A case could be made that a consumer society would favor the singles lifestyle, where everyone has sole ownership and use of most everything. Anathema to market capitalism is the old credo: "Two can live as cheaply as one". In order for capitalism to continue its dominance, unit costs must continually decrease. This is accomplished by increasing production and demand. Marriage and multi-generation households can frustrate these objectives.
There is class bias and prejudice associated with home ownership, induced by interest groups, that owners are more responsible and more worthy as a class than renters. Supposedly, owners establish better neighborhoods, support civic affairs and public education. They are a political special interest group with lobby power.
Overlooked in this judgement is the resentments people harbor who are unfairly pigeonholed because they can not afford to buy, yet have to pay exorbitant rent. Today, most renters spend a large percentage of income on rent. Therefore, animosity toward landlords runs deeply! The hostility toward the system is often acted out against physical property itself. Interestingly, homeowners had reason to maintain their homes while values continued to accelerate at a breath-taking rate. Will they continue this practice as values plummet?
I would assume that there is no significant financial advantage in owning a home over renting one. That costs are approximately a draw is entirely likely. And this is why rents are so high today--maintaining profit parity with the home sales industry. Why do so many people succumb to the ownership myth? Advertising plays on vanity!
Just as socialism lends itself to a universal state-operated home rental system, market capitalism fosters privatization of and maximal profiteering from real property. Sadly, something rather strange seems to happen to people who acquire property from which they collect rent. The mindset hearkens back, surely, to feudalism and the superiority and arrogance of the landed gentry and those who fenced the commons.
Few ordinary people would freely subject themselves to the tortures of mortgage debt and home maintenance, if they had the option of renting at a fair and reasonable rate. In socialism, government would be the landlord and would rent at a very modest rate. During the Mao era Chinese Revolutionary and until recently, a family had rental leases for ninety-nine years. That has changed under pressures from globalization and restrictions imposed by the WTO. The Chinese government is now in the business of selling property.
Housing is a human rights issue and a responsibility of the state. Paying for a place to live should not constitute a financial burden! For this sojourner, renting liberates and allows a person to devote time and energies to other aspects of his or her existence, which lies beyond the toil of meeting mortgage payment deadlines.
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