I guess you're right Ray, it's my system, except that, by virtue of retirement,
I'm no longer in it. I was in it for quite some time after I went to
university and got my degrees, etc., but I wasn't born into it. My parents
were immigrants, total peasants from central Europe, from Poland and Germany.
When they got to Canada, they tried to fit in, but it was very difficult. I
still remember their stories from my childhood about how they were pushed
around by "the English" -- people who had a much large stake in Canada than
they had.
All of that is long gone, and you're right, I bought in and it's my system and
even though I personally am well looked after I tend to quite pessimistic about
where the system's going. And I'm especially concerned about where it's taking
my kids and especially their kids, my grandkids. Given the progress of labour
saving innovation, globalization, developing scarcities, and population growth,
I really wonder where the system is taking them and what kinds of lives they
will be stuck with.
I don't think I still have the energy to do very much about all of that. I've
spent much of my working life trying to fix the system that our northern Native
people have had to work and compromise with, and that's about all I can do.
Next life, maybe.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Harrell
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 3:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
The problem is a system that must generate progress through surplus (profit).
That redefines sustainability and stability into stagnation and creates a
situation that is at best chaotic with lots of Private Enterprise viruses
eating at the root of the tree of prosperity. Their only comparison is to
the failure of "communism" which was really a "King" system with an elite
advisory legislature. Their inadequate version of our counsel system.
Either way they are both western products in a culture that admires aristocracy
more than anything. It's your system Ed.
That's what those first Nation's folks have had to deal with all of their
lives. But it doesn't really work without the church beating them over the
head for being evil. Untrammeled they are just dog eat dog and inefficient.
Take for example, two things on the web. Dictionary. Com and Babelfish.
They used to be open use and had great reference. Good etymological sources
and reasonable translations for some languages. But there was no profit in
that and everyone jumped on the copyright wagon and now we have an inferior
free product and if you buy Babylon or any of the other for profit products
they gum up your system because they operate like an invading army. They
are also inferior translations. I put a German or Italian art song text in
and they can't translate it. I'm still driven back to my library and the
hard copy. For a brief moment there was a promise by capitalism has closed
the door and information, just like what happened with the telephone system, is
fragmented and disconnected. The rule for you white folks is the opposed of
"We are all connected." It's "we are all disconnected in order to make a
profit."
Because there are no regulations to keep the flow of information open, the
creative small sector slowly succumbs to the big for profit sector and what we
get are private governments of wealthy stockholders unchecked by anyone. Even
the Supreme Court has sold out. So it's the system Ed. Your system doesn't
work Ed, Arthur, Chris, Harry, Spencer, Tom, etc., etc, etc. Your system
doesn't work. You need to think harder and write. Or is the fact that
Futurework has been quiet on my computer mean I've been banned or removed from
the list?
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2:57 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
Partly because some recent US Presidents had a strange faith in supply side
and trickle down economics, very rich Americans have become much richer and
poor Americans have become much poorer, while the middle class has declined.
Presidents Reagan and G.W. Bush believed that giving large tax cuts to the very
rich and to business would "trickle down" into investment that would boost the
economy and employment. It simply didn't happen that way. The rich liked the
extra money that the tax cuts gave them and hung onto it.
It's difficult to assess where Obama is with regard to all of this. I
believe he intends to put an end to Bush's tax cuts for the rich before long
and make other adjustments to taxes and tax credits, but he's not in a very
strong position to do anything right now.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Ray Harrell
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION'
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
Of more interest to me is the frozen capital at the top and we refuse to
tax them to free some of it for work in the economy.
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 10:07 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] Not a very positive picture
From yesterday's Washington Post.
Ed
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
As 44 million Americans live in poverty, a crisis grows
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
It's clear that the Great Recession battered those on the bottom most
heavily, adding 6 million people to the ranks of the officially poor, defined
as just $22,000 in annual income for a family of four. Forty-four million
Americans -- one in seven citizens -- are now living below the poverty line,
more than at any time since the Census Bureau began tracking poverty 51 years
ago. Shamefully, that figure includes one in five children, more than one in
four African Americans or Latinos, and over 51 percent of female-headed
families with children under 6.
These numbers are bad enough. But dig deeper -- as Georgetown University
law professor Peter Edelman has been doing for nearly 50 years in his battle
against poverty -- and the story told by these figures is even more staggering.
Edelman points out that 19 million people are now living in "extreme
poverty," which is under 50 percent of the poverty line, or $11,000 for a
family of four. "That means over 43 percent of the poor are extremely poor,"
said Edelman, who served as an aide to Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.) and in the
Clinton administration before resigning in protest over welfare reform that
shredded the safety net. "That's over 6 percent of the population, and that
figure has just been climbing up and up."
Edelman says that the number of people living at less than two times the
poverty line ($44,000 for a family of four) is equally significant.
"Data shows that's really the line between whether or not you can pay your
bills," said Edelman. "That has reached 100,411,000 people. That's 33 percent
of the country. That's the totality of the problem -- whether you call it
poverty or not."
For too long we have accepted the narrative -- promoted by well-funded
conservative think tanks -- that claims people who are struggling are to blame
for their troubles, and at the same time we don't have effective anti-poverty
policies. So tackling the problem is seen as wasteful.
"So many people think it's their own fault," said Edelman. "They don't see
the structural problem in our economy."
But with so many in poverty, that narrative has become harder to sustain
during the Great Recession, and so renewed work is being done to take on
poverty and its structural underpinnings.
[If you want to read more, go to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/28/AR2010092802356.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
_______________________________________________
Futurework mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
