We are headlong into a Double Dip

The Great Recession is far from over...

What is important is our attitude and determination regarding it.

A lot can be said and written about the various events and problems that the United States and the global economy have. I will leave that for a video blog I'm working on.

What I will write is that the vast majority of our government and elected leaders has done us great disservice and has not been acting in the best interests of the American people. We, the people, have allowed this to go on too long and it is up to us to change it. We need to figure a way to get rid of the entrenched political and bureaucratic class along with their friends in the financial world without too much clash amongst ourselves. It is inevitable that there will be discord among us as conditions deteriorate and we disagree about solutions. That is part and parcel of a Democratic Republic such as ours. We will loudly and acrimoniously disagree but we need to avoid violence, we have had one Civil War in this country and the current conditions do not require another. Rather, it requires a revolution of a different sort, one that can be carried out in the vein that the Founding Fathers clearly laid out for us.

One thing is certain in my mind. I have studied enough US history to know we have been here before in our long history, at times in worse conditions, also that in the past people have thought we would never return back to a much better place. I also know that the American people themselves will dig us out of this and not our government or any other forces but by our sheer will and skills. It is The American Way and that is still alive and well among us, even if it seems dormant for the moment. We will endure, survive and overcome but there is no short term fix for this. It is a journey that requires a minimum of 5-10 years of hard work and we can do it, even as spoiled as we've become after 30 years of prosperous times.

Now, more than ever, is the time to revive the American Spirit, remain positive and realistically optimistic and determined to overcome and defeat the obstacles before us. This country has done it before and can do it again. There will be times we will feel down, disheartened and discouraged and it is important during those times we continue putting one foot in front of the other and keep going. It is interesting to me that two opposing forces, unionists and the far left along with tea party sympathizers and the far right, are the ones stirring up debate and flexing their muscles. They are the ones that will eventually move all of us to remove the roadblocks causing the idiocy emanating primarily from the northeastern corridor stretching from Boston to Washington, DC. The government will once again be directed by the citizens of the country and not the other way around.

Economic, Social and Geopolitical

The Great Disruption is here for real...

The supply lines of essential goods and services being disrupted calls for building to return vital work to the United States.

The current economic crisis that technically began in 2007 is referred by many as the Great Disruption. The original assumption was underlying the obvious economic problems of real estate, highly leveraged debt coupled with unemployment, that technology and the internet fundamentally changed communications and the channels that business was conducted. It seems that definition of disruption was too limiting, we now have far larger disruptions as examples, although the underlying one facilitated the current disintegrations.

This weekend GM announced that they were suspending all "nonessential" spending and "unnecessary travel" while they assess the impact of the crisis in Japan. In doing that they were telegraphing more than just their company's reaction to what is a world crisis, which is greater than the powerful impact of Japan's earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear problems. It actually signals a very real parts supply problem that this crisis portends. GM is merely the speaker that blasts the sirens for the difficulties other companies face and amplifies the fundamental flaw in the "just in time" supply model lauded by the MBA Business Culture.

It isn't limited to automobile manufacturing, just as importantly it impacts our technology dependent economy in entirety. Much of what we need to keep our internet based technology and telecommunications systems infrastructure going relies on Japanese manufacturing and shipments in one way or another. In a terrible event that is a classic example of the "broken window fallacy," it is very likely it will be a number of years before Japan is fully back up to speed. There is every reason to think the resolute Japanese people will successfully rebuild, but what they have is mostly gone, rebuilding destruction is not a path to building an economy.

We ought to be considering now in the US gearing up our own manufacturing abilities in order to keep what we have going. At least we should be doing that and learning a valuable lesson from outsourcing and offshoring the manufacturing of necessary products. It is an opportunity to build on what we have. At this moment I know of two specific examples of major facilities that have computer server problems they are working around, since the parts they need are not available and can't be shipped from Japan. For the time being they are able to operate with a "jerry-rigged" resolution and manual intervention. That can only last so long and it seems obvious those local examples are not unusual and going to repeat in other situations.

Another weekend event that is just as serious, if not more so since resolution is not imminent, is the bombing of Libya by Britain, France and the US. The Libyan oil fields have been destroyed and the economic disruption, besides the turmoil and human toll, cannot be underestimated. Essentially this action cuts off the main oil supplies to Europe, which in turns put the squeeze on the rest of the world's demand for oil. Not the least of which is Japan, which will need more oil now due to neutered nuclear production of energy.

While that story holds the attention of the front pages, there are still problems in the Arab world that are unsettling and irresolute. The Jasmine Revolution continues. Yemen and Syria are in turmoil and the people of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are not appeased by the offers of their governments. Additionally Iran has cracked down on "web revolutionaries" and Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq are still open questions. India has problems the western media doesn't seem to want to report on but ultimately their ability to provide services is threatened by social class and business-political quandaries. Who knows what China and Russia will do in this mix?

If there is anything I have learned from studying history, I do not believe it is a stretch to state that the destructive bombing of Libya won't stop the contagion of unrest in the Middle East. There is simple truth in Santayana's oft misquoted "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Alongside that is another simple axiomatic truth, it takes three overlapping generations to relearn the lessons of history. It appears we are not paying much attention to learning the history of long standing troubles throughout time in the Middle East.

Regardless of how the bombing of Libya turns out, by the end of the week it should be clear that vital supply lines of essential goods and commodities have been severely disrupted for a lengthy time. Just as we thought 2010 was a respite and that some underlying fundamentals of the economy were making slow improvements, we now have distinct manifestations of disruption with deep economic impact. That is a call for action; now is the time to build in the US to avert future dependence. Although the elemental foundations of commercial and financial spheres have been rocked further, times of difficulty usually bring out the best ability of Americans to rise above and overcome adversity. Actually, we have a long history of it.

Geography of the Mind

Just when you thought...

Nothing else could happen, something does and we all know about it immediately.

For a moment in time, the year 2010 seemed to give us and the world a brief respite. It felt as if, although thinking people realized it wouldn't take hold, we may not be in a fully sustainable economic recovery but at least there was a pause or suspension of things getting worse. We were lulled by overkill of good news of small magnitude. The wishful hope I think most of us had was that the economic crisis would not get too much worse and we could stabilize as a people and begin the laborious task of slowly rebuilding. It seems though the dawn of 2011 has brought home to society the realization that we are not going to get out of this universe changing crackup so easily. On the economic front in the United States, a large segment of Americans now recognize that we are indeed in a genuine depression. We'll likely skip spring and head straight into long, hot summer afternoons followed by cold fall and winter nights.

We've been recently jolted by big, bad news. Another shoe may drop. Anything can happen. Things happen in threes. We will all know about it at the same time.

There are uprisings all across the Middle East, which at a minimum threatens our oil supplies and is bound to cause global economic problems. Even larger than that, the turbulence of the Jasmine Revolution, is far from over and more is to come. There is now the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, taking a terrible toll on the people of that country. Worse, nuclear meltdown is a very real possibility, bringing to the people of Japan the horror of revisiting a different nuclear disaster reminiscent of the Second World War. Japan is the third largest economy in the world and this event will have a financial effect on all of us.

What is next? One of the Four Horsemen? Conquest, War, Famine or Death? We will know within minutes if a White, Red, Black or Pale horse arrives.

Any number of things could bring another cataclysmic event to us soon. The debt of the European nations and the US government is one. The Currency Crisis could suddenly make itself obvious as the insolvency of governments reveals itself. Is a widespread incurable global disease possible in this day and age? A technological meltdown? Food shortages everywhere, including first world nations?

No one knows. Nothing could happen since so much already has. The world is random. Everyone will be aware of it instantly.

In the long course of history, Classical Ancient, Middle Ages and Modern, humans have suffered and thrived simultaneously but in the first two periods, news and knowledge was local and took a long time to spread. In the Modern era globalization began and technological progress, for better or worse, advanced and is omnipresent in our lives. The breadth of communications that span the globe is a critical component of input into our minds with a subliminal effect. The social web is the epitome of oversharing personal thought. 

This is the period of Too Much Information. Media Saturation. Information Overload. Whatever you prefer to call it, I maintain one of our highest priorities should be managing the flow of current material that enters into our brains. We may be people of the latest Modern age but I'm not sure that as mortal souls most of us have caught up with the rapidity of the advances science and technology have made. Especially those of the last thirty years.

I believe the effects of instant connections have altered the psychology of the larger population, affecting the economic crisis and the way people perceive and react to it.

Mass marketing of mass communications isn't necessarily good for the masses. It's unlikely that progression of widespread communications is going to slow down. The effect of globalization, technological innovations and communication has been one of the major reasons why the impact of this economic depression is different. Prior to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression of the thirties, drastic economic downturns were referred to as Panics. Just a Panics came to be called Recessions and Depressions, the nomenclature of economic crisis has changed to Disruption, due to instant messaging. This is not only an economic depression and change of a way of life but also a disruption of great magnitude because we are at a zenith of communications. The progression from local news and knowledge to global information is made complete. All that remains is improving the tools that transmit it.

Know your own mind. Guard and protect it as securely as you would your body. Consider what you feed into your head as much as you consider what you should eat.

Understanding that this economic disruption is not only a life-altering physical endurance contest, it also is a groupthink mental challenge, is pivotal to understanding how to survive relatively intact. Stress is a demanding thing, it eats you up, that is why it is important to learn how to cope with it and prevent it from distracting you as much as possible. Learn it, live it, to do more than survive it, but thrive in it.

You Can Quote Me On That

In an economic downturn...

Part Two

Follow up to blog on 01/22/11

During the seventies and most of the eighties I held a job that I often found mindless, stifling and sometimes hated but I needed it and there were no jobs in the area that were worth taking that paid any better. More than anyone I understand the struggle of holding an underpaid and not-very-challenging job with managers that didn't qualify for the word "leader," since they were barely able to supervise, much less manage and lead. Their best and only weapon was negative reinforcement and as a low level night supervisor I had to put up with a lot and constantly figure out how to appeal to their best interests to get them to do the right thing for the evening and night shift workers and customers. It was a constant struggle battling old mindsets of "we've always done it this way" from a previous era when things had changed. They were from a pick-up-the-handset-phone clerical environment loaded with paper records and we were in one of the first computerized, centralized technical support centers that required a different set of rules. Most of which had to be made up as we went along because everything was new and piloting without instrumentation.

It was another period of disruptive change that I welcomed but most of the people that were directing me did not. Since my alternatives weren't great I stuck with it and the key to more than surviving it, thriving in it, was viewing it as a chance to learn how to change others perceptions and behaviors. I reinvented myself as change agent before it became a recognized term, keeping my individuality intact, taking a chance at being a pioneer. There were other opportunities I saw in it also. It was an irregular income due to hours being varied and often cut back but had very good benefits, including full tuition to any school of my choice, which allowed me time to do other things a regular eight to five, 40 hour a week job wouldn't have permitted. I used the time outside of work to further my education, do a lot of creative things I was interested in and learn innovative financing of my life. 

There also was always the threat of layoffs. When I wrote in my previous blog entry that it perplexed me why people who have jobs now complain so much and expect a pay raise, I knew exactly what I was saying. I get what having a job in an economic downturn that isn't exactly desirable is like. My perspective now comes from staring at statistics of millions of Americans being unemployed for up to three years, eating their life savings away, uncertain of the future and really not prepared for the New Economy. Therefore when I hear former co-workers complain about having to do more work, with higher health premiums and no raises but unlikely to be laid off, I understand their frustration but their anger is misplaced and somewhat disingenuous, riddled with "they owe me" entitlement.

I learned a very long time ago "don't love the company because it won't love you back." However, being angry about the situation only turns on you though, since the company doesn't care, they only want you to produce. What the individual does have is the power to figure out how to personally deal and cope with the conundrum in a way that doesn't eat them up inside, since that always ends up displaying itself on negative presentation of themselves to the outside world, making matters worse. It is the law of bad returns.

Fortunately I have a job now that I like, although it's real economic benefit is relatively inexpensive, good health care benefits, since the pay is low and the hours vary from 20 hours a week up to 40-60, depending on the time of year and the schedule of non-traditional hours changes weekly. It's a juggling act of money but I use the time off to my best advantage. I learned from my lessons of decades ago to save money when I work a lot of hours, since I have little free time to spend it anyway, saving it for the lean months when I do have more spare time. Everyone I work with now took this job for the same reasons, they had lost their previous job and we're all glad to have some income and benefits.

It's also far better than the job I had right before the crash, that I disliked almost every minute of, at a renown company that now has the distinction of being disreputable and is laying off again by the thousands. I took my current job because it was the best possible solution to the dilemma of few employment opportunities. Count me as underemployed and making the best of it. I recognize I'm fortunate to have two other small incomes, not enough to live on, this is a supplement but provides for me, besides benefits, other intangible things. It gives me the opportunity to learn something new, get back into a field I once was in, further my education some more and time to figure out where to go next. That might be my own business, some other method to get additional income on the side and most importantly, allowing me to continue stretching my creative side and expressing myself.

In many ways I recognize that I am fortunate but I also believe you create your own destiny and luck by taking what you've learned in the past and keeping your eyes wide open for new probabilities. Good fortune very often isn't mere luck but in the outlook you take on life and how you proceed with each challenge as they arise.

You Can Quote Me On That

In an economic downturn...

My working life started in the late sixties and employment in my younger life spanned the seventies all the way through to the economic recession of 1982-83. By that time I was almost thirty and had gotten used to the idea that I couldn't control the macro economy and long prior made the decision that I could control my own micro economic destiny. It wasn't always easy or uplifting, since my working world wasn't what I envisioned, somehow I managed though and learned from it.

Ringing in my ears from the beginning was my father and my aunt's refrain "In an economic downturn, get a job, any job and keep that job, until the economy clearly gets better." It was a result of their coming of age during the 1930s Depression. It was reinforced by mother's chorus "Don't complain and be thankful you have a job when so many people are out of work." It was complemented by the common saying of the time "This is a recession if you have a job, a depression if you don't."

I'm mystified in this current economic era why so many people who do have a job, complain about every little thing and especially about not getting a pay raise. I am bewildered that someone who has maintained a job, didn't get laid off or a salary reduction, has missed that there are a lot of people who would take their job in minute at a lower wage. It is also enigmatic to me why so many people feel they are entitled to a job or pay better than they are skilled for and won't take a job that is available. No one is overqualified in this economy, we all live in post-Katrina New Orleans now. Are they so clueless about the difficulty of millions of unemployed and underemployed people, that would like a job, any job and keep it, at any pay?

If you're employed and dissatisfied, please quit and discover what so many unemployed and underemployed people have. It will change your outlook on life, I guarantee it.

Excerpt of the Day: Seth Godin

There are two recessions going on...


One is forever.

One is gradually ending, this is the cyclical recession, we have them all the time, they come and they go. Not fun, but not permanent.


The other one, I fear, is here forever. This is the recession of the industrial age, the receding wave of bounty that workers and businesses got as a result of rising productivity but imperfect market communication.


[Protectionism] isn't going to fix this problem. Neither is stimulus to old factories or yelling in frustration and anger. No, the useful response to this is to view this as an opportunity. To poorly paraphrase Clay Shirky, every revolution destroys the last thing before it turns a profit on a new thing.


The networked revolution is creating huge profits, significant opportunities and lots of change. What it's not doing is providing lots of brain-dead, corner office, follow-the-manual middle class jobs. And it's not going to.


[The] sad irony is that everything we do to prop up the last economy (more obedience, more compliance, cheaper yet average) gets in the way of profiting from this one.

Seth Godin
The Forever Recession
Seth's Blog 09/21/10

Declining Value

Tracking A Toxic Asset...

These are graphics from Planet Money's blog where they bought a toxic asset created with more than 2000 mortgages from across the country and tracked it. The asset had been worth $75,000 but was purchased for $1000 and the graphics shows how much value it has lost.

In the beginning Dec 2006, “Toxie” was a little sick

But by July 2010, “Toxie” was a almost dead…

No One Knows What the Future Brings

History and current events are a good guide...

New Years Day 2010 was not so long ago and I still remember the collective sigh of relief people shared that the previous decade was over. There was hope for a fresh start, a new beginning, a chance to right the ship and correct the course we just raced through.

At the beginning of March, as businesses were closing every day along the primary streets, road traffic got noticeably lighter and and stores had fewer shoppers, I started researching the underlying core of the Leading Economic Indicators using multiple resources. Looking at the root causes and potential for solutions, none of them looked particularly strong for the short to intermediate term. The phony propped up Stock Market bubble, the Mainstream Media and Political Class's visions of sugar plum Recovery predictions, Stimulus and Quantitative Easing aside, a sea change storm brewing was evident. Efforts for a quick fix to the trouble we were in was not working as predicted and it seemed highly likely that it was going to get worse before it got better.

1. Unemployment: high unemployment and underemployment is a continuing vexing problem and likely to remain that way for a long time. Most importantly, unemployment and underemployment is directly related to people's income. Income is crucial to a recovery.

2. Debt Overhang: Individuals, businesses and governments are deeply in debt and it will take years to deleverage. The amounts on all fronts are staggering and must be reduced because it is subtracting from income.

3. Real Estate: A second wave of defaults in residential real estate is coming for these reasons:

Lenders have allowed borrowers to stay in houses with partial or no payments for longer than the average period of extensions and some borrowers have deliberately stopped paying. This is reaching it's end.
Alt-A mortgage holders are beginning to default and expected to become full blown.
ARM mortgage rates are going to reset in the September - October time frame.

Commercial real estate has declined in value on average a minimum of 50% in the past year but has not crashed yet. When it does, it will be about the time residential real estate hits it's second wave.

4. Retail and Consumer Goods: Most people are not in the position and/or the mood to be buying anything but what they consider the essentials. Maslow's theory comes into real life play: Food, Shelter and Clothing are priorities, everything else is secondary.

5. Production: The rate of producing goods, manufacturing and providing services is way down and not likely to increase until the other factors are resolved. Businesses are hoarding cash.

My prediction then was that May through November would be the period that how this great economic disruption will proceed will become more obvious. We are midway through that period. I also predicted we will be in an economic slowdown for a long haul of 5 to 10 years; I am more convinced of that now.

A few weeks ago I felt this Economic Depression deep in my being, a perception of what it is like to live in such an economic era, that hit me head on as more than intellectual theory. It made me sad and somewhat personally depressed and I had to take a deep figurative breath. I know I'm going to survive this, I've prepared for it as best as one can but that doesn't mean that I won't be taken aback by how it all plays out.

I see it in the faces of other people that they feel it now also. It depends on where you are in life on how good you think your chances of survival are. That also depends on your attitude and your ability to withstand the unexpected. There is a mid-term General Election coming in November and after that, what happens is anyone's guess. It is time to be ready for anything.

We are in a significant economic downturn that is more than the historical economic depressions that occur every 60-80 years (the average person's life span). No...we are in a 150-500 year historical Disruptive Event on the magnitude of  the Gutenberg Printing Revolution, the American Declaration of Independence, the US Civil War and the Industrial Revolution. This is a historically exciting time to be alive in and we may as well embrace it.

The message for me personally has not changed. No matter how good or bad you feel, if you want to make it, no matter how hard it is, you have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep going. To stop is to risk never getting started again. Never underestimate the power of helping other people and them helping you. Now is the time, more than ever, that we need to think creatively, be passionate about maintaining our dignity and rising above adversity, to right the ship to sail on to a better day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUKB3PxG-0E

Seth Godin "We All Live in Detroit Now"

Everyone has access to state of the art information...  


If you're going to succeed, you're going to succeed because you do great work...

"If they can write it down in a manual, it's not a job you want because as soon as they write it down in a manual, someone is going to do it cheaper than you."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlBD75RfMtA

http://www.youtube.com/Stranahan

Reason.tv

3 Reasons The FCC Shouldn't "Touch" The Internets...

The very last thing we need is an analog electromechanical bureaucracy, from the last century, thrusting itself unwanted on a new digital technology for this century.


1. Where's the fire?


2. The FCC F2%#ING SUCKS


3. MISSION CREEP


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLyUeiR7djQ

Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions of all their videos
Written and Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie

Guidelines of Money

Personal finance and money have their own commandments...

If you're doing what you should be doing with money, then money will fall into place for you.

Everyone has their own relationship with money but it is important to understand that money has its own relationship and commandments that are outside of the individual. If you take control of your money, you will not feel out of control of money. The way you relate to money says a lot about you and what you value. Keep foremost in your mind the understanding that money is an illusion, especially today's money that is printed off presses with no real value, like gold or silver, behind it. The value of money can quickly change depending on economic, political and social circumstances, so it's critical to not let your values be based on the value of money.

That is not to say that having money is not important in our society. It clearly is. The problem comes when our concept of money is not clearly defined with our concept of ourselves. It is alright to like money but it shouldn't affect who you are. If that is clear, you will have the money you need (and probably more) because you are clear about managing the money you have, leveraging it to the best advantage, which then leads to comfort with money and the rest follows. That's because your mind is in the right place with it. You will have the things you need and be in a position to gain things you want.

Assessing the personal value of money:

1. Acknowledge that your personal values have to be enduring concrete values, not based on material goods but autonomous and existing separately of money.


2. There are intrinsic agendas in the world you exist in and how you relate to it and them. They should be consistent with your way of life and include monitoring your money and your attitude about it.


3. Money should not be the driver or the destination, it is the result of achieving something of real value.  If money is the only goal, misery follows.

A lot of people are in personal turmoil because of the relationship they've had with money and not understood what it really was worth and the damage it could do to them. Personal finances sooner or later, if not properly handled and misunderstood, eventually require reconciliation. How someone copes with that is dependent on their values, their willingness to reevaluate their affiliation with money and if they want to change. Money is fundamentally a relationship with things in the world and how you view things is important in understanding your relationship with money. There is nothing wrong with having things, whether your desires are modest or ostentatious, as long as you purchase them in an ethically correct manner.

It is a fact of life that some people have more money than others and it's not always due to what is fair, how hard one has worked or sometimes how well they've handled money. Nor does it have anything to do with your value as a person. Circumstances just are what they are and coming to terms with them in a harmonious way depends on harmony with personal values. There may be struggles with money but they can be relatively free of strife. Struggle is different from strife.

It's essential to control your money so it doesn't control you.


Enduring commandments of money:

1. Take charge of your finances, manage them yourself, never abdicate control. It is your money and peace of mind.


2. Live within your means: budget, monitor expenses, do bookkeeping and maintain records of your money. This does not have to be complex, it can be a notebook or an envelope system.


3. No debt is key. Exceptions might be a car, a house or property but only if it makes practical sense. Use credit sparingly; preserve your credit score.


4. Maintain a significant enough amount of savings for a backup and emergencies. Pay yourself first, preferably five to ten percent, or any amount, even if it's a few dollars or pocket change.


5. Avoid emotionally based financial decisions. If in doubt, don't do it, trust your instincts to avoid fear of finances and disastrous results.

We are entering three years of economic crisis and for most people, except the uber-rich, the end is at least three to five years away. Every indication is a second wave has started and it is even more important we take care of our money. If you are in a situation where you made money mistakes and it is causing you difficulty, own up to them and find relief in working towards solutions. Invest in your peace of mind by doing that and as much as possible, follow the commandments of money. Once resolved, following all of them will likely be easier due to lessons learned. If you are not in financial trouble and not following the guidelines of money...Start NOW!

It's The End Of The United States As We Know It

This is a total revaluation of everything...

The Great Disruption isn't the worst thing that could happen and probably long overdue.


1. The internet has disrupted everything ranging from communications to commerce.


2. This total revaluation is due to the failure of the government regulated financial system.


3. Across the board insolvency is creating a tidal wave of bankruptcies that can't be stopped. 


4. We've been living on borrowed time: ideas, money, consumerism, ethics.


5. There will be a profound reorder of personal values due to people's relationship with money.


6. We will see an acrimonious social and political atmosphere of conflicting and competing interest groups.

Personally I don't think it can be called off no matter how many fingers in the dike try to postpone it. There are too many circumstances already in play that portend an overturning of the way we live, sooner rather than later.

1. Technology has sped the exchange of everything spanning from ideas to currency and spinning out of control.


2. There is a war in Afghanistan that is a no win situation for the US.


3. The paper shifting of debt among governments in Europe is contagious to the UK, Asia and US.





4. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is one example of environmental problems that are vexing.


5. There is only one way for the US Stock Market to go now and it isn't up or sideways.


6. Unemployment and underemployment are not going to be solved for quite a long time.

We can hope that the situation doesn't become so charged that we see people do things so ugly that we never thought that we'd see in our lifetime. Immigration conflict is only a symptom of long simmering racial and ethnic issues  Political divisiveness is a result of class warfare. Terrorism has been glossed over and is internal on several fronts. There's more...Anything is possible.

THERE IS A PERSONAL RESPONSE FOR INDIVIDUALS

Therefore also for the individual: Anything is possible. Personally and it doesn't have to be a negative reaction. If we choose to accept that there will be very little money in circulation, even among those who once had it, that consumer goods will not be as available as they once were, we can choose to take this as an opportunity for personal and spiritual growth, a chance to innovate new ways of doing things.

No matter where you are in life, you can always find someone better off and someone worse off than you are.

Really what choice is there? We can accept reality and adjust to it in the best possible way or we can be angry and bitter. Many of us have worked hard all our lives and achieved quite a bit and expected to be at least comfortable by this time. I know people who have complained bitterly to me about this and I can no longer be around them because it triggers the worst fears in me. Other people I know are well aware of how things look and what direction the country likely will head. What kind of future we face and are transcending to understanding it is out of our control. What we do have control over is how we reorient our internal compass to acceptance.

My grandfather used to tell me stories of the Depression. One of them was many men his age (in their thirties and forties) never accepted the conditions of the Depression and stayed inside their houses for the rest of their lives. Only their wives went out to do the shopping, etc. He said they "wasted their lives away when they could have done something, anything, even if it wasn't earning money." My grandfather was a barber but his business was slow, so he started beekeeping. He had men helping him who also had slow business or no jobs, this gave them something to do, they also had lots of honey.

Everyone has to find their own path to acceptance, a positive and hopeful outlook, their own personal revaluation of what is important and coping with the difficult fact that like a hurricane blowing through...a lot of what we thought, believed in, as well as the physical aspects of life we had, has been blown away.

In no way do I believe this is an easy task. If there was ever a time to build a solid support system around you it is now. Do I have fear about the future in five years that I didn't have five years ago? YES. I cannot let that rule me and it is important that I get the message out to as many people as possible to alleviate my own fears, doubts and anxieties, share the burden.

I have an avocation that is a labor of love people help me with and it keeps us occupied, plus we get benefit from doing something together . My mother wants me to start beekeeping with one of my nephews, who is in the similar employment predicament that I've been in for the same amount of time. Through these activities we discover new gems inside ourselves and from them, anything can happen.

I believe we are capable of more than surviving but winning in new ways, in this historical reordering of society, by recognizing that it is about people valuing each other in ways other than in financial and material terms. That is the bottom line revaluation. We may even get the real America back.

Manifest your own Destiny: "I feel fine"


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Chimes of Freedom

LIVE: Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour...




Chimes of Freedom
Bob Dylan

Well far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll
We ducked inside the doorway, thunder crashin'
As majestic bells of boats struck shadows in the sun;
Sayin', it might be the chimes of freedom flashin'

Flashin' for the warriors who strength is not to fight
Flashin' for the refugees on their unarmed road of flight.
And for each and every underdog soldier in the night
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

Well, in the city's melted furnace unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden here while the walls where tightenin'
As the echo of wedding bells before the blowing rain;
Dissolved into the white bales of lightnin'

Yeah, tollin' for the rebel, yeah, tollin for the raked
Tollin' for the luckless, the abandoned and the forsaked.
Yeah, tollin' for the outcasts burnin' constantly at
stakes
And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

And then through a cloud-like curtain in a far off corner flashed
There's a hypnotic, splattered mist was slowly liftin'
Well, electric light still struck like arrows
Fired but for the ones condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting'

Paul Ewing

Well, tollin' for the searchin' ones on this speechless, secret trail
For the lonesome hearted lovers with too personal a tale.
And for each young heart for each channeled soul misplaced inside a jail
Yeah, we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

Well,, starry eyed and laughin' I recall when we were caught,
Trapped by an old track of vows for the hands suspended
And we listened one last time, and we watched with one last look
Spellbound and swallowed "Has the tollin' ended?"

Yeah, tollin' for the achin' ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless, confused, accused, misused, strung out ones at worst.
And for every hung up person in the whole wide universe
We gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashin'

 All Photographs (unless noted otherwise) JR Snyder Jr 2010

Invest In Yourself

Engage in self improvement in turbulent times...


Invest in yourself while seeking shelter from the storm:


This era of Great Disruption due to technology and the internet, economic difficulties, political divisiveness and social problems can be disturbing to even the most even keeled of us. The world at large is in chaos of one order or another and it is difficult to remember that we have little control over much of it. We do have control over how we observe it, engage with it, cope with it.

I'm reminded of the era between 1968 and 1974, when in the US everything seemed turned upside down with racial tensions, university student disruptions, the draft resistance movement, urban riots, Kent State Shootings and Watergate. There were times when it seemed society was hopelessly mired in social ills with no end in sight. Who knew that Deep Throat was feeding Woodward and Bernstein information that would ultimately bring down Nixon? That was the beginning of the end of scary times during which many of us felt this country was dead-ended. Nothing lasts forever, change always happens.


Where we go from here in this time period is not within my foresight, although I have some ideas of what could happen. This time healing and recovering is going to be a long and deep process for most of us. The best thing to do in times like these is seek shelter and stay out of the storm, while observing for change in the weather. Staying out of the social storm doesn't mean personally stopping though. Engage in self-improvement, take care of things you've been meaning to, prepare yourself by building a foundation out of methods that have stood the test of time.

These six items seem to be good on an agenda:


1. Take control of your life.


2. Invest in (formal and informal) education and your mind.


3. Improve and maintain your physical and mental health.


4. Build solid relationships with good people - people good for you and people you're good for.


5. Devote energy to your business or career and/or make plans if you currently don't have one.


6. Think positively, turn away from negativity and engage in good self-talk.
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Sgt Schultz: "I See Nothing"

We will be hearing that a lot out of Wall Street...

Pleading the Fifth:

"I assert my rights under the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate (or be evidence used against) me."

more often...the Oliver North Version:

"On the advice of counsel I respectfully and regretfully decline to answer the question based on my constitutional rights."



Sgt. Schultz: "I did not even get up this morning."

I suspect a lot of us are wishing we did not get up upon hearing the not-so-surprising news about the Goldman Sachs allegations of fraud and that Merrill Lynch other large financial institutions are also likely culpable. It's enough to make one's head spin on how the whole system could collapse under the weight of corruption of these institutions and the regulatory agencies that allegedly watch them.

As outrageous as it seems, the bankers if called to testify in court or before Congress or regulatory agencies, do have the US Constitutional right to "plead the Fifth."
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YadaYadaYada

While we admire the problem...

Stop talking, being a distraction and take action.

There is too much YadaYadaYada in the echochamber of self appointed trouble shooters who are excellent at admiring the problems.

I've determined that the majority of time spent on social media is a distraction, ineffective and a poor return on investment. Studying economics, politics and history, sociology, geography, science and the arts are good purchases for understanding this era and a solid grasp of them will go a long way.

We waste time talking about issues. Resolution of issues are not neatly wrapped up in seminars, camps, conferences and "presos" with a list of Action Items. You can dream but you have to get out of bed. Also spare me your networking groups and mixers, excuses for drinking too much and bedding someone.

Nothing is really new, everything has happened at least once...it's still about the social, economic and political of what is going on in the current time and geography and history can tell us a lot about what action to take. Look what a volcano (geography and science) in Iceland has done to disrupt Europe socially and economically and ultimately politically. We have recent history from airline disruption on 09/11/09 to consider.

Don't wait for someone else to start or lead the process, start it yourself. Take action, listening to people who you respect, have track records, are feet on the ground people. Do not confuse committees with real teamwork, a good component of taking action. Committees are not teams but a group of people with hidden agendas, if you form a committee you will get a donkey, not a horse.

Taking action may mean learning from mistakes but that is better than mulling it over and doing nothing at all. Don't operate on fear of failure, fear can be a gauge if you're going in the right direction and an indicator to change gears, it's terrible as a driver though.

It's always one foot in front of the other because if you stop you may never get started again.

He Protests: "I'm Broke Because Of Congress"

"CONGRESS IS RUN BY CRIMINALS"...

Northeast corner of Camelback Road and 20th Street. Phoenix, Arizona on April 10, 2010

Actually I've been thinking Congress is "criminally insane" but I get his point. I'm not sure what his specific argument is but he gets significant support from traffic and people stopping to take his picture. He is very congenial.

Personally I feel the political class on all fronts, Congress, the Administration, political parties and the bureaucrats who run the arcane agencies of our government, have lost accountability. I find this unacceptable and it's unclear to me the resolution but I know I'm intent on figuring out my responsibility.



"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
(attributed to Voltaie and widely quoted in similar forms.)


Think about our rights of speech and assembly, urban public space, movements for social justice and protest. Has public space been so secured to protect us from terrorism, that we have lost valuable rights? These issues affect both the political Left, the Right and everyone in between. Why do people who hold different positions think it's acceptable to mock each other when the other side speaks out, when in fact, we're all exercising US Constitutional and historical rights, now mitigated by courts and law? To mock is to belittle your own right to speak out.

Gadsden Flag

I have a good friend who is Marxist leaning and polar opposite from me in economic, political and social beliefs but we made a separate peace a long time ago. It is based on respecting each others right to express what we believe out loud in public. How that plays out if it comes down to the nitty gritty, we will only know if it happens.

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In The Future: After Fifteen Minutes

You better know something...

Rant Starts Here:

When my career abruptly ended 10 years ago after almost 30 years of working for the same organization, it was the best thing that ever happened to me, although I only appreciated it to a small degree at the time. It wasn't known then, that it occurred at the beginning of one of the worst decades of American consumerism, celebrity worship and over-the-top-you-name-the-poison. Not to mention one of the worst historic acts of terrorism (September 11, 2001) also occurred at the beginning of the decade, which the American people just seemed to skip over. The lessons came much harder, faster and earlier to me than for most people, who are now feeling the effects of the worst recession since the last Great Depression in the '30s.

Those who have known me a long time will verify that I've been consistently saying since the middle of the '90s the following:

Nothing that has happened in the past three decades can be blamed on our leaders in business, religion, Congress or Administrations. The blame is laid squarely at the feet of the American people.

We have several generations with a large majority of people that have no idea what a bad time, era of difficulty or a period of deprivation of goods is like. They're spoiled clueless. To them it is more important to look good, feel good, have things and far worse, to collect people as objects to enhance their status, not valuable assets to enrich life. The car you drive is more important than having good character on a journey.

My concern for over a decade now, has not been how I or people of strong character I know, will handle tough times when they come along. We'll be fine and adjust. I weathered difficult financial circumstances in the late '60s, when I arrived in this country at 14 years old and had to start working right away. It wasn't horrible, we weren't poverty stricken, my family was rebuilding an exciting new life and reinventing ourselves in America. Rather, I'm more disturbed by how a lot of the population will react when they realize they're not entitled, no one owes them anything and what once came easily to them, is now difficult to obtain or impossible. I want to avoid them by all means.

It has seemed rather obvious to me that since the '93-'94 recession, consumption has been racheting up out of control with only one ultimate conclusion. Since the late '70s and even more so in the '80s, skills and knowledge have been deemphasized and we embraced what I refer to as the MBA Marketing Culture that has no respect for attention to detail. The Cult of Personality and selling image was more important than actually producing something and doing what you said you would do. "It is better to look good than to actually know and do something."

I refuse to participate in the negative of this Economic Crisis. Ninety percent of life is NOT just showing up and getting a pension, social security and health care benefits. I see a link between what is happening economically and the social values of the past few decades and I'm not sure there is a choice about a Second and Third Wave in this Great Recession. I'm not buying the Recovery Kool-Aid...we ain't seen nothin' yet. If you do not want to be responsible for yourself and anything you may have done in the past that is causing pain now, I can't be around that. On the other hand, if you made mistakes with debt, relationships, priorities, careers and own up to them and work to repair the damage and reinvent yourself, no one is more for you than I am. It is to everyone's advantage that responsible people get a break if they need one (public money giveaways are not a break).

Since the late '70's I've watched this country thin it's brains and culture out, aspire to less knowledge, become underachievers, more delusional and too comfortable. We have become infatuated with the idea that "everyone is a winner." As for me, since I can remember my desire has been to engage with people smarter and know more than I do because they envisage things I do not and I want to constantly, continually visualize and learn. That is my American Dream. I'm attracted to people who want to engage themselves to be better but I also realize that it's not for everyone.

What I have found, especially over these past 15 years, is a lot of people are too content at being complacent. I'm willing to throw lifelines to those who have the willingness to grasp and go higher and seek to rise above. To me giving collective power lifts to affirmatively raise the masses higher, which essentially dilutes the value, is a waste of time and resources. It might be a product of decades of my training people but I've discovered that many people tend to attain a comfort level of mediocrity and stay there. People, like water, seek their own level. It's foolish not to recognize that people have different IQ levels and abilities and there is nothing wrong with that, it's a product of nature and humanity. Not all people need a college degree or a high-paying job to be considered a success in life.

A successful life can mean many things and a lot of them have nothing to do with career, money, fame or appearance.

Back in my early Bell System days I worked for a Traffic Manager who probably had no idea that he would have a lifetime impact on me with a few simple, direct concepts. To him I was probably just another one of those hippie kids they forced the company to hire. He was definitely "old school", a product of a military stint and a cowboy from Arizona days of yore. He did watch over me though and gave me quite a few good rules on being a leader. If I was beginning to get a little slipshod he would strongly but not too sternly say: "Son, you need to get your papers in order." If I offered up excuses he responded: "Son, charm works for 15 minutes, after that you better know something."

Since my involuntary "separation" from my career I've experienced and learned a lot and fortunately am probably as prepared as anyone for what we are likely to see in this country. We're in a highly unusual period and looking at history, macro and micro, distant and recent, the world has been here many times before. It seems to me that in this Era of Great Disruption, you better know something.

End of Rant.