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Topic 1.
Yes, investment bankers, brokers, and other folks involved with the burst housing bubble are bad actors. On the other hand, people speculated by taking out mortgages they could not afford creating the "toxic assets." Yes, when the economy tanked many people with mortgages they could afford lost their jobs and then lost their houses. When property values sank, many people could not get out of their house because their equity vanished and the mortgage was greater than the value. Yes. Yes. Yes.All that is true.
I have heard, all my life, that one should have six months income in the bank. This is above and beyond the money one "invests" in speculative markets like stocks, commodities and real estate. I don't have nearly that much in the bank. And if my financial future suddenly took a nose dive and I lost the house and everything else, I could point my finger at all sorts of people. But if I haven't take precautions against bubbles (there will always be bubbles), then I really can't blame anyone but me.
Cries from the right and left about the unfairness of this or that practice, policy, law, court decision, etc., is just so much childish noise. I'm going to stop listening to the news for awhile because there is only so much childish whining I can handle.
Topic 2.
The current issue of the Mensa Bulletin has an article I haven't read yet about the state of public schools in the US. A pullout quote, though, said something like "making sure our children reach their full potential." This phrase has, for as long as I can remember, irked me. When I baby draws its first breath, it has a great deal of, if not unlimited, potential. That is, they are capable of being or becoming almost anything. Everything after that just creates limitations. Our public schools -- based on assembly line methods -- is one of the GREATEST potential sinkholes.
I think, though, most folks are not thinking (I should put a period right there) of potential as what is possible. Most people think of school as training for the specific purpose of learning job-related skills. Creating good employees. Little robots that have high productivity and are interchangeable units of production. There is no possibility in this thinking (unthinking?).
And the right and left think this way. The right wants to give children a very narrow and specific set of facts and pseudo-facts so they will think and act correctly. The left wants to give children a much broader set of facts and pseudo-facts so they will think and act correctly. Not much different! And this is not education.
From dictionary.com, education is, "The act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life."
For some reason the great mass of Americans think education is just the first part. And the anti-intellectual swing to the farcical right is making it even worse by denying much of "general knowledge" in the fields of science, human development, sociology, economics and medicine.
Topic 3.
We are using the explosion of computing power and miniaturization to build very complex "idiot proofing" technologies. Cars that can park themselves and warn the driver if they are about to hit something. We can monitor our health electronically and transmit vital information instantaneously to medical facilities. We build smarter this, that and the other thing to make our world safer. And yet...
We are constantly underestimating the length human beings will go to to act in unpredictably stupid ways. A slashdot.org article linked to an article about our fiber network in the US and the associated maintenance headaches. One example of "how the network is damaged" was particularly and spectacularly stupid. A crew trenching for some purpose, discovered a pipe that crossed the trench. They cleared the dirt around the pipe. The pipe is not marked and might be anything at all from abandoned and empty to natural gas to water to underground power cables. Anything. So, the crew decided the best course of action was to jump into the trench and, using a reciprocating power saw, to cut the pipe away at both sides of the trench.
A new(ish) study (another study that reveals scientifically what I have believed for 50 years) says that our feverish attempts at making the world safe for our children is actually creating a great hazard for our children. Yep. Children are not developing good risk assessment abilities nor are they developing good risk-management strategies. (The second clause of the education definition).
Topic 4.
Americans (maybe everyone) are gullible and incurious. (The last clause of the education definition.) We think "As Seen On TV" is a positive endorsement. Lots of studies to show that the average American think phrases like "New and Improved" actually have intrinsic and measurable meaning. Sheep. The Republican Party (machine) cranks out catch phrases and buzz words that are repeated over and over again on television and radio. "Obamacare," "Job-creators," "Supply-side economics." Half the country picks up and swings these phrases like god's own truth.
Here that? Its the sound of the wolves laughing their asses off as the sheep collect around them.
Sadly, very few hear opportunity knocking and fewer still hear "a wake up call."
Yes, investment bankers, brokers, and other folks involved with the burst housing bubble are bad actors. On the other hand, people speculated by taking out mortgages they could not afford creating the "toxic assets." Yes, when the economy tanked many people with mortgages they could afford lost their jobs and then lost their houses. When property values sank, many people could not get out of their house because their equity vanished and the mortgage was greater than the value. Yes. Yes. Yes.All that is true.
I have heard, all my life, that one should have six months income in the bank. This is above and beyond the money one "invests" in speculative markets like stocks, commodities and real estate. I don't have nearly that much in the bank. And if my financial future suddenly took a nose dive and I lost the house and everything else, I could point my finger at all sorts of people. But if I haven't take precautions against bubbles (there will always be bubbles), then I really can't blame anyone but me.
Cries from the right and left about the unfairness of this or that practice, policy, law, court decision, etc., is just so much childish noise. I'm going to stop listening to the news for awhile because there is only so much childish whining I can handle.
Topic 2.
The current issue of the Mensa Bulletin has an article I haven't read yet about the state of public schools in the US. A pullout quote, though, said something like "making sure our children reach their full potential." This phrase has, for as long as I can remember, irked me. When I baby draws its first breath, it has a great deal of, if not unlimited, potential. That is, they are capable of being or becoming almost anything. Everything after that just creates limitations. Our public schools -- based on assembly line methods -- is one of the GREATEST potential sinkholes.
I think, though, most folks are not thinking (I should put a period right there) of potential as what is possible. Most people think of school as training for the specific purpose of learning job-related skills. Creating good employees. Little robots that have high productivity and are interchangeable units of production. There is no possibility in this thinking (unthinking?).
And the right and left think this way. The right wants to give children a very narrow and specific set of facts and pseudo-facts so they will think and act correctly. The left wants to give children a much broader set of facts and pseudo-facts so they will think and act correctly. Not much different! And this is not education.
From dictionary.com, education is, "The act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life."
For some reason the great mass of Americans think education is just the first part. And the anti-intellectual swing to the farcical right is making it even worse by denying much of "general knowledge" in the fields of science, human development, sociology, economics and medicine.
Topic 3.
We are using the explosion of computing power and miniaturization to build very complex "idiot proofing" technologies. Cars that can park themselves and warn the driver if they are about to hit something. We can monitor our health electronically and transmit vital information instantaneously to medical facilities. We build smarter this, that and the other thing to make our world safer. And yet...
We are constantly underestimating the length human beings will go to to act in unpredictably stupid ways. A slashdot.org article linked to an article about our fiber network in the US and the associated maintenance headaches. One example of "how the network is damaged" was particularly and spectacularly stupid. A crew trenching for some purpose, discovered a pipe that crossed the trench. They cleared the dirt around the pipe. The pipe is not marked and might be anything at all from abandoned and empty to natural gas to water to underground power cables. Anything. So, the crew decided the best course of action was to jump into the trench and, using a reciprocating power saw, to cut the pipe away at both sides of the trench.
A new(ish) study (another study that reveals scientifically what I have believed for 50 years) says that our feverish attempts at making the world safe for our children is actually creating a great hazard for our children. Yep. Children are not developing good risk assessment abilities nor are they developing good risk-management strategies. (The second clause of the education definition).
Topic 4.
Americans (maybe everyone) are gullible and incurious. (The last clause of the education definition.) We think "As Seen On TV" is a positive endorsement. Lots of studies to show that the average American think phrases like "New and Improved" actually have intrinsic and measurable meaning. Sheep. The Republican Party (machine) cranks out catch phrases and buzz words that are repeated over and over again on television and radio. "Obamacare," "Job-creators," "Supply-side economics." Half the country picks up and swings these phrases like god's own truth.
Here that? Its the sound of the wolves laughing their asses off as the sheep collect around them.
Sadly, very few hear opportunity knocking and fewer still hear "a wake up call."