This is a very good poetic summary of 2011. It’s well worth listening to and watching.
Household names this year were forced to exit center stage. All across North Africa, revolution was the rage.
Mubarak fell in Egypt. Gadhafi bit the dust. Who will be the new leaders, are they people we can trust?
The island of Japan was dealt a devastating blow. An earthquake hit, it measured an astounding 9.0.
Bin Laden was found in Pakistan…
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former. — Albert Einstein
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. Euripides
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it. — Stephen Vizinczey
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. — Unknown, Hanlon’s Razor
These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:
1.Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2.The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
3.A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
4.Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
5.A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.
Signs of stupidity:
Intolerance, arrogance, impoliteness, rudeness, crassness, name calling, lack of imagination, lack of source, driven by opinions, use of hearsay, use of logical fallacies, belief in mob intelligence and knowing not that they know not.
With the next US presidential election looming in the fall, we should look to practical short term solutions rather than the long range utopian solutions.
Ever hear of the fallacy of too few choices? This fallacy is also called the fallacy of the false dilemma? It would be a fallacy of too few choices if one party gave the choice of having a huge military budget and the other party gave the choice of having a tiny military budget. The given options are too few. Most people would prefer options that allowed for a military budget that was slightly stronger or slightly less strong.
The fallacy of too few choices also applies to clustered choices or packaged choices. Having to choose between the cluster of proposals preferred by the Democratic Party or the cluster of choices preferred by the Republican Party is a logical fallacy; it gives the voter too few options. The real choices are infinite in any choice between packages with several options.
I will not give the long range utopian solution for this problem in this post. I will, however, suggest the shorter range solution is that the USA should have more viable political parties.
That solution creates an enigma. How does the government create more viable political parties? Ultimately the solution will require changes to the voting laws.
A short term solution to the problem of having more political parties would be instantaneous and not too painful. The solution would neither be a complete solution or a final solution. A solution that could put the USA on the path to having more political parties and thus more choices would be to require that each candidate belong to two different political parties. A candidate would have to belong to a major party and a minor party. A Republican or Democratic candidate might belong also to the Tea Party or the Libertarian party, for example. Two totally independent parties would support each candidate.
Once there are four or more political parties sharing the political responsibilities in Washington, further changes could be made. This solution would be an interim solution and should be automatically retired after a short trial – perhaps five years.
This is how hiring a consultant stimulates the economy:
Many American businesses are stimulated including his employer.
Or:
Or:
Consultants were very busy during the Clinton administration. The debt was reduced. Employment was high.
Quoting from a
recently-published book by political philosopher David Schweickart,
| If we divided the income of the US into thirds, we find that the top ten percent of the population gets a third, the next thirty percent gets another third, and the bottom sixty percent get the last third. If we divide the wealth of the US into thirds, we find that the top one percent own a third, the next nine percent own another third, and the bottom ninety percent claim the rest. (Actually, these percentages, true a decade ago, are now out of date. The top one percent are now estimated to own between forty and fifty percent of the nation’s wealth, more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%.) |
According to the Federal Reserve board the net wealth of Americans is 59 trillion dollars. The top one percent have about 20 trillion in assets. The next 9% have another 20 trillion in net wealth. The bottom 90% have 20 trillion in net wealth.
Shouldn’t the national debt be proportionately distributed according to wealth?
Shouldn’t the national expendatures be distributed proportionately to wealth?
Logically, all the lower 90% should pay for is social security, unemployment, medicare,and medicade. The lower 90% should not have to pay income taxes.
Meanwhile, AARP has asked the FTC to consider launching a nationwide investigation of time-share resellers, who usually target seniors. Although most time-share resellers solicit customers across the United States, state attorneys general can only bring injunctions that affect their residents or against companies that operate in that state.
When listing your time-share online (or to rent it to offset maintenance fees), stick with legitimate websites such as redweek.com or tug2.net, which may charge up to $35 a year. Scammers often run their own websites, but listing there costs hundreds — with no return.
Get a vacation week without the scam. Get a utopian vacation week without having to invest thousands or tens of thousands. Click on the ‘Buy a vacation‘ link above or go to ‘Redweek.com’. (I would rather you clicked on ‘Buy a vacation’ link above.)
Timeshares make the worst investments. If you buy a deeded timeshare, you will be stuck paying for a vacation week for the rest of your life. Many people turn in their deeded timeshare just to unload them; they see the yearly fee as a curse. You may pay $40,000 for a deeded week and yet find the resale value is zero.
However, timeshares are the best places to stay during vacations. They are very utopian. Timeshares provide a great place for a family to stay; a family isn’t stuck in a single (and expensive) room for a week as they would be if they vacationed from a hotel room.
You can get both the luxury and low prices of owning a timeshare if you click on the following link: Utopian Recreation. There are no obligations with buying a week. You just give your name at the front desk and you will be escorted to your room. There is NO obligation to see a timeshare sales pitch and NO other fees. OK, perhaps there is a tax.
Free is not perfect. Would you want to live in a place that tramps, drunks and homeless people live? No, of course not! Spending $750 for a two bedroom villa is not
something the homeless can afford. It is something that the average person can afford.
If you want utopian vacations, click on Buy Vacations at the top of this page or click on Utopian Recreation.
The state of the state in a nutshell:
Typically citizens of other nations will say that these generalities apply to their own country as well.
The US government is protecting citizens from invasion – assuming that there are armies that would invade the USA. Perhaps citizens of the US are protected from invasion by armies from Columbia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, the Al Quieda and the Taliban.
As the US gets more and more indebted to foreign countries and people, it is plausible that some of those countries with US investments would defend their investments – they would come to our aid. Heck, Disney World is worth protecting!
As the US gets more and more in debt, it gets to the point where it is not worth defending – like a house that’s underwater (worth less than the mortgage). Citizens are becoming attached to a ball and chain. Go Protesters!
We better get our economic house in order. Perhaps we should hire some Chinese economists!
One reason the Peruvian Constitution is powerful is that it provides helpful principles. Articles 58 to 65 of the Peruvian constitution concern the Economic System. These principles would help any country economically – especially the USA.
Article 61
The government promotes and oversees free competition. It fights any practice that would limit it and the abuse of dominant or monopolistic positions. No law or arrangement may authorize or establish monopolies.
The press, radio, television, and other means of expression and social communication and, in general, enterprises, goods, and services relating to the freedom of expression and communication, cannot be the object of exclusivity, a monopoly, or hoarding, either directly or indirectly, by the government or private parties.
Article 61 logically states that monopolies are to be protected against whether of national or international origin.
The word ‘monopoly’ as defined by the ‘American Heritage Dictionary’:
1. Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: “Monopoly frequently … arises from government support or from collusive agreements among
individuals” (Milton Friedman).2.Law. A right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
3. a. A company or group having exclusive control over a commercial activity.
b. A commodity or service so controlled.
4. a. Exclusive possession or control:
arrogantly claims to have a monopoly on the truth.b. Something that is exclusively possessed or
controlled: showed that scientific achievement is not a male monopoly.
All our trading partners should be investigated for monopolistic
activities that would hurt jobs in the USA. Without jobs a nation cannot exist.
It is of paramount importance that government not be so cavalier that it
believes that the people of the USA will out compete all other nations regardless
of the conditions. Hitler thought this and criticized his people for not
winning WWII in spite of his brilliant leadership. Let’s hope Washington stops
thinking as Narcissistically as Hitler; the USA needs government on it’s side
to flourish.
