Reclaiming Our Space and Time from the Coronavirus and Its Origins

We are like cows to this virus. If we let it, its swarms will use up what vitality we have to recreate itself and leave many of us dead, with no prior defense of our own. It is heart-wrenching to hear the stories of health workers as they describe the rapid, vicious work of SARS-CoV-2 as it takes hold.

Ironically, as I learned from Rex Spendlove, we owe our lives and our prosperity to viruses. Although they are technically not alive, they are everywhere, engaged in a lively dance with all life forms. They encourage the life cycle -- often by extinguishing bacteria that would otherwise overwhelm us. Viruses are made of genetic material covered by protein, what has been called "a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein."

The point is that the common perspective of viruses is not entirely accurate with regard to our well-being. It was learned from 1939 on with the introduction of the electron microscope that there are far more forms of viruses on Earth than all other forms of life combined -- over 100 million different types. Please forgive the slip of the tongue there -- no, viruses are not alive, but they are made of the same stuff and they can seem alive when what they cannot do -- such as move -- is supplemented by actions of other agents and forces, like us. As Rex taught me, confirmed by additional study, if it weren't for one form of viruses -- phages, which consume bacteria -- we would be awash in dangerous bacteria. As bees distribute pollen, viruses distribute DNA material in vast networks, supporting propagation and growth everywhere. They vigorously degrade populations, which eliminates waste and infectious populations in ways that we never knew. We have come to understand that we know little of viral phenomena in the oceans, which trigger forms of life and cycles of life and regeneration at all levels of existence.

If we are planning to hide from viruses -- good luck with that. If we want to fear something, there is much more to worry about than a few degrees of separation between us and bats. Of course, bats are hosts of untold varieties of "massively undersampled" coronaviruses -- that alone can be fodder for nightmares. Just for the record, it is important to know that both SARS coronavirus and HIV virus strains were introduced into the human population when their natural hosts were hunted and killed for consumption. What's up with that? Animal transfers are called zoonotic transfers, which happen any and all times we interest with each other as well as all other animal species. Zoonitic transfers happen all the time; we could do with fewer exotic ones.

Now, to the meat of the matter: People do not understand that all is process. They are not taught this. There is a general understanding that the natural state is a static state. This is how we become cows to viruses -- as well as to malignancies, disabilities, and cruelties. We owe much to the two Alfreds in learning how to overcome our malaise and educate ourselves in the good life -- individually and severally. Alfred North Whitehead taught of the ubiquity of the process, which informs our understanding of data and is uses and the need to understand and systematically support chains of conditions -- the flow of events and affairs. As we come to learn the processes of the covonavirus, we come to understand our own processes, to and from this we must engage. We cannot continue to fly through time and space untethered, hopeful for some metaphysical, blissful state of nature that will just, simply, stay. We need to actively engage, not only at the macro level, where our senses work for us, but at all levels of existence. We need technology, infrastructure, to do this. We live at high risk due to density, complexity, diversity, mobility, and curiosity. All is process, and we need to embrace this and engage in the dance. The requirements of this are not entirely novel to society -- musicians do this all the time using music theory and notation, adapting to that realm of sound that is audible to us and satisfying.

The second Alfred was a Polish nobleman, Alfred Korzybski, who contributed to society in the first half of the 19th century by introducing the field of general semantics. His most significant enduring contribution was the publication of "Science and Sanity", which created a cult of understanding and admonition, which was not fully empowered by computation, which challenge awaits us still.

One of the problematic tells of our societal weakness is that health providers have a difficult time declaring people as having recovered from Covid-19 infections. This is a significant challenge in the United States. This is a sticky problem in that the virus has demonstrated a talent for identifying the weakest among us and the weaknesses within us. It exposes the jarring ineffectiveness of our social systems with respect to the most basic aspects of health. It exposes that scandalous fact of many market-driven, Western health systems: There is no system. As to our individual well-being, we are on our own. The medical community only interests itself in us when presented with advanced pathologies -- diseases and onerous conditions in later stages, where dramatic interventions can be staged. These provide environments for higher, fee-based costs, supplemented by passive pharmaceutical regimens -- increasingly and problematically called "cocktails", that do not imply intimacy in terms of health, understanding, and care.

Dramatic acts are thus carried out with the idea that the patients in question can subsequently re-enter an amorphous pool of people with presumed general health -- or, at least not bad health -- or at least, not infectious conditions. Proven public health actions and policies are left to what are now called market forces. Such empty hopes are buoyed by inapt comparisons with commercial arenas -- such as Adam Smith's famous pins -- that have nothing to do with the fundamental well-being of the people and the groundswell of meanings, commitments, and requirements of the fundamental health of the people. Declarations of recovery resemble bills of good health, which are understandably very hard to come by in the current medical milieu. What are the health system's responsibilities with respect to the post-Covid-19 patient? These are unsettlingly unsettled.

There is a kind of willingness to declare people as cured of "that one thing." Hence, integrative aspects of our health that would bring adaptability and resilience are left hanging in the wind. Of course, that very wind introduces viruses to us in conceivable and inconceivable ways.

One example of the fallacy of passive health systems and the lack of a process orientation enlivened by constant flows of data was represented by the last events in the life of Senator Edward Kennedy, he of the famous war against cancer. Senator Kennedy was diagnosed in 2008 with brain cancer after several seizures -- a condition that we know from study of cancer pathologies had to have begun decades earlier, as his body had converted itself to actively manufacture the malady. The medical community had failed to detect what was obvious to his body. 'Body as factory' is a useful analogy -- we should say, example. This is no secret to the viruses that sneak in and hijack the production line, just as malignant cells do. How many medical checkups had this 'lion of society' and leader in health policy, Senator Kennedy, received? How many bills of good health had been given? His care obviously would have constituted the best of the best. What of the masses of people that cannot have hoped to enjoy the same. Covid-19 has rousted out myriad of these conditions that we have failed to deal with otherwise, but what will we do with the knowledge that we have gained? Paper over them as in the past?

So, we must live with viruses. We always have. Can we stop eating bats and otherwise engaging with the dangerous corners of the wild that brought on this disaster? That would be wise. We should reassess our relationships with animal species generally with regard to bacterial as well as viral risks. As to the next wave of viral combatants, we shouldn't be as cows to them, ready to be harvested.

As to the unanswered Covid-19 questions -- can they lead to rationality with regard to the public and private health of the people? We hint at interest in process when considering antibodies and infection rates. We need to map out the entire cycles, integrate and model them -- track their ebbs and flows. This needs to be done in all things.

One thing needs to be mentioned with regard to the technologies in question. I have in my possession a model that supports virtually every process step required to manufacture machinery out of metal. This is the result of years of effort by experts in that field. All of this fits in a tree, a family of processes and process steps, that is comprised of 102,000 branches. This involves two-and-a-half megabytes of data within a standard database. For perspective, the Android version of Facebook takes up 140 megabytes of data -- fifty-six times as large as the full metals manufacturing tree. In my experience, the Facebook app and dozens of others require fairly constant updates, which involves downloads of the entire applications, not just the changes, which are likely to have been minimal. This is waste beyond imagining. I know that I have to download about a gigabyte of such updates each week -- I just got caught up yesterday and a dozen big, fat apps are now in cue on my phone. That is a notable part of my day -- and yours, too, unless you have found a way to stop the parade. What of the 5 billion Facebook apps out there -- and the rest? This is waste that is unimaginable. It certainly stands in the way of efforts to use technology to match the ravages of the forces we must overcome and the steps that we need to take.

People complain about the complexity of health models -- 20,000 codes here, 30,000 codes there. These are nothing when compared to what complete models would require -- far more than the 102,000 manufacturing steps. With parsimony, following the direction of the two Alfreds, the task is more than daunting. With mind-numbing, breathtaking waste, as represented by prevalent applications of technology, we cannot win. On a positive note, what can happen when we convert even existing bandwidth over to the millions of process steps needed to support the health and well-being of the people?

Hatch Act there for a reason

This is a letter to the editor that I just sent to the local paper in Logan, Utah. Though more political than economic in nature, it does deal with underlying legislative conditions that need to be in place to design and implement appropriate policies.

Dear Editor

Ed Redd showed a rare level of insight and integrity when he recused himself from a public, professional assignment due to his political campaign for the state legislature, citing the Hatch Act. Though that Act most likely only applies directly to federal employment and political activity, the principle involved certainly applies to state politics. The point is, conflict of interest by those who governmental and legislative powers, given intertwining budgetary and administrative controls, opens the door to private malfeasance in public places. On the surface, it allows for a perverse kind of reciprocity. "You approve my budget and I will approve yours" can cover a multitude of sins. That is why the Hatch Act exists in the first place.

Of course, in our day and age, ethical protocol would call for a declaration of conflict of interest. In the case of state employees voting in the state legislature, much if most of what occurs would involve such conflicts and set up a bargaining regime among state-employed legislators and the instruments of government that could leave the interests of the people well off the table. How would reform take place in an environment where reformers and reformees are one and the same? Of course, this is the common practice, as the spirit of the Hatch Act has been quietly ignored in Utah for some time, particularly in higher education.

Richard Morris in his excellent 1973 book, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny, points out a profound irony. The tiny colonial culture of early America produced a cadre of political and economic reformers that changed the world for the good in enduring ways, while we suffer in our times without equivalent leadership. So the Hatch Act Modernization bill, would undo yet another protective instrument with little debate or public outcry. The bill is presented in the name of modernization, which is, of course, an unassailable objective in our stilted mindset. I am surprised that it would not be called the Hatch Act Reform bill, because it would serve to reform one of our primary instruments of reform by eliminating it. This is how we think and act in our day. This is why we suffer from economic and political crises of our own making.

Beaver dams and the fiscal cliff

We are of this earth, but we pretend we are not. I know, there is the religious argument that we are apart from the animals, which allows us to "dominate" them while we "tame" the earth. True. Ok, although many are not, I am a believing man in such matters. The divine directive I know about does not say that we are licensed to pillage and pollute while we are here; on the contrary. We are here as stewards. We are to be responsible.

I have all of the credentials of a conservative and a capitalist, but I must say that we need to be far more responsible from an environmental standpoint. I hear all the time from people around me that they believe that nature is so vast and the planet has such inexhaustible resources that we couldn't possibly be doing much meaningful harm to the environment. I find it hard to comprehend such a statement. How could anything be more wrong? I am reading the synthesis of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. There are a lot of smart, committed people working on the problem that are way off base.

Even if they are not, the logic escapes me. This is like saying that it isn't important to clean your house because it will not fall down if you do not. Furthermore, by being reckless, we are likely to stumble into serious problems at a micro level. Fracking, for example, is so fundamentally invasive that it surely should be applied only as a last resort. I read last week that fracking companies in the rush to obtain oil are pushing chemicals with known carcinogenic properties underground, near groundwater sources.

There is another important reason to keep environmentally aware, apart from avoiding pollution and environmental degradation. We can learn much from nature in the cycle of life. [Please, don't roll your eyes. There will be no background music here.] In all things, there are periods of growth, maturity, and decline. This is a fundamental tenet of capitalism, of course, but we forget the last of the three stages from an economic perspective, an oversight with enormous negative consequences. Poor economic policy with regard to large-scale enterprises with declining revenues has a direct impact on the famous "fiscal cliff" facing U.S. politics in this, the last month of 2012. It is a major contributor to the perilous economic conditions which we face currently.

The growth process is cool, right? This is the domain of entrepreneurs, new ideas, and raw competition for better things and better ways. Such a sanguine assessment is ill-suited. Unfortunately, as was pointed out recently in the congressional debate over trademark laws, future companies have negligible constituencies. Fighting for their rights involves abstract concepts and coherent policies. Politics "in the raw" typically ignores such niceties in lieu of porkbarrel bills and special favors. The growth sector and its needs go woefully ignored.

The mature sector is where we all live, or hope to. This is the world of good jobs, consistent government revenues, and social justice. Oh, that we could all always live in this world, characterized by white picket fences and dinner at five each evening. The problem is, prosperity does not last forever. Tastes change. The new can undermine the old. Even longstanding success can slowly fade. Sometimes success can fade quickly, as the makers of sliderules -- Keuffel and Esser -- found out in the early 1970s when inexpensive calculators were introduced into the market.

Dealing with the declining sector is where we fail the most. Nature naturally accommodates such change. My favorite example in such matters is the beaver. Don't ask me why. Beavers represent rationality to me. What do they do when their dams, their homes  and workplaces, no longer are viable? Beavers evaluate such situations, given their excellent engineering minds, and move to build new ones.

What do we do under such circumstances? Not always that. Well, in a sense, we do, at least in smaller cases. Mainstreet business, for example, are defined by their cash flows. If they don't get ongoing business, they can't be in business. Hometown bankers famously only loan money where it is not needed. Well, that was up until the Banking Act of 1980. Since then, the banking system has been progressively corrupted, first giving credit cards to people that shouldn't have them, then mortgages to people that wouldn't be able to meet associated payments, then lending money to no one in particular in a fancy set of transactions based on "derivatives", highly complex models of economic relationships. I write about this in my book "It's the Necronomy, Stupid", a book that has successfully avoided notice from its perch on Amazon.com.

It can be said that we have ceased to be as smart as beaver. To be fully truthful, that is exactly what I am saying. We have embraced the "too big to fail" phenomenon, to be sure. The issue runs deeper than this, however. Remember my statement earlier about the lack of basis for political support for the growth sector? The companies of the growth sector do not yet exist or they are cash-poor and preoccupied. Thus, they have no grounds for political power. Companies, particularly big ones, present the opposite. As their revenues fade due to sagging market demand, such organizations tend to turn up their pressure on Washington. They hire more lobbyists. They hire more attorneys, more expensive ones, the kind with political access. They investigate ways to influence politicians. They work hard to find ways to "tilt the table" in their favor.

This process is far easier than it was meant to be. Think about it, they only have to get some proportion of 536 people on their side, at least for legislative purposes. You know of the mystery of politically-derived wealth. I will use Lyndon B. Johnson as an example. He gained office as a poor young man. By the time he retired, decades later, he was a multimillionaire, with a communications empire, substantial land holdings, and associated perquisites. This in spite of the fact that he was in office all of the intervening time. On the surface, you can make the case that he was an astute time manager and entrepreneur during the recess periods. Surely he was. However, the numbers do not really add up.

Am I accusing him of being dishonest? Of misuse of public funds or embezzlement? Of illegal behavior? No. I have no idea of the details of his history -- though I have some books somewhere should I decide I need to know. I am sure that there is no public record of "tit-for-tat" deals or of obvious distortion, if that is what you might mean. There were likely situations involving "winks" and "mutual understandings" and amazing coincidences. It was probably easy for him to close the deals that resulted in his wealth.

The point is, the decline sector is rife with such situations, particularly with regard to the politics of power. With rule changes or legislative mandates originating in Washington or in other political venues, markets can be redefined, entrepreneurs can be wiped away, and valid new opportunities can be converted to hopeless causes.

Let me provide an anecdotal example, trivial, really. This weekend, I spent time with an old friend. We are both in our sixties. When he was a little boy, he got a toy car that was solar powered. It was a pretty large, powerful toy. He had it for years and years. It was very durable. It ran and ran and ran; didn't need a battery as long as there was sunlight. The toy car still worked when he went off to college in 1969. In 1970, he went to Central America on a mission. He was sure that when he returned in 1972 that there would have been a massive conversion to similar full-sized cars by the time he got back.

Instead, the early 1970s brought gas shortages, rationing, and generalized crisis, a condition that has repeated itself on occasion, bringing with it fear and concern on the part of the populace. We could make the case that the gasoline-powered personal transportation vehicle is in a state of decline but by means of tactics as outlined earlier the market is not allowed to "die". As I often remind readers, Ford Motor Company did indicate in 2007 that the company had an archive of ideas and innovations dating to the 1940s that they could use to turn the company around. We might ask about such ideas. Could some of them possibly help to alleviate pressures brought on by the widespread use of fossil fuels?

I will not belabor the point. There are many industries about which similar comparisons can be made, not just in finance and gasoline-powered vehicles. Such industries develop strong lobbies. They gain substantial expertise in such matters in Washington and in the political capitols of the world. Such organizations have had a good deal of time to prepare their case. Without question, such conditions have political implications. Surely, such relationships will tend to bend, if not break, notions of democracy in our society.

There are a number of techniques that can be considered as ways of "bending" democracy, techniques that can be employed by corporate and political schemers. My favorite is the two-party system itself. I have long held that our main weakness as a society is our love of a scuffle. We relish fights. If we do not engage in them, we love to watch them. Such interest in hostility is played out in several ways. Perhaps it fulfills a need to work through aggression and is a result of several millenia of competition for resources. My observation is that the liberal vs. conservative political dialog as it plays out in its many ways provides a great distraction for individuals and organizations who have the objective of "bending" the system to avert market decline. While we play out our worries about what the "right" says about the "left" or visa-versa in the press and in the media, backroom deals are surely being arranged to meet the needs of specific petitioners with specific requests that will serve their needs, often to avert open market conditions that would favor new ideas and make opportunities available for new innovators. We have fallen for the magician's trick of averting the eye.

As we consider the ecological underpinnings of our success, the demands of growth when compared to maturity and ultimate death are undeniable. There are limits to how far we can "bend" such things. Do I have a problem with the idea that there is an elite? No. I think that such a thing is a part of human nature. Do I have a problem with the fact that they work to have more than their typical share of political influence? Similarly, this has always been the case. All political systems and in all forms of society and government share such behavior. Such efforts to avert the natural order of things must be judged as a matter of degree. We are steering ourselves close to the edge with regard to consolidation of power and wealth to be sure. This should be a matter of concern for all, particularly for the elites should the balance of political power shift to favor democracy.

What I criticize here is the overt attempt to manipulate markets and forestall innovation beyond reason as we can currently observe. In energy, for example. Would it really hurt to truly usher in a new, more rational age of energy? Couldn't you establish legitimate financial instruments to reward the few entrepreneurs who can put viable plans together? There is some risk in this, but you have a good deal of capital. Buck up and drink the Kool Aid. Spend more time with young engineers and enterprising MBAs and less time with attorneys. It isn't going to hurt your prospects to usher in this new age.

I know of the story of J.P. Morgan and Nicola Tesla. It may be apocryphal, but I mention it to make a point. Tesla showed Morgan how the earth's energy could be tapped with a few rods placed into the ground. Morgan asked where "meters" could be placed to measure usage and charge for the energy. Tesla indicated that they wouldn't be needed, as the energy generation was automatic and natural. He offered his opinion that the resulting electricity should be free. The story goes that Morgan thus decided to freeze Tesla out. He slowly cut back on Tesla's funding while promoting the plans of Thomas Edison to good commercial effect. It worked. The resulting company is General Electric.

Is the story true? Is economic prosperity dependent on having usage meters on everything, forcing payments for things that may be somewhat arbitrary? Is this why obviously improved approaches to personal transportation, medicine, nutrition, etc., do not present themselves? Is artificial scarcity necessary? Perhaps it is, but couldn't we maintain currency with science and arrange business according to facts within decades of when such innovations become known? While that would result perhaps in more distribution of income and wealth, there would be many improvements to society in the process, not the least of which being stability.

Finally, we have a current view of a critical tactic of "decline sector" or, more descriptively, "anti-decline" people. They like to arrange for crises. Such conditions allow for diversions and sleight-of-hand. The fiscal cliff, is it indicative of a real crisis, or is it an artificial device to draw our attention away from something else? We would be well-advised to watch "both hands" as events play out. What may be under way to preserve prospects that have otherwise passed their natural life cycles? How can such acts be averted in favor of new and improved innovations that will have the added benefit of spreading wealth around and stimulating still more innovation? We need to be busy little beavers to ensure ongoing reestablishment of economic prospects.

Laziness

Wow, this was the election that woke up white, er "traditional" Americans. The party, literally and figuratively, is not about them any more. I should say us, as I am as I fit the demographic.

I was raised in Utah so I came late to the racial integration issue. My parents had lived in the South and Midwest in the 1930s and 1940s, as my father was a government surveyor and engineer. They told me a number of stories with racial overtones. Actually, they ran in many directions, as my parents absorbed some social blows from being Mormons from Utah. My grandmother was a poet. She wrote a number of poems in dialect, many in what is termed "Negro" dialect. I don't know of the propriety of such a term now, but that is what they were called. My mother taught us a number of poems and stories that made use of many dialects. They were overwhelmingly enjoyable and, I think, oriented toward understanding and acceptance.

I remember in the 1970s or 1980s watching the movie High Road to China with Tom Selleck. I liked the show very much, but from what I understand, I was in the vast minority in that. The point is, about halfway through the movie it came to my attention that an inordinate number of brown people were being killed. Scores. In the face of this, Mr. Selleck's character and the others were conspicuously unscathed.

This election involved some famous, even funny responses to the democratic reality. "Taking back the country" really does not look like a viable plan. The fact is, you are not going to be able to "out-baby" the minority races. That demographic fact was established long ago. As an aside, it is more than a little ironic that the representative of the dwindling establishment in the U.S. presidential election showed himself as a world-class paterfamilias while his opponent, representing the burgeoning classes, not so much.

The "givers" vs. the "takers" dichotomy in the minds of the "whites" with regard to economic benefits also faces difficulty. There was a moment in one of the television broadcasts when it was lamented that "brown people" also "want things" and see government and politics as was of getting them. This conjured up, surely, images of the purity of capitalism vs the dank ugliness of socialism, as it were. Socialism won. Capitalism lost. Lazy minorities will thus be able to cream off the excess work products from hard working, hapless white people.

The tide will thus have turned; slavery will thus have reversed itself. Those whites who are left will need to look for another haven to be free. Could that be Canada? Uninhabited islands of the South Pacific? The latter is not likely if only because of the rising sea which just gobbled up the New Jersey beach. Its not just that they are not "like us" (wink, wink), "they are ... lazy".

We need to revisit the concept of laziness. Yes, this is a white people thing, too. In an era where technologies bring unprecedented levels of productivity, what does laziness mean? Unfortunately, this has become an existential question, as a person's social standing is determined by what he or she does. It isn't necessary that the job be done well. Scott Adams has become famous due to his ability to depict the truth couched in comedy. Indeed, the pointy-haired manager often is clueless.

When we consider the various concepts around which economic activity is rewarded, we find a good deal of leeway when it comes to work effort. For one thing, we can measure energy expended, you know, foot/pounds of energy expenditure, joules of energy, physical measures of activity. I had an owner of a company make reference to this as a measure of whether people were contributing. This has been called the "asses and elbows" approach to productivity. Is this what the white people mean when they saw that the brown people are not working to suit them?

When it comes to the expenditure of joules, there aren't very many of us that are working very hard. Certainly there are professional athletes, whose efforts are curiously protected by monopolistic fiat of Congress, a governmental corruption of pure capitalism that we somehow don't mind. Socialism in the service of capitalism, I think. We are a curious breed indeed.

Of course, there is the grand definition of work, the Megamind definition. We love this, the industrialist worker that makes all the wheels turn and the accounts balance. This is mental work, good work. In fact, the last few decades have resulted in an integration of brown and white in terms of the professions, perhaps not all, but most.

I know that many of our time have forgotten the sages of the past, particularly with regard to management of enterprises. That world has long suffered from the "next big idea" syndrome, which itself is fueled by the business press' desire to present ideas about how they can do better. The problem is that in the roller coaster of managerial ideas, real science and its implications have been muted. The point is, W. Edwards Deming wasn't simply presenting nice ideas in his time. He was presenting groundings for a science of management, an elixir for the problems outlined by Scott Adams and his Dilbert crew.

Dr. Deming famously said that the biggest problem faced by enterprises was "best efforts". This is to say that the biggest problem with regard to productivity and prosperity is people that don't know what they are doing within organizations but that do it with great vigor and in many cases with endowed authority. In this light, work becomes counterproductive. Work in this sense becomes the enemy to good economic and social outcomes.

Can you see the political and societal implications of such an insight? We need more merit in our meritocracy, merit defined as the reasonable application of effort. There is great waste in the misapplication of energy and of resources. In a sense, it can be said that we have an over-employment of resources and of people. The "best efforts" people that Dr. Deming mentions may be educable in their current state of employment, but it is possible that they are wielding power in places they shouldn't even be. Responding to the requirements of a demand-driven employment model, many of them are likely faking it, applying themselves to tasks as they are presented to them irrespective of their inherent talents.

I watched a typical recitation of the requirements of our demand-driven approach to employment a couple of days ago. The presenters were outlining what subjects people should study to get employment and where they should move in order to contract such work. I see no problem with this in principle, as the labor market is well-served by taking on market characteristics. The problem is in how late in the game people are being forced to make such decisions. The commentators were making comments about useless college degrees and the need to make drastic adjustments to resumes and job histories in order to meet the demands of the market. Another problem is the inherent loneliness of the process. People must engage in what the employment people refer to as the "crosswalk" when crossing the divide between their talents and interests and what is generally available in terms of jobs in their general geographic area.

A bigger loss to society than personal "laziness" is the inability to benefit from the inherent talents and skills of the people. Oddly, we reward the efforts of people who don't do their jobs very well when they could make major contributions in other ways that are not similarly rewarded. This is an enormous source of waste. The educational system is definitely a contributor to this dilemma. There is a concerted effort to identify and reward only a certain subset of talents at the expense of the rest.

What if the educational system and associated employer organizations were oriented toward recognizing and nurturing talents of all kinds early in our lives, associating talented children with experts and educators in their unique areas of skill in a lifetime association? This is to say, if musically talented individuals were brought together with others with similar endowments based on verifiable data, recognized by leaders and educators in those specific areas. The same for literary, athletic, scholastic, mechanistic, philosophical, mathematical, and other areas of human endeavor. A general education would also be needed, but a much more involved process of integration, once again, guided by personal data with regard to inherent talents and abilities, would ground people in their careers and areas of endeavor throughout their lives. When career and life adjustments were needed, they would be more grounded in a community of like-minded people to help them improve on their talents and enhance their contributions.

Dr. Deming's "best efforts" people live in a state of delusion. By association, it can be said that they suffer thus. If they are not overtly aware of their state of at least partial insanity, they likely suffer from mental or physical trauma of some kind. Regardless, resulting chaos leads to stress, to chronic aberrations that affect their mental and physical health. There are direct associations with hormonal imbalances, for example, and many disorders, including heart disease, metabolic syndromes including obesity and diabetes, and cancer. Equally important, they are missing out on the lives they could be living where they could be excelling, receiving ongoing reinforcement, and being happy generally. I recall the story of a high-powered executive who, when informed of his high chances of death from stress-induced heart disease, moved to the country to concentrate on playing the cello.

The economy as currently understood is deeply delusional. White people, as it were, have pulled the economy deeply into what even they would call socialism, but in the name of capitalism. It isn't capitalism, though markets are involved. Capitalism in the true sense would destroy the very enclaves of wealth that the white people are trying to protect. Capitalism is steeped in commercial revolution. The fact is, fear shouldn't be grounded in the darker races, but in the possible efforts of entrepreneurs that could, and theoretically should, render the old industries in their wake.

Of course, if Dr. Galbraith were to have his way, and Dr. Deming for that matter, it would be the corporations themselves that usher in the new order. They have the resources. They have the knowledge. In some cases this is happening. In others, there is little progress; indeed many of them go to great lengths to forestall meaningful progress. Among other things, this phenomenon can be attributed to ... wait for it ... laziness. This is a laziness of another kind. Rather than instigate a new program, for example, it might seem easier to talk to a senator and get a bill passed that makes the program unnecessary, at least for the time being. This kind of laziness is often of the cerebral kind. People in authority can tend to get "slotted" in the way they think, particularly when they feel threatened by change.

Problematically, given current expectations, we are not seeing an overwhelming desire on the part of private businesses to hire a lot of people. As it turns out, talented engineers and production experts are good at automating things. This is what they do. From their perspective, why should they arbitrary hire people that they do not need, that actually will often "gum up the works" with "best efforts"? All other things being equal -- apart from the fact that the people in question do not have jobs -- isn't the economy better off by empowering the engineers and production experts to exercise their talents to the max? Ok, and environmental engineers, too. I don't want us to start an environmental discussion right now other than to say that good production is not wasteful.

That person that would "move to Cleveland" or someplace to get the job that they were not necessarily suited for because it was available and no one was willing to pay for their true talent (that may may not even be aware of because the school system chewed them up and spewed them out when their weren't math geniuses) could have better things to do. Appropriately identified and coached, especially early in life, that person might be a perfect counselor. Maybe a forest ranger. Perhaps a biologist, with innate talents perfect for the job. Perhaps a brilliant painter or a social commentator. Maybe a comedian. It is possible that that person would be the very best president the country has ever seen. We could certainly use one of those.

How to pay such people? Let the "talent guilds" help to decide. They should be encouraged and supported. This is to say that we should be encouraged and supported. Let's look at this question, white and brown together. This is the question on which our future prosperity is to be determined.

Why no one can have a productive conversation about the economy any more

The White House Hedge Fund

There was a recent, interesting blog by Mark Cuban, in part on the prospects for turning the U.S. economy into a hedge fund to benefit from the private capital skills of Mitt Romney. As President, he could do leveraged buyouts in the name of the country, something that he did earlier with great success. As President, he could listen to the great plans of American entrepreneurs and pick a few. This could be a way of lifting us from economic doldrums. This could be an excellent way of leveraging Mr. Romney's obvious business skills.

This is not a new idea. I don't know that I would espouse it in any way. It has proven itself in a few cases, at least from an economic if not a social perspective. The problem is, such an approach has a name. If I were to repeat that name, you would be repulsed, because it has obvious negative connotations.

Most economic ideas are overladen with negative social and economic connotations. The last century in particular was a boon to economic thinking and to an improved understanding of relationships among the economies and societies of the world. Many unimaginable things happened during the period, of course, in the name of some of those ideas. Major lessons were learned and famously applied, to the benefit of us all. The United States led out in such efforts, speaking principally of the post WW II peace provisions and the multilateral arrangements that saw us through the Cold War to settlement of most issues, apart from a shaky ongoing connection between the Middle East and the rest of the world.

What we are left with is a panoply of words, of phrases, that convey social as well as economic meanings. Many of these descriptive phrases are associated with the American order, though not all. The problem is that virtually all of the vocabulary of economics, society, and politics has taken on connotations that are rigid and not always clear and descriptive. This rigidity has resulted in a public discourse that is often devoid of meaning, leading to misunderstanding by all parties.

My personal opinion is that the main problems leading to the warmongering of aggressor nations in the last century had to do with a loss of government legitimacy, leading to takeovers by groups of renegades and thugs, not with any particular economic or political theory. We should be particularly concerned about understanding the conditions that allowed Stalin to hold sway over Russia and the Nazis to control Germany than particularly the ideas of the left or the right which they ostensibly represented. Perhaps in either case, the relative nonexistence of political depth was at fault. We must ask why such civic societies were so fragile, as many have done. In the former case, extreme provisions of the Versailles peace agreement are understood to have stunted prospects for any German government. In the latter, civic society was vastly weakened by WW I, compromised though it had already been under the Czars. No one was able to understand and counter the subtle shift in legitimacy from Lenin to Stalin, a change of considerable consequence with regard to Russia's prospects at the time.

The problem with any current economic debate is that most of the alternative concepts have now taken on toxic connotations. Only a circumspect dialog is possible. As a result, such terms cannot be used in a civil discussion about the political economy of the world and its nations, as they serve as springboards to well-worn, but counterproductive arguments. Even the concepts we use daily take on vague, if not dangerous connotations. Here I list and discuss a few.

Fear of capitalism

Americans in particular love talking about capitalism, but there is great fear of its implications in this country. The point is, markets are harsh, or at least they can be. Though we brag to the world of our commitment to markets and competition, our policies show stark contrasts. We don't allow competition in transportation. We don't allow competition in energy, not really, and not without breathtaking favoritism granted to existing enterprises in many longstanding industries. There is very highly managed oversight over markets for food and agricultural products. We don't even allow for open competition in sports.

We like our economics to be tidy, so much that Congress sees fit to ensure that Twin Falls, Idaho or any other sports-crazed community cannot field a champion football team. Industries, once established, can count on overarching support of government to kill off any competitive challenges. Why was the US automobile vulnerable to the Japanese a couple of decades after the war? For one thing, they had become soft, not having any measurable domestic competition, apart from, ironically, Mitt Romney's dad's company, American Motors. Ford Motors has recently disclosed that they have withheld innovations from the market dating to the 1940s, an admission that didn't seem to raise anyone's eyebrows.

For some reason, business organizations in the United States avoid the "socialist" label when they appeal to government for favors. These can include tax breaks, price supports, investment credits, regulations that stifle competition, outright monopolies, infrastructure favoring their particular needs, and either emphasis on or ignoring of intellectual property rights. In the final analysis, a capitalist system would let such enterprises suffer the consequences of the market, to "let chips fall where they may" in spite of political power and influence that they might have built up.

Loathing of socialism

Socialism would be in large part the distribution of goods and services based on criteria other than the open market. Many consider this an idea that hostile to the American way. We hear a lot about people on welfare when the term is used. When government makes use of its powers to support existing businesses in ways only governments can, forms of socialism result that is not really looked at in these ways.

You may understand the basic set of alternatives. The "right" favors business at the expense of the people. At its extreme, a rightist system involves a merger of such interests, of business and government, at least in theory. Such is the "hedge fund run out of the White House" idea. The "left" favors the people, an approach that extends to complete democracy in the form of full public ownership of everything. As history has shown, this also results in a ruling class that many have criticized as appearing similar to the "rightist" bosses. Based on such thinking, the "left-right" continuum is not a flat yardstick, but a circular ring, meeting in the back, where a ruling class exists in either case.

The US as headge fund idea: Making the trains run on time

There is a name for a merger of interests between business and government, at least from the rightist perspective. I will not introduce it yet because it sounds ugly to the 21st Century ear. It might seem to be good idea for us now, given the state of our economic mess. There was a time when such a merger was considered as beneficial to a society. It was said of the leadership in question that it caused "the trains to run on time".

Governments are known, of course, to be poor at delivering goods and services. In most cases, such activities are reserved for private initiative where gains and losses can be enjoyed and suffered by willing competitors. The idea is to provide an environment in which such competition can be readily carried out.

Such an environment has shown to be effective not only in establishing strong economic performance, it has also demonstrated an ability to create vibrant, pluralistic societies. The problem we face it that such societies are also revolutionary in nature. This is to say that existing upper classes whose prospects are tied to existing organizations are at risk for economic and societal demotion if capitalism is allowed free reign. Entrepreneurs that are allowed free range of the market may in fact find something better than trains to run, making such efficiency irrelevant. They may undermine any and all markets. They may throw chaos into such markets as they provide better, more appealing options for the consumers of the world. A vibrant entrepreneurial environment has certainly shown an ability to even out incomes and stores of wealth. We created the GINI scores that bear such things out. The fact is, our GINI score of late is not that great.

Freezing out the most toxic of terms

I am going to list a few of the toxic terms here. There is some concern that by including them, the search engines will get me branded as something bad. OK, but rest assured, my beliefs in this regard are pretty well documented in the Model Economics approach. That is, most ideas have some validity if applied under appropriate circumstances. The question is in what society can bear and if leadership exists to ensure that it can be renewed and invigorated.

Fascism is, of course, the result of business/government merger of interests. This we saw in Italy and Germany in the last century. Communism was the rallying cry that let to the takeover of Russia almost a hundred years ago, though many purists insist that this was not a valid example of the Marxist ideal, certainly not after Stalin assumed power at the death of Lenin. Certainly ours is curious world in which the Chinese government and its people demonstrate such obvious commercial skill when they are supposed to be communal.

It is interesting that events of the past several decades, the last hundred years or so, saw use of these terms in ways that largely missed the mark. My observation is that the concepts they represented have valid implications, but they should be applied under specific conditions by a government that is above the fray. This may doom the attempt in the first place. The study is worthwhile, as it may underscore our survival.

When should "power to the people" hold sway? When large organizations cease to be legitimate. They should be allowed to die in the way of the market, by running out of money. When should governments support the needs of business? By policy, governments should allow for conditions favoring competition -- especially competition of financial weaklings against their corporate rivals whose products and services they call in to question. Openly, publicly, new enterprises should be able to make the case for their offerings without fear of reprisals, unfair conditions, and private, backroom collusion.

When longstanding corporations cease to be legitimate as per their competitive offerings, government may have a role in supporting the needs of their people. This is a form of personal socialism that most would agree with.

Is good governance even possible?

Is it possible to overcome abuses of the left or of the right, or of the back channel consonance between the two that makes itself known to the back of the circle where the elites of left and right meet in the middle? Now, this is what we should really be talking about, not only in this election, but in general. The fact is, what vocabulary would we use? How would we overcome the backroom power of the elites? Mao ZeDong, one man to obsessed over this issue, made reference to the power of the firearm in the revolutions of his era. What we face is more a matter of the power of the checkbook, if not the social club membership. The point is, the answer is the establishment and protection of a real form of capitalism and an associated churning of society. This would resolve our current and future problems if anyone was brave enough to allow for it.

Prosperity as a function of coersion

Reading the current issue of The Economist this morning was pretty weird. The main theme, true progressivism, makes a call for something that purportedly does not exist: A conceptual structure for a new economic paradigm, one that is capable of supporting realities faced by individuals, organizations, and states in our time. Hmm. I do that, but no one seems to care. I will just continue to consider issues based on my Model Economics approach with the idea that someone with some clout in the market for economic ideas recognizes it and gives me a tap on the shoulder.

Meanwhile here are some answers to the question that may call attention to solutions. True progressivism is an interesting phrase. I am reading Amity Shlaes' "The Forgotten Man". Nothing there but thinly-veiled contempt for progressives of all sorts. I learned of such contempt for thinking people from a recent conversation from a young "tea-partier". This is borne of a vague call for return to a more amenable state. It cannot be that of Hoover. More likely it is to the time or Reagan. Not a man of ideas, but an expert in the sure quip. He ruled the world out of a mastery of the catalog of popular cinematic dilemmas of the time. He understood the outcomes and the words that made them happen. I remember the day. But the questions of that time and this were swept under the carpet, where they continue to fester, though some have emptied out into the street, as it were. Famously Wall Street, but infamously Main Street. Our crisis has been long in coming.

The unstated argument is that we do not need more ideas. This is not a time conducive to thought, or so it would seem. The same young man that informed me of a successful local purge of an educator who was found to be a "Marxist". It was not clear in the discourse just what a Marxist was, though the man was clearly of that persuasion. As a result, he lost his employment and I guess was run out of town. I mentioned to my new young friend that in the context of the early stages of the Industrial Revolution and in the overwrought behavior on the part of commercially-supported thugs of that Age, much of what Marx said made sense. He assured me that I should never let that opinion be known or I too would be found wanting. My prospects would be dire indeed.

Just a thought, but what if in the vast array of that man's work, the scholar in question, an idea or two exists that could shed some light on our dilemma? Would be it possible that we could make use of a notion thus tainted? Perhaps we could use it, but indicate that it came from another source, perhaps the sainted Adam Smith. Better yet, someone not known for thought at all. Perhaps a neighbor. Such an idea, fully untainted, could be taken into the fold and embraced. Problematically, the idea would suffer from the ignominy of newness. Also, your neighbor is likely not from the famous philosophy school. Rats!! It probably wouldn't work on that count alone.

By the way, what ever happened to the famous philosopher profession? People in position to make a difference seem to have become politicians, listening to the radio a good deal.

One of the main problems with prevalent market structures is that they are dependent on coercive markets. This is to say that economic security if not general progress is dependent on the existence of markets that extract resources from and require participation in markets whether they want to or not. Such markets, based on their fundamental nature, sustain economic activity and support growth and concentration of wealth through force. In such cases, there is a lack of infrastructure supporting alternatives. There may be incomplete supply networks for necessary items. There may be regulations that make use of the goods or services illegal or impractical in spite of their native benefits.

Coercive markets, it can be said, provide economic security and consistency from their very nature. If people must pay, they will pay. Such compliance and the consistency that it seems to provide serves as justification for a lack of options that might otherwise exist. President Obama made a comment that infuriated members of the right-wing, particularly from the extreme right. They were infuriated because of the unfortunate way he made his case in saying "you didn't do that" with regard to infrastructure, when it almost sounded as if he meant to say that business people did not create their own enterprises. His original point is a good one. Commercial success, real commercial success, requires some government support at some level. Roads? Public networks? Airwaves? Commercial codes? Courts of law? Policing functions? Electrical sockets? Private business could not exist without some combination of these and many more.

We can classify markets in three categories with regard to coercion. The first is "necessary", non-elective, organic markets. Such markets involve the exchange of necessities, food, basic clothing, shelter, possibly transportation. This would include items that are needed to support income-producing. From a budgetary or financial planning standpoint, such necessities may not be high end solutions, but items and services at a basic level.

The second would be coercive markets, where the purchase of necessities involves limited options, excluding other options that may be more preferable. In a sense, such markets involve outdated choices, limited options where substantially better alternatives would be preferred if it were available. The point is that the market is very narrow, is in some way mandatory, and it capable of extracting adherence, even compliance from the people at large. Some of these are de facto monopolies; others are certified as such.

Elective markets are the third category. These are markets for services and things based totally on preferences. Such markets may be somewhat large as in sports and entertainment markets (though keep in mind that many sports markets are Congressionally-mandated monopolies). Elective markets may be small and, indeed many of them are, such as esoteric markets for unusual, elective items that do not appeal to most consumers. I know of a young man that jokingly aspired to distribute "a bassoon to every home". This, of course, will not happen. Many elective markets are local and limited prospects are a function of geography. Production and delivery of crafts and home-grown produce may be limited by geographic and population factors regardless of their uniqueness and desirability. Only a few customers buy as a result of such limitations.

The really interesting question is one of the elective markets. Will they hold up were coercive markets to fall prey to competition and to productivity gains? Can transactions not motivated by force serve as the basis for an economy? Can enjoyment fuel consistency as does desperation? The famous dictum of marketing is this: Will the dogs eat the dog food? In the current case, we would ask, will the dogs eat the dog food simply out of enjoyment? Will they pay to go to a show?

The point is, again, that we do not have a production problem. Rather, commercial interests often need to be reigned in as hounds at bay. Overproduction lurks at every corner. Heaven forbid that inventories should be found and not used. There is a legend that a unsold mountain comprised of Apple's Macintosh predecessor, the Lisa, lies at the base of my community's landfill. This the result of some extra-market deal with the devil to make the overage go away. What's a little junk in the back yard anyway?

The story of Nikolai Tesla's inability to bring his ideas to market in his time is that he offered a way to provide electricity universally directly from the ground. J.P. Morgan is held to have asked where the usage meter would be placed in order to submit a bill for the service. Tesla's response is to have been that no such device was required, as the answer lay at everyone's feet. Thus, Mr. Morgan directed his efforts famously to Edison, who knew how bread was to be buttered, though he wasn't a shadow of the intellect of Tesla.

This raises the "music teacher" problem. How to make a living following your love and your talent? Become an employee of the state. Teach school, where property tax is pooled in support of an activity that no one would otherwise pay for. It is not the same thing, but close. Even that system is straining at the bit; schools are shedding themselves of the artistic function in lieu of standardized test scores. In our stressed times, the argument seems to be making itself. We all must do what we must do and not what we want. We cannot make something of ourselves, we must betray our better selves to participate in coercion to one extent or another. Ronald Reagan would have an instant example or metaphor from the movies. I can think of "Joe vs. the Volcano".

Think of this. If we were not all "chained to a desk, doing something [often poorly] because that was where the money was", wouldn't we be better off doing what we were good at? For one thing, if we had more time on our hands, wouldn't we go to see more of what each other did? Wouldn't generalized freedom from the grind prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy? Wouldn't we want to see each other's "stuff"? If we had the money, wouldn't we pay to see it?

The argument to be made is that of the "full enjoyment society". In part, that is our solution. Growth, maturity, and decline is a reality of modern economic life. We don't let organizations die, though, and we are little aware of the ways that they kill their competitors before they get a chance to start. We need to be an Age where we acknowledge and foster talent wherever it can be found. Most importantly, we need the expression of that talent in new markets and in new sectors of society. Competition will eradicate the dead spots if we let it. In the place of corrupt commerce and unproductive employment, we should encourage high productivity and foster non-coercive markets. We do not have a production problem. It is time that we stop acting as though we did.

Economic cancer

Cancer is not a mysterious thing, coming out of nowhere. In fact, it lies at the core of our being, a part of our basic health. We are constantly generating new cells in our bodies, billions, even trillions over time. We need this form of refreshment to remain healthy and active. Every so often, however, errors occur in the cell division process. Our bodies have the amazing ability to detect such errors and destroy the cells in question. In order for cancer to form, the error-detection and cell destruction process must be compromised.

From an economic standpoint, we can say that entrepreneurism is a form of growth, similar to the growth of cells and organs. Entrepreneurism involves, to continue the biological example, growth and development. Entrepreneurism and its resulting condition, new enterprises, are generative phenomena. Businesses are like the growing cells and organs of the politico-economic system, of our society. As they grow and develop, we are all enriched, as they provide the goods and services that renew and refresh our lives. Such new enterprises grow to the extent that they serve as means of extracting money from the rest us as we justify such transfers in light of available alternatives.

As indicated earlier, such new enterprise growth is similar to the development of new cells and organs in the body. As new organs and tissues grow within the body, they need sources of nourishment and support as are supplied by the body's various circulatory and communications systems. Such benefits are cut off when cells and the organs they come to build are judged to be nefarious and not worthwhile.

Our economic problem is that we lack the mechanism if not the will to allow large organizations to wither and die when they cease to be justified by market means. This is mostly due to the size and political influence of large public and private organizations. In this sense, our economy has cancer. We have big, bloated tumors where we should have valid, fresh, new, and functional economic organs that have formed, evolved if you will, to meet current needs and preferences. Similar to established biological cancers, the big, bad proto-organs (big, politically-propped-up companies) starve out new, more valid enterprises. In fact, they exercise unlimited license to forestall new competition. This is often done in the name of competition.

Unfortunately, given the persistence of cancer as a source of disease, pain, and death, the biological example does not point to obvious solutions with regard to cancer of the economy. The same principles surely apply, however. Some systematic approach to supporting economic constraints is in order. Allowing flailing, but large organizations to subvert the system by political means is clearly counterproductive. We should be especially vigilant in seeing that this doesn't happen.