Let’s trade

It is the habit of the electorate, and with good cause, to blame politicians when things go wrong. The United States, along with other nations, has suffered severe shortages of food, medicine, numerous grocery stock items and industrial components. In large part, the shortages were caused by pandemic interference with the shipping and processing companies that ship products to retail outlets. The politicians could do little more than watch.

In a PBS broadcast of NOVA last night, a viewer becomes aware that the supply chain itself is vulnerable to mishaps that can cause worldwide shortages. Container-carrying ships of massive size (as long as four football fields) carry unbelievable volumes of goods; for just one of these ships to fail in delivery, many smaller businesses can fail because their shelves are empty.

The NOVA episode analyzed the impact of one of these container ships blocking the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal is located in Egypt and is a key link between Asian shipping and Mediterranean shipping. Unfortunately, it is only one lane wide. If something blocks the Canal, hundreds of ships are held up at both ends – hence shortages on retail shelves. In the NOVA piece, one ship runs aground and stops all shipping, perhaps a thousand of these large container ships.

The reason this caught the interest of mariner is because ‘shipping’, aka ‘supply chain’ is the verb in the future of global economics. In the last century the concept for international trade was based more on trade agreements, e.g., “I’ll swap you two sheep for ten chickens and if you give me any trouble, I’ll slap a tariff on you.”

Needless to say, communication technology in this century has made the delay and overhead of trade agreements too expensive and too subject to circumstantial politics. What has become possible, however (if ships don’t run aground in canals), is an international arrangement where each nation can collaborate at the production level – thereby speeding productivity and increasing volume such that world markets may be available instead of piecemeal nation-to-nation deals.

A comical metaphor but perhaps it can clarify the new advantage: Nation 1, a large, rich nation that acts as an anchor to the supply chain, says to nation 2, the chicken producing nation, “You can grow chicken feet faster than I can but I can grow chicken heads faster than you can. We can save 25 percent of the time it takes to grow chickens if you send me your chicken feet. Then you’ll have room to grow even more chicken feet.” The anchor nation plays the additional role of an insurance company by covering market shifts, weather, etc.

Understanding this model, a move toward global economic domination, explains why China, the US, India, the European Union, South America (resource rich) and the Pacific Rim nations (Australia, South Korea, Japan et al) are jockeying hard to monopolize supply chains.

Except for Putin. He doesn’t understand the principle of sharing. It is important to know that Trump and his cronies don’t either.

Lest we forget, there is only one issue that will dominate world economics even more than global supply chains – global warming.

Ancient Mariner

 

Priorities

In a recent post mariner wrote about the idea that democracy requires a start with the individual and an individual’s sense of what is real. Yet, our society, indeed every society today, is controlled top down – the individual is told what is real. Profit is more important than individual wellbeing; skin color and sexual behavior are more important than individual wellbeing; political allegiance is more important than individual wellbeing.

Mariner is reminded of a sermon he gave many decades ago. As was frequently the case, mariner drew his premise from the Synoptic Gospels, frequently referencing the Sermon on the Mount and appropriate explanations provided by Jesus in his travels. To reduce a 20-minute sermonesque monologue to a few sentences, he offers a truncated interpretation:

The one premise Jesus advocated – the ONLY PREMISE he advocated – was that the holiest thing in existence, and the number one interest of God, is a single individual’s soul. Jesus says as much in the beatitudes: The poorest, ignorant, lost person is the focus of God’s interest. One person at a time; every individual is supreme in their own existence as a child of God.

God rejects individuals who put their own interests first, even if they are sympathetic. Placing divine value in earthly values is a no-no. Reality is a one-person experience.

In short, a healthy, thriving society will always act for the betterment of every individual, every individual’s existential reality, and every individual’s need. God did not invent nor advocate groups, corporations, class discrimination or totalitarian interpretations of an individual’s sense of reality. It is the job of each individual to execute God’s will at a person-to-person level. Amen.

The leap into human tribal tendencies must always abide by a primary interest in every individual’s need. In politics, an individual’s perception of need comes before any organized presumption.

The need to vote begins at home for home’s sake.

Ancient Mariner

Know your Representative – for now

Mariner has read three sources that cover gerrymandering. The cycle goes like this:

Party 1 draws new district lines.

Party 2 sues.

The courts throw out the new gerrymandering district, leaving the old gerrymandered district in place.

Everyone goes home.

In short, gerrymandering is de rigeuer. So what?

In 80 percent of the cases, Party 1 controls the legislature. Unfortunately, it will take a majority of the legislature and the blessing of the Governor to create a non-partisan commission, supposedly politically neutral, that will draw district boundaries.

To be absolutely, theoretically pure about it, the only measurable virtue is that each district should have the same number of voters. It is a trial and error process to look at maps then lay in a grid that approximates equal numbers of voters in each district. The rub comes when these innocent grid lines ignorantly cross right through a neighborhood that reflects race, may or may not have decent income, may be liberal or conservative, dense or rural. Mariner speculates that this pure, innocent arrangement will never occur.

Imagine that the reader’s neighborhood is generally white, conservative and financially comfortable. However, a grid line cuts your neighborhood in half – in fact, between you and your next door neighbor. Seems innocent until the conservative neighborhood turns out to be the minority in two districts that are black and labor class. Mariner speculates that this pure, innocent arrangement will never occur. Even independent commissions know better.

What commissions will be required to do, given moral turpitude, is pursue solutions that, where practical, favor equalizing the influence of both parties; not so much with an eye toward political value but in an effort to respect the independent nature of grid lines. One can imagine the turmoil – something akin to conflict over Roe v Wade.

The prize at the end of this process is the number of Congressional representatives who will represent each party’s opinions. In many cases regionally, all the gerrymandering in the world will not diminish party priority but as the reader knows, Congressional representation is so close to a tie today that just a few districts realigned can turn over dominance in Congress.

Now let’s examine state, county and local redistricting. Perhaps not.

Ancient Mariner

Fading Democracy

Mariner appreciates that his readers tolerate his rambling across myriad subjects, his flaunting of philosophical irritations, and generally being the Luddite that he is. But this is a serious observation that must be dealt with within the first half of this century or democracy, by its literal definition, will no longer exist.

Succinctly, it is about money running our democracy. More abstractly, totalitarianism already has eroded the concept of one person, one vote. Authoritarianism (Trump stuff) has the headlines today but totalitarianism does not grab headlines because totalitarianism is accepted as de rigeuer. Simply said, “so what?”

To refresh the terms authoritarian versus totalitarianism, authoritarian means some form of self-aggrandizing dictatorship. Totalitarianism means that a central authority, usually a controlled set of institutions, determines what the people will believe and will be accountable for. A variation that may apply to the United States in particular is ‘plutocracy’, governed by the wealthy.

Let’s start with what detectives would call fingerprints. Every day, including weekends, mariner receives at least a dozen emails from political campaign committees and Political Action Committees. They are comedic on the surface, claiming ‘Trump cried when he saw this” or “Rachael was horrified when this happened” or ‘We need your opinion in this poll”. In truth, in every case the real purpose is to ask for money. The campaigners have the audacity to ask mariner for money to support someone who isn’t running in his federal, state or local district. Who is mariner to tell a voter in Arizona who to vote for? Remember for this post that money talks – in fact, a vote more likely is made of money than voter ballots.

Now consider that the detectives are after ‘The Mob’. The mob is the wholesale political money source provided by elite billionaires like the Koch Brothers who, by the will of dollars alone, can shape the political culture of an entire region of the United States. Foreign billionaires participate as well.

Finally, but not as simple as it sounds, there are the corporate sharks. They, too, push money into the election process for their own reasons. All this money does several things:

֎ Deep pocket PACs can flood local advertising markets, underwrite excessive junk election mail and pay for local on-the-ground campaign staff. This activity is overwhelming to a locally based candidate who has neither the funding nor the staff to competitively underwrite local district campaigning against a candidate backed by national PACs. To make the issue clear, having a national PAC tell local voters who they should vote for locally is very, very totalitarianistic. (is that a word?)

֎ Deep pocket PACs also underwrite far right or far left organizations not bound by local reality. Their messages range from scary, anti-American ‘truths’ (Tucker Carlson) to deliberate misrepresentation of operations (Zuckerberg) to political events (Sean Hannity and Joy Behar) to leftist battle talk by Bill Maher – not to mention Proud Boys and QAnon. Very little of this financed information has factual backup and in terms of local culture and issues, is irrelevant.

֎ Beyond elections, big money easily influences votes by legislators. A few favors to a politician or two can stop a vote that may not be desired by the contributor. One need think only as far as fossil fuel (think Manchin), redistricting, citizen privacy and obviously, taxing the very billionaires disrupting the democratic process.

֎ Corporate sharks can interfere even with neighborhood politics. One example is the building of major public roads only through poor neighborhoods promoted by collusion between homeowner associations and construction corporations – enough to tilt any local legislator. As suggested earlier, “so what?” Totalitarianism is de rigeuer. Where one lives defines voting power; one person, one vote does not exist.

In the past Presidential election, mariner heard the same attitude in greatly different situations: A young female Trumper, when told of Trump’s gross misbehavior, said “I don’t care”. On the other hand, a young black woman was asked if she was going to vote. “Why?” She said. “What difference does it make?” Totalitarianism lives. Who needs one person, one vote?

A skeptic may scoff, “So what? This is hardball politics. Grow some calluses!”

With a tear in his eye, mariner turns away. Democracy is based on the primary, mandatory, not to be compromised idea that for every one person, that person has a say in government. One person, one vote is the first, ultimate, one unmodifiable principle that makes democracy work. Democratic power begins with the vote, not with muscled intrusions.

Or mariner can adjust his principles: A hog must live in the sty it’s in – regardless of conditions. The implication here is that democracy may be going the way of other political theories that no longer can handle the size of government, economics and a nonexistent horizon, a perpetual existentialism not rooted in the five senses, truth no longer is hands on. Farewell, Roman Church; farewell plains Indian socialism; farewell, Queen Elizabeth; farewell Neolithic tribes; farewell Anabaptist communism; farewell democracy.

Ancient Mariner

Happy Compassion Day aka Mothers Day

This from Scott Simon at NPR:

A video for you: Derek Rodriguez, a 9-year-old Yankees fan, went to a game in Toronto’s Rogers Centre (yes, that’s how they spell it), where his hero Aaron Judge stroked a homer into the left-centre seats. It was caught by Blue Jay’s fan Mike Lanzillotta — who gave the ball to the visiting little boy. Canadian grace exemplified. See Derek’s thanks.

https://www.thestar.com/sports/bluejays/2022/05/03/watch-young-yankees-fan-in-tears-after-blue-jays-fan-gifts-him-aaron-judge-home-run-ball.html?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20220508&utm_term=6675026&utm_campaign=best-of-npr&utm_id=39748169&orgid=445&utm_att1=

And each Mother’s Day, I am reminded of the wise advice that my own late mother passed on by example: Write “thank you” notes. Tip well. Sing. Drink responsibly. Remember that good manners cost nothing, and open doors. Reach out to someone who is lonely. Make them laugh. Help people smile.

If everyone, rich, poor, young, old, politician, citizen, conservative, and liberal could bring themselves to just follow this simple advice as an ongoing habit, as Louis Armstrong would say, what a wonderful world.

– – – –

Thank goodness for mothers. It is a great advantage for every mammalian species. Mothers civilize; Mothers have empathy and compassion; Mothers sustain everyone through the travails of life. It has been a speculation through the ages that if ever humanity loses its bisexuality, it is the mother who will survive.

Happy Mothers Day.

Ancient Mariner

Vladimir

Mariner often has made the argument that older politicians cannot properly interpret the broad picture of a world in which they did not grow up. It occurs to mariner that Vladimir Putin is a classic example.  Putin is seventy years old.  He grew up in the cold war years, was an intelligence officer and was stationed in an office in sight of the Berlin Wall when it fell.

He briefly served as director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and secretary of the Security Council, before being appointed as prime minister in August 1999. After the resignation of Yeltsin, Putin became acting president and, less than four months later, was elected outright to his first term as president.

It is Putin who spearheaded the war against Georgia and the takeover of Crimea. Putin obviously understands the power of old fashioned war as a political force. It is Putin who developed his understanding of Russian myth during its expansionist years after World War II when Russia acquired much of Eastern Europe.

Putin perceives Russia as a dominant force in today’s European reality when, in fact, because of the nation’s tsarist history, has never been a politically dominant nation except as a player in the Paris Peace Conference that ended the war.

In today’s world, large nations understand the cost of an old fashioned bullet war and have moved on to sophisticated economic machinations including the power of computer-driven conflict. Major influences in whether there is a bullet war are organizations like the G7, G20 and the World Monetary Fund – economic organizations with powerful economic influence in international monetary affairs. In short, bullet wars are too destructive, too expensive and do not serve as resolution to a competitive situation.

But Putin grew up in the era of bullet wars; his judgment is warped by his intrinsic values. Even if he intellectually understood the supply chain battles going on between China and the United States, he would feel no satisfaction in such a conflict.

In the US today, mariner carries anxiety that too many important politicians are even older than Putin. While bullet wars aren’t the primary concern, it is an interpretation of last-century capitalism that has too much sway in a century where there are not enough resources for gunslinger capitalism.

Land is disappearing. Water is disappearing. 300 million people may not leave room for ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for everyone. Tax policy does not speak to modern technical opportunities or a growing imbalance between rich and poor.

The leaders in the US government who still espouse unbridled capitalism are, for the most part, older than Vladimir Putin.

Ancient Mariner

 

Then and Now

From when he was five years old, mariner still has a few memories. The war was still on. He remembers city blackouts and fearing a bomber was coming until he could discern it was just the train at the end of the block. He remembers his mother having him stand on the bed so she could dress him special for the first day of kindergarten.

He remembers being given the chore of washing the breakfast dishes. This was accomplished with two pans of water on the kitchen table, one soap, one rinse. Once in a while he was given a scrub board to wash a few clothes in the basement washtub.

He remembers eating fried liver with onions, SPAM and bread and gravy for dinner. Mariner also had a sense of ‘everybody was the same.’ Everyone took public transit; everyone walked to the nearest retail center; each weekend was a party in the basement for friends, family and servicemen. There was a consciously accepted sense of ‘we’re in this together’.

Mariner remembers racing down the stairs barely awake to retrieve the two thick Sunday papers from which he scarfed a library of comics. He remembers utilizing patterns in the living room rug to play with his toys while his grandmother listened to Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio.

Everyone took public transit because gasoline was rationed to a maximum of three gallons per week (cars in those days were lucky to get twelve miles to the gallon).

James Fahy, an author of the period, wrote, “Nothing unites humans like a common enemy”.

Alas, jumping to the 21st century, Pogo Possum, the great comics philosopher was right when he said:

Is it any wonder that oldsters just can’t seem to grasp contemporary values? Mariner’s grandchildren play with imitative smartphones and laptops instead of listening to the radio. Having one truth in the war years was easy albeit critical – the enemy was Germany. In this century, truth is ill-defined if it can be defined at all. Who tells us truth – Musk? Tucker Carlson? Zuckerberg? Bernie Sanders? Marjorie Taylor Green? Science? Evangelical preachers? The Proud Boys? Google?

What Kitchenaide is to mixing, social media is to common truth.

An oldster who grew up learning the virtues of dishpans, scrub boards, walking to a real store and SPAM does not understand how the world works today or conversely, why it doesn’t work.

By principle, this makes old people Luddites and of no value to problem solving in this alien world of the 21st century.

Vote old people out and young people in. Elect millennials and Zs.

Pogo knew.

Ancient Mariner

These are the times . . .

֎ Illinois law bans schools from fining students. So local police are doing it for them, issuing thousands of tickets a year for truancy, vaping, fights and other misconduct. Children are then thrown into a legal system designed for adults. Read article at:

https://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-school-police-tickets-fines?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=river

֎ “The 79-year old Biden worked closely with former Sens. HARRY REID, BOB DOLE, and JOHN WARNER, former Secretary of State COLIN POWELL and Vice President WALTER MONDALE, whose memorial he will speak at on Sunday in Minnesota. He spoke Wednesday at the ceremony for former Secretary of State MADELEINE ALBRIGHT.”

Most of Joe’s elected friends are dead, many retired. Bless Joe for trying; mariner thinks Joe’s job is a lot harder for Joe because the good ol’ boy Congress hasn’t existed for a long time. The nation needs term limits based on age!

֎ Mariner couldn’t have written the article below better. There may be hope yet for the return of Christ’s message. You must read this accounting!

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-finish-line-4dfbc9a0-ac14-428a-bf80-cbf0b4ef9966.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosfinishline&stream=top

Ancient Mariner

A new definition for Musk Ox

Yes, the subject is Elon Musk. The article below from Axios is an important read. His ascendancy and power remind mariner of the Edwardian Age in England when money and wealth controlled government, society and the economy. Today, Musk also will control truth.

https://www.axios.com/elon-musk-power-influence-twitter-tesla-spacex-neuralink-boring-company-951463dd-774c-458c-8232-3a575c6d2ec7.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosfinishline&stream=top

“What Musk and others portray as a battle over ‘free speech’ is a proxy fight over who is entitled to attention,” says Renée DiResta, of the Stanford Internet Observatory.

Musk is the most obvious of a class of oligarchs that is growing wealthier without taxes, without national commitment and with the ability to buy out any government policy of their disliking.

The government of the last century no longer works for the common citizen. Will there be a destructive collapse sometime in the near future? Is democracy doomed as the world’s resources shrink and wealth rises in power? Does the US want to be a Putin Russia run by a dozen oligarchs?

Ancient Mariner

 

Hello?

Mariner tries not to complain too much but the AI world makes it hard not to complain. Not only will Alexi eavesdrop, it will be able to advise callers about your mood. Alexi could say to a sales person, “No, don’t try to call him today; he’s in a pissy mood.” Here’s a paragraph from Protocol, a systems newsletter:

“sales and customer service software companies including Uniphone and Sybill are building products that use AI in an attempt to help humans understand and to respond to human emotion. Virtual meeting powerhouse Zoom also plans to provide similar features in the future.”

As a young child living in Baltimore, Maryland, mariner remembers getting his family’s first telephone. It was the dial-with-your-finger type. The number was BElmont 647. It sat on a wooden end table that mariner still uses to hold his printer. Mariner lived in Iowa during the sixties; he experienced the phenomenon of speaking to a human telephone operator to make a call. As if it were an omen of the future, there were party lines then – while you may call one person, six or seven could be listening.

Does the reader remember during the seventies that Bell Telephone offered a videophone that flopped because no one wanted to use it?

Thanks to Bluetooth technology, we no longer have to hold a phone in our hands. We can talk to our car instead or have a cigarette butt hanging out of an ear. But it hasn’t stopped here. Already on the market are eyeglasses with an embedded internet screen. By tracking a person’s eye movement, the glasses will allow one to play all those games on the smartphone. Fortunately, automobiles will drive themselves – something has to keep track of reality.

Now . . . is the reader ready to live in metaland? Mariner wonders whether telephones will come along.

– – – –

Thanks to the readers who responded to the puzzle challenge. All the respondents had it right: 27 bananas. Thanks, too, for advising mariner about the meaning of Niels Bohr’s statement on profundity.

Maybe mariner will be able to buy a few acres and a pony when he must move to Metaland.

Ancient Mariner