During the pandemic citizens became accustomed to ‘free shipping’ from online and storefront retailers. Amazon, for example, touted free shipping in two days. Behind the scenes, however, Amazon had forced sellers to absorb the cost of shipping into their consumer price. This has led to antitrust investigations of Amazon Prime. In short, pervasive free shipping soon may come to an end.

It will be difficult for all three sides of this market — the customers, the drivers and the sellers themselves — to get what they want.

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China has eased birth limits to cope with aging population. Couples in China can now have three children, instead of being limited to two, after the ruling Communist Party eased birth limits Monday. It turns out China, like Japan, the United States and most wealthy and industrialized nations, has an aging population that is increasing while younger citizens are a smaller percentage of the population. The economics are familiar to the US – retired old people cost the economy a lot of money but don’t generate GDP; on the other hand as economies begin to grow in this new era, there aren’t enough workers to do the work. State media reports that leaders also agreed China needs to raise its retirement age to keep more people in the workforce.

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A report by Greenpeace Africa and the Netherlands-based organization Changing Markets urges governments to phase out processing of fish which is fit for human consumption but being used for fishmeal and oil. It says the fish extracted by industrial vessels off West Africa are processed and exported, mainly to Europe and Asia, as feed for fish farms, pet food or use in cosmetics.

The report said the industry is devastating coastal communities and undermining food security in Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia, Mali and Burkina Faso.

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The Philippines has filed two more diplomatic protests after maritime authorities spotted a total of 165 Chinese vessels within Manila’s exclusive economic zone. The South China Sea is a troubling situation for all the countries adjacent to it. Other nations include Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. Taiwan, of course, has a tight relationship with the United States which may lead to a military war between China and the US, and perhaps enjoin other Pacific allies like Japan, Australia and South Korea. China has made it clear they want Taiwan back.

As troublesome as these news items are, it is a bit of relief not to discuss American issues for a change.

Ancient Mariner

Here is something interesting that reinforces the impact of inflation since 1950: in 1950, using Penn State prices, one year of college tuition, fees, board and books cost $1,365. In 2021, one year of college tuition, fees, board and books costs $39,084. The college industry has  increased inflation by 54 percent or in terms of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) today it takes $1,660 to buy what $150.00 bought in 1950.

This is nice to know information but with little insight until it is compared to wages. The average annual rate of inflation since the 1970s is 3.3 percent; for wages it is -5.1 percent. In street terms, a dollar in wages in 1978 is worth only 68¢ today. Perhaps this may be the reason there is insurrection across the land.

Waxing philosophically, it is technology that changes the behavior of economics – from the first axe with a handle, to spears, to wind, to steam, to internal combustion to artificial intelligence – financial opportunity shifts dramatically giving those with resources a chance to restructure assets while those without resources suddenly are without stability or even individual purpose.

At this moment we are in a time of rapid social and economic change. Worse, our society is managed by governments functioning as they did in 1978.

Ancient Mariner

1. Don’t sell your house until you have closed on the next one. The housing shortage increases day by day across the entire country. The price of housing increases daily as well. One might think it is a good time to sell their home at a good price but buying the next house may cost twice as much – if you can find one.
2. Keep your job if you have one. If you suspect you may be let go for whatever reason, look for that next job NOW. The employment market is in shambles; it may be best to take a job in another profession that has training, certification, and in a stable industry.
3. Pay off debt as rapidly as possible even if it cuts into your standard of living. Anything associated with money is facing a large windstorm of change. Having a debt-free income whether it is cash, percentage or bitcoin, it is best to be financially stable – the windstorm will toss everyone around.
4. Do not arbitrarily renovate your home or property. Raw materials like lumber, siding, pipe and electric materials are up an average of 25 percent; lumber is climbing without hesitation and now costs 80 percent more than it did one year ago. Much of this is due to a sudden jump in housing starts – or price gouging by lumber companies and mills.
5. Stay in college. This can be difficult amid the cost and fractured studies offered. Even if one must drop down to a smaller college or part time for any reason that is better than dropping out. The job market that is emerging under artificial intelligence will cut more than half the employment market for labor and white collar jobs.
6. Form babysitting clubs. Because of looming inflation, in those families where both must work, both will have no choice but to find child care. Don’t wait for Biden’s social services programs; they won’t happen until McConnell retires. Back in the day when mariner had wee children, mariner’s wife connected with nine other women who had small children. It was a useful consortium socially and functionally.
7. Strengthen social circle. In volatile social times like today, where every aspect of life carries a threat, it is important to be able to relate to a group of readily accessible friends in the neighborhood. Humans are natural groupies. Become active in any neighborhood activity from little league baseball to bowling to volunteer work to jigsaw puzzle parties to (in mariner’s day) sock hops.
8. Have a hobby. It can be anything from counting types of insects to making miniature jewelry to building doghouses. The hobby must be rewarding, provide relief from the daily world and not be a burden on the family – and not cost too much.
9. Take frequent small excursions. Disney World may not be feasible but driving an hour to a quaint ice cream parlor works just as well. Visit the remaining department stores; this is a disappearing life experience. How many years has it been since that last visit to the national forest? Even taking in a movie may be an increasingly rare experience.
10. Read. Get away from the television, Siri, video games and other numbing devices. Turn on your own brain. Read a newspaper, comic book, sexy novel or delve into the history of Kyrgyzstan. Reading requires a different part of the brain than the temporal lobe, home of conspiracies and fantasies. Perhaps as a combined effort with #9, visit a library or museum.

Ancient Mariner

A member of the Cheney line (Dick Cheney, a Vice President under George W. Bush who actually was the shadow President in authority), Liz Cheney has the same strict conservatism as her heritage. She is a staunch, very conservative Republican. As we have seen, she is a determined representative of her views. But she has the one characteristic most desired in her industry: honest allegiance to her electorate. She is a clear example of the moral accountability necessary to make a two-party political system work. Given that all elected officials had scruples, the work of legislation would be a careful balance of what is best for the state of the Union.

Liz Cheney’s credentials as a representative of her electorate are sound, coming from one of the most conservative states in the Nation. Mariner clearly is sympathetic to her plight. She is fighting a broken Republican Party whose economic premise has collapsed and has yielded in spineless obedience to a destructive leader because he promises that they will keep their jobs even without due consideration of their electorate.

Whatever her aspirations (shrewdly she has positioned herself to be a player in 2024), in the current era Liz is confronted by a ‘party first, country second’ behavior that started with Joseph McCarthy in 1951, was reinforced by Nixon and intensified by Newt Gingrich in 2012. The ‘party first’ style of legislation has affected both parties to a point of MISrepresentation of the electorate.

In a complete vacuum lacking economic and electorate values, for President the Republican Party elected a showman to sell snake oil. God bless the electorate, they bought it. Until the 2022 election passes, all the inadequate Congressional representatives will be loyal puppies to Donald. Donald may even adversely affect that election. If mariner could replace any of them with Liz, it would be an improvement.

Ancient Mariner

Immediate reactions from the republicans are beer parties while the democrats cringe in dark corners. But it isn’t that simple. The census actually has several stories to tell.

1. There is a real chance that republicans will overtake democrats in 2022 and even in 2024. Certainly the House of Representatives has a better than even chance to go republican in 2022. The combination of a significant majority of republican state legislatures plus the irrationality of the Electoral College plus the adjustments in gerrymandering to leverage the census figures, do not bode well for democrats in the short term.
2. Globally, human population is dropping. The top 30 nations, which includes China and the United States, are not producing offspring as rapidly as they need to sustain population levels. Japan has serious issues; its population has been dropping for several years at an average of .3 percent. Japan’s GDP is at risk of failing in the next decade.
3. It may be confusing to say that the US has declining population given the census count which shows an increase of 1.5m or ½ of 1 percent. One TV pundit put it straight forward. The increase is immigrants, black, brown and Asian. He surmised that Texas will be a purple state by 2028. He further suggested that the republican states – particularly southern ones – will suffer the Georgia syndrome because northern liberals are moving south.
4. Setting aside population growth supported by migration, the indigenous US population (meaning everyone who lived in the country in 2010, has in fact dropped. Most notably is the Caucasian percentage. The new statistics project that the nation will become “minority white” in 2045. The shift is the result of two trends. First, between 2018 and 2060, gains will continue in the combined racial minority populations, growing by 74 percent. Second, during this time frame, the aging white population will see a modest immediate gain through 2024, and then experience a long-term decline through 2060, a consequence of more deaths than births.
5. Already poking its nose above the horizon through intense weather is climate change. Rising sea levels and agricultural hardship are expected to have a growing impact on all coasts of the United States; by the end of the century the Earth’s seas will be one foot higher than today. Forced migration will start much sooner, affecting future census data.

From a different perspective, today’s cultural and economic progress has difficulty adjusting as the US moves through its national history. Progress is difficult because the US Constitution is the same one created in the 18^th century: a democratic Federal Republic designed to govern a scarcely populated citizenry across an unknown continent. Automobiles, electricity, computers and an unanticipated population density call for consideration of a Constitutional convention. But who dares?!

Ancient Mariner