Archive for the ‘ Economy ’ Category

The Ideology of Utilitarianism

Having done my bit to improve the world this morning, this afternoon I resumed my reading of The Condition of Man by Lewis Mumford, one of my patron saints – fully aware that no one else will bother reading him. The following is from page 305: — On the basis of its quantitative success, this [ READ MORE ]

Bankers at the Gates

NY Times This one more (yes, more!) about the Greek/Euro crisis. But this one is written from a much longer temporal perspective – from the fall of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire. This ended with one of the most disgraceful acts in Western History – the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade[ READ MORE ]

Being Unemployed

There but for the grace of God, go I John Bradford, the man this was attributed to, was burned at the stake. In that sense times have improved, but the emotional impact can be almost a great, as these two links show: NY Times - Control Not Working – the pulse of the American Depression I did the [ READ MORE ]

The Public Must Remain Satiated

CNN - What Facebook says about America There has been a rash of books and articles recently telling Americans everything is all right – in fact, things have never been better – and maybe you would like to buy a fine bridge I know about too. What interests me is not what they are trying to [ READ MORE ]

The Cost of Going to College

Harper’s Magazine - From Ph.D. to Escort: How Debt Can Change Students This a summary of the article Easy Chair: the Price of Admission in the June issue. They have changed their formatting to HTML to make referring to it easier. I am supposed to be able to read the whole thing online, since I subscribe to [ READ MORE ]

Wealth Has Its Responsibilities

And any wealthy society that denies this is evil. An experience of mine back in Silicon Valley illustrated this. I was working for a successful company that had been founded by an immigrant that arrived with twenty dollars in his pockets. When I started working for the company, he retired a wealthy man and accepted [ READ MORE ]

Burned Out at 30, Obsolete at 50

Life continues to get rid of us at an ever-increasing pace. If we survive adolescence, which is becoming harder all the time - if we attend college, which is becoming less and less likely - if we build an career, we have to work our butts off - only to be replaced by younger people [ READ MORE ]

Loss of Virtue

The loss of virtue is the worst loss we can suffer. I believe it is one of the causes of obesity. Scientists will scoff at this connection, but this is one area where science is severely deficient – it will not make values important, when they clearly are. We are plagued with many mysterious illnesses (mental and physical). [ READ MORE ]

Empire of Liberty

In my view, America consists to two classes of people – the unaware majority (approximately 90%) and the aware minority, about 10% of the population. I suspect this is true of most of the world – which has adopted American practices (of all kinds) to an amazing degree. I hardly need tell you that I [ READ MORE ]

Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity

NY Times – Krugman: Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity As always, I try to limit my outside links, but some are too good to pass up. The following could qualify for a pull-quote, if the Times used them: Today, Washington is marked by a combination of bitter partisanship and intellectual confusion — and both are, I would [ READ MORE ]

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