There are the 4 major components to economic growth.
1) Energy
2) Resources
3) Workforce growth
4) Productivity increases.
We’ve hit peak oil, peak fish, peak iron. Workforce growth peaked at around 1970 in the US. Of these 4 components only productivity has been increasing during the last 30 years. This is why 6% to 12% economic growth hasn’t been seen in decades.
This story, the video, Finding Freedom Amid Ruins: The Free Runners of Gaza fills me with such sadness... too much to contain alone in my room in front of my screen. It all seems so sci-fi-dystopia but it's real. Haunting.
Clara sat in an aisle seat at the performance hall of the Hochstein School of Music and Dance, smiling at us, holding her sheet music, because she would lead off the evening's program. Relaxed, she happily chatted with her mother, brother, sister-in-law, one niece and our adult children. Clara was about to walk onto a stage for the first time in decades and perform, but looked as if she had not a care in the world. I, on the other hand, was terrified.
I had an epiphany this morning. Well, not really an epiphany, more like an affirmation. It's certainly not something I've not known for a very long time. But it was kind of an epiphany in that my experience had a certain sudden clearness to it and an "insight into reality caused by a commonplace occurrence".
Or maybe I just want to say something.
First I wanted to add this Sanders campaign video from New York. This is how I expect Bernie would fulfill his promise to defeat Trump. That is by using the progressive agenda to destroy his bigotry. No mention of Clinton. Just our message against bigotry and racism.
My partner, sphinxmoth, has been the leader of Bisbee for Bernie, Democratic precinct captain and assistant chair in our county, poll watcher, vote-counting watcher and helper, and addressed the County Board of Supervisors, urging them not to certify the Primary vote here in Arizona until some issues were cleared up. No dice; they had a deadline. I have helped her however and whenever I could, around the margins of my job. This campaign is certainly not over, for either of us.
While rummaging aroud YouTube today I came across an intriguiging video dating to the "end" of the Cold War, or so we are lead to believe. Two years ago, I would have brushed aside the critique of the U.S. body politic as a cynical, self-serving, self-aggrandizing statement by one Yuri Bezmenov
Currently I am working on an essay, and researching the literature on "sustainability" in preparation. And in all likelihood you could put most of that literature into the paper shredder, and delete most of its electronic files, and in the end you would be endangering neither the planetary ecosystems nor the people who live within them one bit.
Why?
Really interesting and informative interview with Rana Foroohar about her new book, Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and The Fall of American Business. Some highlights:
Despite the recent flurry of media attention that has been directed toward transgender people, they and their health needs remain poorly understood, experts say.
Yesterday The Lancet published a series of articles on the health, social and legal conditions in which transgender people live.
Many of the health challenges faced by transgender people are exacerbated by laws and policies that deny them gender recognition.
