Thowing Sabot At Windmills

Lately, folks around these parts (west Java) have been aggitating to raise the regional minimum wage (Indonesia doesn't have a national minimum - yet) to $500 per month.  Folks are complaining that they can't afford to live on the current wages, much like hte McWorkers in Detroit and elsewhere in the States.  Of course, without a little deep thought, and perhaps a degree in economics, those same folks don't realize that they are the ones creating the problem in the first place.

You see, when you increase the minimum wage, then employers have to increase the cost of their products, which ultimately gets passed on to the consumer, and the consumer is who?  Why the folks bemaning the higher wages.  It's an endless circle jerk in which the protesters ultimately are screwing themselves and thinking that things will get better with a little more money in the pocket.  A 20% wage increase=20% higher prices=back where you started.

A similar problem is automation.  Folks just love all those machines doing the hard work, not thinking that they are celebrating their own demise.  A labor-saving device is a human replacement, so while you have dreams of sitting on the beach while your personal robot does the job, the reality is that you are unemployed and can't afford to go to the beach, while your machine is doing fine work at little cost to the 'employer' - no sick leave, no hangovers, no bad hair days, no raises, no health care, etc.

A number of nations are in the midst of immigration 'reform', being sold as the humane thing to do for all those poor folks streaming across the borders.  What no one seems to realize is that those folks are taking all the jobs at half the price and they could care less about rights and benefits, as long as the money comes in. It all started in World War 2. With all the men off to war, the factories filled up with women. Aided by captialists whose only care was the bottom line, feminist organizations latched onto women in the workplace. Thus, the workforce doubled in one fell swoop. With the returning soldiers competing with career women, salaries dropped over time. Then lax immigration laws and enforcement tripled the workforce and salaries/bargaining power got cut again. Rising minimum wages meant that prices kept going up roughly equal to the rise in base pay, so even though everyone had more zeros in the bank, the buying power was the same. Then came robots and humans could be replaced altogether, so that there was no bargaining power left. Oh sure, it all sounded so reasonable. Everyone thought they were at the top of the feed pile. They were all for automation and immigration, because as managers they could show the bosses increased productivity, lower costs and higher profits. In the meantime, the water kept rising. First, the hourly workers, then the line managers, then middle managers. Now it's hitting upper managers, so that the only ones left standing will be the executives who are part of the Good Old Boy club. But that won't last either. Sooner than later, all the wealth will be in 10 hands while the rest of the world wonders what the hell happened. We'll all be standing around watching the wonderous machines scurry back and forth without complain or holiday or flex time. But, there's the rub. You see, without jobs, we won't have money. Without money, there'll be no one to buy all the products made by machines. Eventually, every warehouse in the world will be full, stores will be shut and the planet will grind to a halt because the unbridled greed of a handful of people brought the economic world to its knees. The next revolution won't be against governments, but corporations - the entities that really run the world. Like the Dutch workers of the Industrial Revolution, folks will start throwing the modern equivalent of sabot (wooden shoes) into the machinery and a new word for sabotage will be born. It's inevitable. The Big Question is where will the capitalists run to this time. Before, they ran from Venice to Amsterdam, then London, and finally to New York. Now, there is only one place for them to run, and that's into orbit, which may explain all the companies vying to become space jockeys. In any event, we are replaying history once again. We let the financial genie out of the bottle once again, after having stuffed them back into the bottle so many times throughout the past several thousand years. One day, we the people will have to learn that greed and the interests of human beings are incompatible. With the advent of 3D printing, the last of the real, productive jobs are about to get deep-sixed. Soon we'll all be McWorkers in Detroit. Even the gee-whizz stories about 3D printing don't mention that without income, you can't buy the printers or the materials needed to operate them, and if you had that kind of money, who would you sell the products to - seeing as how all the rest of us are broke too? Solution? All the women quit work and go back to being housewives. It's not a disgrace, its a huge shot into the heart of the vulture capitalists. Citizen patrols of borders is another step. When government fails to do the job that it was constituted to do, then it falls to the people to take back the reins and git 'er done. Third, apply all labor laws as they stand today to all labor-replacing machines: forced shut-downs for two weeks a year, benefit equivalents, tax equivalents, etc. If the machines cost the same as real live people, then there's no benefit to replacing people. Finally, simply refuse to buy anything produced by major multi-national corporations. Buy local produce and dairy. Buy products from cottage industries. Support mom-and-pop outfits. None of this will ever happen. People are too lazy and greedy themselves, and too spoiled by instant gratification, to actually take their self-interests to the next level. When you're playing the game, though, you should at least know where the boundaries are. Changing the world ain't easy, but the alternative is even more painful and with far greater hazards. If you have to suffer, it's much better to control as many of the variables as you can. It makes the pain you suffer much more bearable. Am I anti-woman? No, but I think women run households much better than men. The point is to voluntarily cut the workforce in half, thus increasing our bargaining power overnight. Am I anti-immigration? Not at all. I'm an expat. But giving away the store by falling for the heart-string tugging stories about poor folks serves no one's interests. You lose your job and the other guy is exploited. Am I anti-business? Hell no! Just anti-destructive captialism. Those organizations that are destructive of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness must be brought to heel, just as any individual would be. The key to utopia is education, and guess which part of life the vultures control the most?

The Unbounded Joy Of Blogging

Part of the fun of this blogging stuff is making a wide, diverse set of contacts throughout the world.  If I shut up too long, folks start writing to check on me.  If I go overboard, I get immediate chastisements.  And occasionally, when I do something right, I get great feedback.  And I'm not just talking about, "Yo dude!  Great stuff man," though there are a few of those.  Instead, I get these fantastic, thoughtful letters with real ideas in them.

That's what I like...real ideas.  Because in the world to come, that will be the new economy.  People will trade on their original thoughts and concepts derived from other thinkers.

But, I digress.  What I want to share is a very thought-filled letter I received overnight, to whit:

Hello Bernard Bearheart:

Just a note to praise your latest rant and to find out if you know about a brother living in Kalimantan named Imron Comey who recently wrote, "The Generosity Factor: A Message From Borneo."

http://www.amazon.com/2012-Generosity-Factor-Message-Borneo/dp/1463541082/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334426711&sr=1-3

I knew Imron (from Subud) when he lived in the U.S. and my wife met him when when she was studying permaculture methods of gardening in Kalimantan about 12 years ago.

Do you remember Ayn Rand? I have already seen two glowing documentaries recently from Netflix about her life and a third one is on the way. There is also a new movie out, "Atlas Shrugged" in two installments, and the infamous Kock brothers along with an assortment of other multibillionaire "takers" are regurgitating her philosophy and force-feeding it down the throats of the new generation via the school systems through funding controls, and the mass distribution of her books. You can pretty much sum up her philosophy in her own words when she said she hates "altruism." According to her, altruism is the very root of all evil. Allen Greenspan and company, the Neocons, Zionists, neoBolsheviks, and oldMachiavellians, mostly adhere to the common thread of this idea.

If I read your latest blog correctly the aforementioned gang are in their death rattle and gasping for survival. And according to Imron Comey,  it seems just in the nick of time God is about to reprogram our DNA so that we aren't so greedy anymore.

My old English professor lived in Kalimantan with her husband during the Kennedy administration as Peace Corp workers. She once told me a story about when they asked a group of Penans ( true hunter/gathers)  what they considered the worst sin. The group went into a huddle for some time and finally emerged with their answer. The chief quietly said, "Not to share."  --RF

Wow!  A lot to digest there.  I suppose we should launch at the beginning...

Just to address the initial paragraph, I have heard of Imron Comey, but I have yet to come across him or his work.  However, based on this letter, I shall make a concerted effort to do both.

The next order of business is Ayn Rand.  Now, since I never met her, I can't say I remember her, but I am surely familiar with her work.  Among my crowd, "Atlas Shrugged" was required reading in 8th grade, along with "Lord of the Rings".  We were a somewhat advanced bunch, I suppose.  However, the book started a craze with us for a couple of years, and heavily influenced my thinking even until the present day.  We considered it a sort of response to "The Wasteland", in that it showed a way out of the cultural dead-end that had emerged at the dawn of the 20th century and culminated in the 60's cultural revolution (which I daresay is a misnomer).

At any rate, Ayn Rand preached anti-altruism as ultimately ending in communism, where there was no private property, industry or social life.  In other words, altruism ultimately led to Marxism, but to truly appreciate that statement, you must read Marx.  For those who think the Soviet Union or any other political entity has ever been Marxist, you are sadly mistaken.

Marx proposed unwinding the capitalist/bankster system and slowly returning control of everything back to the common man, so that when the revolution was complete, there would be no State, no corporations and no system of control above the immediate collective.  Marx' ideas were a direct threat to the so-called capitalist system, and has led to more than a century of ideological war between two diametrically opposed concepts.

Ayn Rand proposed a middle road.  If altruism led to Marxism, she reasoned, and capitalism led to totalitarianism, then there must be a happy medium.  This, she proposed, was 'enlightened self-interest'.  It is the central concept of true libertarianism and has aspects of both Marxism and capitalism woven into it, but which seeks a third outcome.

Enlightened self-interest (ESI) is a form of anarchy, which also has a bad name, but in its ideal form is rather appealing.  Like Marxism, ESI envisions the complete unwinding of the State and all its control mechanisms.  It would spell the end of borders and concepts like immigration and emigration.  Any system of governance would be strictly local without any form of centralized power.  Each community would set its own standards and then compete for economic growth based on the attractiveness of their system to other people.

Where Rand departs from Marx is in the concept of personal property.  This, she reasoned, was the prime motivator for people to innovate and create and to engage in commerce.  The ability to enrich one's self was the only reason to get out of bed in the morning.  Within the confines of one's property, one was an absolute dictator, able to set the law of the land and enforce it however necessary, as long as that law and its enforcement did not encroach on the next guy's fifedom.

In a nutshell, if you took one part Marx, one part Rand and one part Robber Baron, shook it thoroughly and strained into a glass, you'd have the perfect way of life.  No controlled markets, no authoritarian central governments and no communal ownership.

Here's the problem with Marx: you have a construction project at the house.  All the community hammers are crap.  The heads fall off and the handles break.  So you go an buy a fine Estwing.  While working on your project, you put the hammer down and go inside for a glass of iced tea.  You neighbor walks by, sees the great hammer lying there and takes it for his project.  The same thing happens, and in less than a day, your investment is gone without a trace.

Here's the problem with Rand: you buy a fine piece of land.  Good dirt, running water, rolling fields.  One day, your neighbor wants to build a nuclear waste dump.  You have no say in the matter because it's his land, and as long as you can't prove damages, he is free to do as he likes.  To prove damages, you need a judiciary of some sort.  The judiciary forms a syndicate, and the syndicate forms a centralized political body.  Then you're back to where you started.

Here's the problem with capitalism: I seel shares in a project to raise capital, but I retain just enough shares to have controlling interest, even though the shareholders put up the capital to do the project.  Since the shareholders' interest is to make a profit, they really don't care what you do, as long as you show a profit.  So now you are motivated to bend or break all the rules to produce a profit so all your shareholders keep their money in your project.

You can extend these examples ad nauseum.  In all cases, you come up with abuses and legal conundrums that are virtually impossible to solve without resorting to a system pretty much like what we have.

The problem is human nature.  Throughout all human history, and even among the ancient gods, behavior is the same.  Ultimately, greed and avarice seep in and take over.  Altruism is great until you are faced with having to enforce it.  Enlightened self-interest is great, but you are left with the same problem.

Ultimately, I've only been able to derive a handful of solutions that involve modifications to what we have now.

The first is remove all concept of the Corporate Veil.  Do not allow corporations to act in the collective as if they are individuals.  Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a morality play about just this idea.  By stitching together bits and pieces of dead matter to create artificial life, you inevitably create monsters that are nearly impossible to kill.

Next, remove the power of governments to create legal entities, to tax anyone or anything, and to create systems of tracking and identification.  If people feel compelled to serve their communities, they should do so for altruistic reasons, not for self-enrichment.  Take away government's incentive to grow, and it will not grow.

Do away with all centralized currencies.  Let the markets decide how they will trade and allow people to offer competing systems, such as BitCoin, e-Gold and NotHaus' Liberty notes.  Open up barter to trading ideas and concepts.  Let people trade in anything they want.  The best systems will thrive, and the rest will fall away, but in no case will anyone be able to monopolize currencies.

Finally, do away with the current concept of policing.  Return to the elected sheriff system.  In all cases, the voting ballots must be marked and signed (whether by hand or by electronic means), stored for 10 years and open to public scrutiny.  If using e-voting, the code must be open source and viewable by the general public to ensure an above-board system.

This is not perfect, but it cleans up many of the current problems.  Unfortunately, there can be no perfect system when those who create and administer it are imperfect.  Until and unless there is some mass awakening, some fundamental change in the human condition, none of the ideal system will work.  All we can do is create systems that encourage people to grow and expand until such time that we are a species capable of much bigger thoughts than the extremes of personal or collective property.

If the markets and the systems are open to encourage the invention and dissemination of such things as zero-point energy and Star Trek replicators, and the basic needs of power and food and clothing are rendered mute, then we will have launched our species on a new and fantastic path.  But as long as we are scrambling around trying to get more than the next guy, we will never have the time to expand our consciousness to the point that mundane pursuits no longer interest us.

One of my favorite Bible Bits (Matt 6:28) holds, I believe, the key to true enlightenment: Look at the birds of the sky and the lilies of the field.  They do not sew, nor do they reap.  Yet in all his glory, Solomon was not arraigned such as these.  How much more precious in the eyes of God are you than these?

If altruism and self-interest were not mutually exclusive, we would be well on our way to something better.  The keystone of enlightenment is educating one's self.  The irony is that at the end of education, you come full circle to find that it is the child who is best able to see the world.

New World Order 2.0

Reader Note: Letting a blind man set up a W7 home network is a recipe for disaster.  Fresh content, including the latest Acupuncture column coming soon.

 Back in the 50s and 60s, Japan made a fortune selling paper parasols for your happy hour fruit drinks.  They then parlayed that into status as an economic powerhouse, becoming the electronics wizards to the world, and miniaturizing portable phones from suitcase-sized affairs, down to a palm-sized mini-computer.

Through all that, they remained hitched to America's wagon, even after America turned on them in the 70s.  America blamed Japan for its economic woes, forgetting quite conveniently that Nixon had unhitched the nation's money from any kind of reality.

Still the Japanese remained faithful and took its place among the galaxy of economic powers that worshipped at the feet of Wall Street.  However, its success led to higher prices for imports in the US, and so Nixon went in search of new coolies to provide low-cost widgets.

Nixon struck pay-dirt in his long time nemesis: China.  It was a match made in Hell.  A rabid anti-Communist, in the throes of political turmoil at home, went hat-in-hand to a mysterious Communist demon called China.  No one really knew much about China at that point.  It had withdrawn behind its famed Great Wall after the Cultural Revolution.  However, capitalist ideologues needed cheap labor to keep the game going, and Nixon wanted a foreign policy coup to deflect the spotlight off his growing crisis at home.

The American people, being xenophobes and ignorant of much outside their own navels, watched in fascination as TeeVee beamed pictures of Nixon dining with Mao's successor.  When all was said and done, America had a vast new cheap labor supply to feed its insatiable hunger for profit.  In fact, America needed China far more than China needed America.

The US, in its hubris as global superpower and post-war economic dynamo, figured that it could scour the world to find places to supply its appetite for cheap, unorganized labor, and as dumping grounds for its toxic waste called bonds.  Without the stabilizing force of gold-backing, there was an increasing pile of rotten paper to support the fabulous exterior.  Like a financial Dorian Gray, the US looked young and powerful, but in the attic was a portrait of decay and putridity that hid the ravages of unbound capitalism.

China had become America's trashbin and servants' quarters.  Like all wealthy plantation owners, Americans began looking past the garbage dump and maid house, assuming they were not there so as not to spoil the nice view of the back 40.

Meanwhile, China had actually read Marx/Engels, unlike the hot-headed Bolsheviks next door.  They saw that capitalism was a necessary step in the evolution towards communism, and that by enriching a strong middle-class, the masses could be placated with gee-gaws and naked consumerism.

They began the process of opening to the West.  Salivating at the prospects of masses of cheap, unskilled and unregulated labor, the mega-corporations came.  They built factories, transferred technologies and, most importantly, began dumping their toxic paper.

China, being the longest continuous society on Earth, and lovers of strategy games like chess, opened its flank to draw in what it needed, while carefully managing the board.  In quiet deference, they played the game.  Where the Soviets had sealed themselves off, China threw open the doors, but only those doors which they closely guarded.  There was a method in their madness, which the West perceived as a surrender to the fast and furious lifestyle that was the trademark of its culture.

Using its legendary deference and quiet manner, China lured the West into shifting its balance back.  The entire Western dynamo became fully and inexorably dependent on China's uncomplaining shoulders.  Meanwhile, China pinched and saved.  It enticed the West to transfer its industrial base eastward and quietly waited until it had enough of what it needed.

One day, the West woke up to find China launching men into orbit and making deals for stategic resources in places the West had taken for granted.  China had bought the Panama Canal and focused its attentions on South America and Africa, lands that the West has simply assumed were too stupid to have ambitions of their own.

China was willing to make deals that enriched both sides of the table.  They didn't impose ideological clap-trap as conditions of trade.  They didn't threaten military 'intervention' if the local dictator was not in line.  China simply said they would pay for raw materials, which was the Achilles' Heel in their grand aspirations.  Where the US sent flotillas of war ships as both economic ambassadors and not-so-subtle warnings, the Chinese sent money...money they had stored up dealing with the West.  More importantly, they didn't send the IMF or the World Bank as hitmen to take by stealth what did not belong to them.

The Chinese, while having over one million men under arms, had little or no capacity to project force outside its borders.  Instead, they had something more enticing, the carrot of wealth.  They were willing to go into a deprived nation and help build infrastructure as a good-will gesture in commerce, not as a means of taking over and dictating local policy.  In exchange, the Chinese received strategic minerals and energy to feed their growing sphere of influence.

The Chinese had learned from watching the Soviets and the US that projected force was a no-win and very expensive gambit.  Instead, they used the vast sums of money they were earning to buy what they needed, and create relationships of mutual benefit that ensured loyalty on all sides of the table.

In its centuries-long march to dominate the world, the West had become impatient, and in their rush they had made a crucial mistake.  They had assumed that every major power would want to join the club.  Since the powers that were had conquered their own back yards and built empires of iron fists, they could not imagine anyone wanting to find another band-wagon.

In other words, they had built their legendary pyramid upside down.  Now their masterwork teetered precariously vaporous tip.  What's worse, the West could not fathom the Eastern mind.  They took all the head bobbing to mean consent, when it fact it signified only understanding.

As the West climbed further out on the limb, the Chinese smiled and nodded as they quietly sawed away.  Until now.  Finally, the West has awakened to the fact that the only sinews connecting it to the tree are the piles of toxic paper on which the Chinese are sitting.  Like a marionette, the West is suddenly eyeing the strings which are its only means of animation.

The Chinese sat and listened as the powers that were dictated the way things worked.  China was to play ball with the New World Order, and in return, they would receive lucrative contracts and be considered part of the team, the in-crowd.

But, what happens when the player no longer needs the team?  What happens when the star has finally earned enough to spin off on its own track?  And what happens to the team when the one player they had built a franchise around suddenly goes free agent?

If you look closely, you will see the lines forming for New World Order 2.0.  There is a schism opening along hemispherical lines, with diametrically opposed means and goals.  The question of the day is: whose foundation is stronger?

Continues...

The Vultures Are Circling

Reader Note: Over the next couple of weeks, we will be traveling quite a bit, so please forgive us if the updates get a little spotty.  We will, however, be bringing you reports on various cities around Indonesia, including Medan (Sumatra) and Denpasar (Bali).  Thanks for your understanding.

Indonesia is one hot property right now.  There is a huge interest in investing here.  The economy is red-hot and foreign capital is pouring in.  In fact, there is so much coming in, that the foreign investors are putting heavy pressure on the Bank Indonesia (central bank) to adjust its policies to make them happy.

There are a number of reasons for this.  Indonesia is next door to China, which, unless you've been under a rock for the last 10 years, has become at least the second largest, if not the largest economy in the world.  China, because of its own meteoric growth, has been sucking up resources globally like a black hole eats stars.

Indonesia has a vast natural wealth that the world has been happy to exploit for centuries.  Not only does the land support a rich agricultural sector, but the country is rich in gold, coal, oil, nickel, iron, silver, sulphur, rare earths, and dozens of other commodities.  The massive rain forests here used to provide tons of lumber from mahogany and teak, though so much was stripped out in the 1950s that they are desperately trying to protect the fraction of old-growth forests, and the vast number of rare species of beasts that live here.

One of the primary resources making money right now is coal.  Used both for energy and for things like coke for concrete, nearly every Asian country is competing to lock up a 20 or 30 year supply.  Additionally, the recent floods and disasters in Australia have put Indonesia's nearest competitor out of business, at least for the time being.  Thus, demand and prices have shot up.

Another hot interest here is Indonesia's own growth.  Because the country is making so much money, and because the wealth, at least ostensibly, is filtering down to the common folks (finally), there is big demand for power, roads, shipping infrastructure, and all the related building that goes with it.  In Jakarta, the boom has brought with it a massive influx of people to the capital.  This has strained the existing infrastructure to the breaking point.  Even in the three years I've been here, I have witnessed the traffic go from bad to nighmare.

Two abortive attempts to build a monorail have left pylons standing unused around certain parts of the city.  The bus system is pushing overcapacity, with some routes almost unusuable due to waiting times and crowding.  There's a plan to install an MRT with the first line scheduled to open in 2014, but by then the city may be completely impassable, assuming that graft and corruption don't kill the project like the monorail.

Because the country refuses to automate anything, good for labor bad for mobility, the tolls roads that lace Jakarta and surrounding areas, are at virtual stand-stills during rush hour, which for intents and purposes, is daylight hours.  Combined with Indonesian's disdain for traffic laws, the whole system teeters on collapse.

For all these reasons, the vulture captialists are circling the country, waiting to pick off unsuspecting prey.  If you are not familiar with vulture capitalism, then you really need to read John Perkin's book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman."

The basic modus operendi is to swoop in to developing countries in desperate need of infrastructure, offer massive loans to build power plants and industries that really do nothing to put folks to work, but seem like good deals at the time.  Later, as the country's economy begins to cool off, folks find that a few corrupt individuals have made off with all the dough and left the country with a crushing debt.

At that point, everyone is convinced by a few talking heads that the debt must be restructured, which really just increases the burden, thus making everyone a slave to their jobs and houses just to survive.

The only way out is the same one that home-owners in America haven't yet figured out en masse, if they can't produce a contract, you don't owe the debt.  The people are carefully groomed so that it never occurs to them that they never incurred the debt, or the original contract holder no longer holds the paper, having sold it off four or five times over.  So, in fact, there is no debt.  But no one ever figures that out.

That's part of the reason the democracy movement is so important.  See, if the people think they elect representatives, who then incur a massive national debt, then the people think they actually owe it because the voted for the scumbags.  In steps George Soros, et al., to push democracy, which is a huge scam of perportions so vast that no one thinks it can be a scam because of the sheer size of it.

In fact, it is the root of all this crowing about 'democratic' revolutions.  See, it there is a king, a dictator or a select few oligarchs, then the people can overthrow them and repudiate any debt as being the sole responsiblity of the few or one who are thrown out.  But, if the leaders are 'democratically' elected, then the banksters can claim that the debt is owed by the entire population, thus we must all cling to our jobs in order to survive, or the banksters will reclaim everything we owe.  Keeps us little people in line, right?

The Middle East is one of the few remaining strongholds of monachs and dictators.  South America has already been tamed, though Equador is a fine example of the people telling the banksters to go jump off a cliff and taking control of their country.  At any rate, the Middle East is being cleansed of autocratic rulers so that they can be effectively enslaved by the banksters, who hate sovereign individuals, sound money and especially sharia banking (interest free).  It is the compounding interest that eventually enslaves the populations under a crushing debt that can't be paid.

Bottom line, I hope that Indonesia doesn't cave to these blood-sucking bastards.  I hope that it continues it long tradition of 'just deal with it,' and so doesn't slide down the road of borrowing to build that has captured the people of so many nations, including my own.  With so many billions of dollars flowing into this country, and the constant temptation and barrage of marketing, it's hard to say who will win.  If I had my way, I would pass out copies of Perkin's book and show people what to watch out for.

We shall see.

Every day, I battle amazing hordes of cars and motorcycles, trying to get from one end of the city to other on time.  In moments of weakness, I actually wish that something could be done, but then I remember that the cost is more than most will bear, if they know it up-front.

So, for now, I suffer.  And Indonesians, who are notorious for just tolerating the uncomfortable because the effort to change it is even more repulsive.  With the ingenuity and creativity evident in this country, there is no doubt that home-grown solutions can be found that don't involve vulture capitalists.  Let's just hope the impulse for the simple short-term solution doesn't overcome the current devil-may-care attitude.

There's something to be said for controlled anarchy.