Thinking laterally, or maybe giving up

Fascinating video lecture by Dylan Ratigan. I'm in the process of reading his recent book, Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry. It's an extremely well written book that succinctly explains many of the problems faced by Americans (including chapters on Wall Street and Health Care). In this video from October, 2013, however, Ratigan suggests that writing the book was a waste of time, although it might serve as a useful inventory of issues. I have a hard time believing that Ratigan believes that. Seeing him deliver his talk, and receiving several impassioned email blasts from him, it sure seems that he is still putting up a good fight, though it is a fight that will be extremely difficult to win, and maybe he is exhausted from the fight. Dylan writes (in a mass-emailing that I received today) that he wanted to tell "stories of those using distributed power to solve old problems in new ways." I'm all for grass roots action and organizing, and I do believe in the power of reframing. But to win back the country, we will also need people like the author of Greedy Bastards to identify particular issues, lay out the history and propose workable solutions. Occasionally David beats Goliath, but it's a great story because it only rarely happens. I'm wondering whether Ratigan was demoralized by the long battle, has taken refuge away from the battle, and is gearing up to get back into the game. that is my hope.

Continue ReadingThinking laterally, or maybe giving up

Capitalism vs. Free Enterprise

According to Thom Hartman, these two concepts are often confused. In fact, he urges that we ditch capitalism and embrace free enterprise:

If you ask someone like Rand Paul, he'd say somebody participating in this sort of system is a "capitalist." But the cleanest definition of a capitalist is someone who uses their money – their capital – to make more money. Some capitalists do this by investing their capital in the stock market; others do it by investing in other people's start-up businesses: they are called venture capitalists. These kinds of capitalists do play their part in our society. Sometimes, they help small businesses get off their feet. But here's what you won't hear on Fox Business or CNBC: capitalists aren't that productive and they aren't actually necessary. Many are just like Paris Hilton: they sit around on their butts by the pool all day waiting for their dividend checks to come in. They make money while contributing absolutely nothing to the rest of society. And here's the thing: free enterprise works just as well without capitalists, capitalism, or even venture capitalists. Worker-owned cooperatives are just as successful as any business backed by a massive Wall Street loan. . . . Too much capitalism is actually dangerous. All the major economic crises of the past 200 years were caused by capitalists on Wall Street trying to use their money to make more money.

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Russell Brand schools Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman

Here's the scenario: Jeremy Paxman continually tells Russell Brand that he has not right to be heard because he doesn't bother to vote. Brand explains to Paxman that voting is a farce that makes voters complicit in the rampant political/corporate corruption. Invigorating discussion that is well worth your time.

Continue ReadingRussell Brand schools Newsnight host Jeremy Paxman

The beginnings of multi-cellularity

Fascinating story told by Carl Zimmer, illustrated by yeast studies.

Scientists suspect that the first step towards a complex multicellular body like ours is for cells to evolve to live in primitive clumps. There may be a lot of advantages to living this way. It may be harder for a predator to eat you, for example. At the University of Minnesota, a team of scientists led by William Ratcliff and Michael Travisano figured out a way to create this kind of natural selection in a lab. As I reported last year in the New York Times, they were able to get yeast–which normally lives as single cells–to turn into simple multicellular clumps in a few weeks.

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The re-framing necessary to move away from talk of health care death panels

Here's another excellent and succinct analysis by Dylan Ratigan, part of an mass emailing he recently sent out. Allowing conservatives to argue about "death panels" is a big mistake and here's why -- and BTW, the time to make policy is not as we gather around very sick people challenging each other as to who can spend the most to to extending someone's last breaths by 3 months, bankrupting healthcare in the process. We need to grow up and get our heads out of fantasy-land. Let's redefine healthcare in terms of sustainable and meaningful goals. Ironically, there is date that those who claim to be most confident in the existence of an afterlife insist on the highest rate of last-minute desperate expenditures. Here's Dylan's email:

Dear Friends, Generally speaking, there are only two ways to earn money. 1. Charge a fee for goods or services. 2. Charge a mutually agreed upon percentage based on a future outcome based on the newly created value. This percentage can be in the form of equity or commission. As it stands, healthcare in America is based on the first model. This creates a system with many, high fees generated by acute and traumatic care. The chart above, from this report by the International Federation of Health Plans, shows how much we are paying compared to the rest of the world: In reality, this care is for only 5 percent of us at a given moment, yet accounts for 50 percent of what each of us spend on the service regardless of whether or not we are using it. If this unfortunate reality upsets you, please relax...close your eyes....and imagine for a moment a healthcare model that uses the second model of income generation. One that is based on equity or commission based on a future outcome. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingThe re-framing necessary to move away from talk of health care death panels