We are living in a "Plutocracy". Read on...

I have historically been loath to advocate taxation and punishing the rich. In fact, I have self-identified as a fiscal conservative since I before I understood what that meant.

Those days are no longer.

In October 2005, Citibank issued a paper on the U.S. being a "Plutonomy" a spin on the word Plutocracy, a government or country governed or ruled by the wealthy.

This paper by Citibank discusses it thoroughly but let me pull a few pearls out for your consideration:

"We project the plutonomies (the U.S. U.K. and Canada) will likely see even more income inequality..."

"In a plutonomy there is no such thing as "the U.S. Consumer"....There are rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in teh gigantic slice of income and consumption they take"

"...we think the plutonomy is here, is going to get stronger..."

"Plutonomies exist and explain much of the world's imbalances"

"the rich are getting richer and they dominate spending"

Do NOT miss the section on the possible ways the people might "backlash".

Part 2

"the rich take an increasing share of the income and wealth over the last 20 years, to the extent that the rich now dominate income, wealth, and spending in these countries".

In conclusion:

"..The rising wealth gap between the rich and poor will probably at some point lead to a political backlash. Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth, and the poor a lesser share, political enfranchisement remains as it was - one person - one vote (in the plutonomies). At some point it is likely that labor will fight back against the rising profit share of the rich and there will be a political backlash against the rising wealth of the rich. This could be felt through higher taxation (on the rich or indirectly through higher corporate taxes/regulation) or through trying to protect indigenous laborers, in a push-back on globalization - either anti-immigration, or protectionism. We don't see this happening yet, although there are signs of rising political tensions...."

I never thought of myself as an "indigenous laborer" before. Good to know....

from my cell camera.

Bacon + Chocolate.

Bacon + Chocolate.

The three versions of Judas.

I saw The Three Versions of Judas as a link in a bigger blog post and thought it was an amazing story.

After reading it, I got curious about the various aspects of the "article" and researched a little deeper some of the individuals involved and so on, and then discovered that the story was a piece of fiction by Jorge Luis Borges! Article here

And I quote:
"By writing, “we know nothing about it with any certainty, not even that it is false,” Borges comments on the futility of attempting to determine that something is either true of false, when confronting it through writing. Therefore, the moment an act is recorded, it becomes an entity of its own – neither fact nor fiction."

Genius. Well done and well and truly said.

This lil guy let me get within 3 feet of him before he moved.

What a Triumph.

"The World Without Us." (BOOK REVIEW)

"The World Without Us" is a thought experiment that asks what would happen if all of humanity died, say by virus or by nanotechnology taking over the world (the "grey goo" scenario) how long would traces of us remain? It discusses various areas of the world where we humans fail to go anymore for the most part such as the North Korea-South Korea demilitarized zone (DMZ), the DMZ in Famagusta Cyprus where nature is taking back entire resorts and highrise buildings, and to various unpopulated islands in the South Pacific where reefs almost show what the ocean was like before man.

It discusses the longevity of plastic, even the so-called biodegradable kind, which actually degrades into merely very tiny pieces of plastic that smaller creatures then swallow, and the longevity of other things like brass. Hint: If you want to make something for posterity, make it out of brass or maybe even platics. Plastic in the oceans is a particular fascination of mine. It is scary how it accumulates in the Gyres and never leaves.

Weisman makes the science in the book very approachable and has a great topic. His style is very readable, and even the dark parts of the book (it is rather depressing to think about our extinction) are offset by some pretty funny bits.

Most definitely a good read.

5 stars.

That's Barack in the white shirt.

House we stayed in.

Enjoy!

Union church Derry

No really.

Spot Pond, Stoneham, Mass

Welcom to philly.

Got Wood?

Up against the wall!

Having just spent the weekend on and off fixing wedding photos with photoshop, I am now convinced that two sets of people need to die.

The developers of Photoshop.

Plastic Surgeons.

Oh yes, The media.

Oh, after we line the Attorneys up, of course.

Last boat in....

Ah, gotta love Laguna!

Raccoon!

Caught a bad snap shot (literally) of this masked bandit in our neighborhood. We do not live in a rural area by the way.

Global Warming

""Normally," says Volk, "the biosphere is like an upside-down glass jar: On top, it's basically closed to any extra matter, except for letting in a few meteors. At the bottom, the lid is slightly open - to volcanoes."

The problem is, by tapping into the Carboniferous Formation and spewing it up into the sky, we've become a volcano that hasn't stopped erupting since the 1700s."

- Alan Weisman in "The World WIthout Us".

Yeah 2

Yeah.

Latest work

Happy Buddha

Us.

Death Star over San Francisco

8-8-08

That really is novel.

Cherry 280z

Brings back the memories.

How the Rich Spend Their Time: Stressed

How the Rich Spend Their Time: Stressed

by Robert FrankFriday, July 4, 2008
provided by the Wall Street Journal and Yahoo

Leisure class gives way to workaholic elite scrambling to maintain their place in life.

Being rich used to get you into the leisure class. Money meant freedom -- from work, money worries, household chores and screaming kids (via boarding school). Now, however, the wealthy seem to be as besieged as ever. The leisure class has given way to what I call the workaholic wealthy -- an elite of BlackBerry-crazed, network-obsessed, peripatetic travelers who have to keep scrambling to maintain their place in life.

According to research by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist, quoted in an article in the Washington Post, "being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things and more time doing compulsory things and feeling stressed."

People who make less than $20,000 a year, for instance, spent more than a third of their time in passive leisure, like kicking back and watching TV. By contrast, those making more than $100,000 a year (I would call them affluent, not wealthy), spent less than a fifth of their time in passive leisure. "The richest people spent nearly twice as much time as the poorest people in leisure activities that were structured and often stressful -- shopping, child care and exercise."

In short, stereotypes about the leisure class no longer hold true. "In reality," Mr. Kahneman and his colleagues wrote in a paper they published in the journal Science, "they should think of spending a lot more time working and commuting and a lot less time engaged in passive leisure."

Definitions are key here. Personally, I wouldn't classify exercise as compulsory or stressful. And the true rich ($10 million or more), may be exceeding their less-wealthy peers in true indolence. But my experience suggests that the rich are as stressed and un-relaxed as the merely affluent.

Why? Globalization and competition are probably the big reasons. People with top jobs and businesses -- i.e., the wealthy -- have to work harder than ever to remain competitive. Big investors also have to work more in ever-more-complicated financial markets to maintain their dinosaur-size nest eggs. Add to that the increasing complexity of life at the top -- constant requests for money, overseeing wealth managers, lawyers and household staff -- and the good life becomes its own management job.

Maybe being rich isn't as relaxing as it seems.

Electric biker