“It is intentionality that tears the seamless fabric of the causally closed material world.”

August 26, 2011 at 10:51 am (By Amba)

This strikes me as the most important thing I’ve read in a while.  It is along the same lines as this but goes farther and is more forthright, less academically circumlocutory.  And it’s completely in sync with the Feldenkrais Method training I’ve started, the only thing I’ve ever done that is intellectually exciting in an embodied, experiential way.

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“This gift of words is something which soothes the mind.”

August 13, 2011 at 2:08 pm (By Amba)

Inscribed on a Sumerian clay tablet, circa 2500 BC.

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Is the Stock Market Evil?

August 12, 2011 at 9:09 pm (By Amba)

Idle thought:  I’m just wondering whether the wealth-creation twist that the stock market adds to the straightforward transactions of the economy—folding a froth of gambling fever into solid value, like beaten egg whites into a soufflé—might not actually be the devil’s work.  Whether someone writing a bible today might not ban it the way the original banned usury.

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Join the “End of Work” Think Tank.

August 10, 2011 at 8:10 pm (By Amba)

Ron Fisher’s new blog, on a topic he’s been thinking about a lot lately.  The “job” model of human purpose and sustenance is dying a painful death—corporations now raise their profits and productivity by getting rid of people—but what will replace it??  There clearly won’t be anywhere near enough “jobs” for the world’s growing population, and Ron suspects we’re in a third great transition, following those from hunting-gathering to agriculture and from agriculture to industry. But . . . to what?  We’re all thinking about it, we need a place to talk about it.  Go on over and weigh in; throw some thoughts and links on the fire.

Melinda Bruno recently said on Facebook,

At the rate this country is going, the next generation is gonna have two career choices:

1. A Kardashian;

2. A cashier at Wal*Mart.

That oughtta get you started.

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Where’s Walden?

August 9, 2011 at 2:10 am (By Amba)

See if you can find me in this “entr’action” photo (by Caroline Tuchscherer from Montréal) from the weekend karate training camp (gasshuku) at Green Mountain Dojo in Stowe, Vermont, run by longtime friends of my heart and J’s, Tom and Toni Flynn.

After the training, Monday morning I was entrusted with the keys to the official Green Mountain vehicle, drove one hour north to the Northeast Kingdom, and finally met our Karen, her splendid husband Allan, and their 47 milk cows!  (Plus two dogs, two neighbors, and more than a dozen chickens.)  A cow licked my hand, I held warm newly-laid eggs in said hand, and most of all I got to lay eyes on (and arms around) one of my best blogfriends and her good man.  New friends of my lonely heart.

As a bonus, I learned what a three-titter is!  (Spud, so sorry I missed you by a couple of hours.)

The most striking thing about Vermont per se is its luminous sky.  It’s almost always full of dramatic, puffy white clouds, and the day seems lit not by the sun but by the silvery, icy light of these clouds, which makes the green land and blue sky look hyperreal.

it’s not the sun but
the icy-white clouds that light
luminous Vermont

I’ll post more pix as they come to light.

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Blessed Sanity on the Debt-bacle

July 28, 2011 at 10:29 am (By Amba)

Now here’s a point of view that makes total sense to me.  No wonder — it’s subtitled “A Pox on Both Parties.”  This is Jeffrey Miron, Harvard economist and Cato Institute fellow:

Each party has valid concerns about the other’s approach to avoiding default, yet each is relying on counterproductive articles of faith.

To address the debt crisis, both sides must give up their cherished, but misguided, ideas.

The problem with the Democratic position is that it regards redistribution, rather than economic productivity, as the prime goal of government policy. The Democrats therefore want to address the deficit with higher taxes on “the rich,” not expenditure cuts.

This approach, however, cannot remotely address the long-term debt outlook; the available revenue from the wealthy is far too small. And higher taxes discourage economic growth, making deficits worse. Thus whatever the morality of soaking the rich, it will not work.

Likewise, Democrats refuse to accept that Medicare is the primary driver of the U.S. fiscal nightmare. […]

A good approach to scaling back Medicare would be a substantially higher deductible. Imagine, for example, that every beneficiary paid an extra $2,000 out of pocket each year. This is affordable for most families, especially those a few years from retirement.

This one change in policy would save at least $100 billion a year. Better yet, Medicare beneficiaries would face the full price for more of their health care, while still having insurance against extraordinary expenditures. So they would pay more attention to prices and demand less health care, slowing the growth of health care costs.

And proposing real cuts in Medicare is the perfect opportunity for Democrats to steal Republican thunder. Many Americans believe that Democrats will do anything to forestall entitlement cuts, even if that means an exploding debt. […]

For Republicans, the crucial mistake is their refusal to distinguish between the tax revenue that comes from higher rates and that which comes from fixing tax loopholes that inappropriately privilege certain consumption or production.

The Republicans are correct that raising tax rates is a terrible idea. By discouraging savings, work and investment, higher rates dampen economic productivity in the long run. […]

But closing tax loopholes — lowering tax expenditure — is a terrific idea. Many tax expenditures distort economic decision-making and therefore slow economic growth. Crucial examples include the home-mortgage interest deduction and the preferential treatment of employer-provided health insurance. Thus Republican skepticism about explicit expenditure should apply equally to tax expenditure, regardless of the revenue implications.

To be sure, some “tax expenditure” is good for economic growth, so Republicans are right to be careful. Those features of the corporate tax code that permit rapid depreciation, for example, are beneficial because they encourage investment.

But blanket opposition to any additional revenue, or insistence that reduced tax expenditure be offset by lower tax rates, is ultimately counterproductive. […]

Opposition to tax expenditures also allows Republicans to blunt Democratic concerns over balancing the budget “on the backs of the most vulnerable.” The home mortgage interest deduction, for example, is highly regressive; poor people do not own homes or itemize deductions. Scaling back such anti-growth tax expenditure is thus the right way to change the distribution of income: eliminate bad policies that favor the well-to-do.

Yes, these policy changes would “hurt” the middle class—but only by removing incentives that have encouraged and cushioned unwise decisions, like buying too much house and consuming unneeded health care.  The sacrifice of subsidized folly is a good kind of sacrifice to have to make.

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