I made mention of the hundreds of thousands of dollars bicycle riding will cost you, if you choose to commute by bicycle along Franklin Blvd. like I do 3-4 times a week. Yep, the inevitable car-v-bike accident will occur, and if you're lucky you won't become dead, but will only have to suffer through a series of painful surgeries to pin your bones back together.
In my case, the sum of all the gasoline I have saved and will have saved, along with all the gasoline my evil twin in our parallel universe has saved will all get fuckered away next Wednesday, when I go under the knife to manage the hydrocele that, (I'm speculating here), was caused by bicycle riding.
I dare you, dear reader, I dare you, to travel away from this monologue and google-image hydrocele. It will leave you with a weak and uneasy feeling...
Yep, the cost of bicycling is presenting itself rather starkly here. I suppose I could attach a before-and-after set of photos, yes? No?
Now, this issue may have presented itself regardless; if all I did was ride the bus this still might have developed, but hey, I need something to demonstrate how commuting by bicycle is among the most fiscally irresponsible behaviors one can engage in. Indeed, let me assume this surgery will cost $14,600 to perform, shouldered by my medical insurance company and ultimately shouldered by you, the electricity ratepayer. If I had driven to work instead, in my little Honda car using a gallon each day, I could commute 7 days a week for ten straight years at $4.00 gas for what this one surgery will cost.
How's that for trying to save the world by not driving my car, eh? No, instead of saving the world by bicycling I have to spend energy trying to save Bryan's privates.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
One Job & Two Houses
I'm pretty sure that most Americans are muttering to themselves, "Screw North African democracy; I want my $2.75 gasoline back."
Not a single U.S. consumer was likely aware how much oil Libya produces, at least not before last Tuesday.
Libya sits atop ~40 billion barrels, the largest reserve in Africa, which to most American consumers seems like a lot. "Dude, I only use, like, one tank a week." But this grand nation of ours burns a billion barrels every 50 days to keep our WalMart shelves stocked with imported plastic consumables from China. Every fifty days.
Go back to 2005. Remember that year? Back when we were living large, when our housal units were rising 20% every year, when that guy who stocked those WalMart shelves could live quite comfortably with his one job while flipping two houses he bought on margin. Since then, this nation has consumed the equivalent of all the oil underneath Libya. Just this one nation -- not considering the other 6.5 billion people in the world.
And since then we've gone from one job and two houses to two jobs and no house, if you were one of the lucky ones who still had a job stocking shelves. Between 2005 and today we've consumed all the oil underneath the country with the most oil in Africa.
Yep, Libya produces just 2% of world production, but as oil is priced on the margin like kilowatts are at the California ISO, small supply disruptions can have wild effects on prices. The $100 a barrel is for that last barrel bought -- it's not as if all barrels are priced at that point. I'd bet that 75% of all oil is bought and sold through bilateral contracts, while the remainder is purchased at spot or near-spot. $100 represents fear that two percent might be curtailed.
Of course as a monologist who decries our suburban layouts, our extreme energy dependence, our hallucinated non-productive economy, and our failures to think and act sustainably, $3.70 gas brings a tear to my eye. I'd probably find more joy in $7.30 gas, but hey, I'll take what I can get. This isn't anywhere near enough to get people to change their habits and actions but at least I get to chuckle a little. It'll be reported that "nobody could see this coming." Uh-huh. Just like nobody could see the housal unit crash. We'll just take it that a little instability in the Middle East, er, North Africa, was what's causing this...not our total dependence on foreign energy.
If it weren't for the extra nickel it costs for gas, we'd still be wondering where Libya was on the map...
Not a single U.S. consumer was likely aware how much oil Libya produces, at least not before last Tuesday.
Libya sits atop ~40 billion barrels, the largest reserve in Africa, which to most American consumers seems like a lot. "Dude, I only use, like, one tank a week." But this grand nation of ours burns a billion barrels every 50 days to keep our WalMart shelves stocked with imported plastic consumables from China. Every fifty days.
Go back to 2005. Remember that year? Back when we were living large, when our housal units were rising 20% every year, when that guy who stocked those WalMart shelves could live quite comfortably with his one job while flipping two houses he bought on margin. Since then, this nation has consumed the equivalent of all the oil underneath Libya. Just this one nation -- not considering the other 6.5 billion people in the world.
And since then we've gone from one job and two houses to two jobs and no house, if you were one of the lucky ones who still had a job stocking shelves. Between 2005 and today we've consumed all the oil underneath the country with the most oil in Africa.
Yep, Libya produces just 2% of world production, but as oil is priced on the margin like kilowatts are at the California ISO, small supply disruptions can have wild effects on prices. The $100 a barrel is for that last barrel bought -- it's not as if all barrels are priced at that point. I'd bet that 75% of all oil is bought and sold through bilateral contracts, while the remainder is purchased at spot or near-spot. $100 represents fear that two percent might be curtailed.
Of course as a monologist who decries our suburban layouts, our extreme energy dependence, our hallucinated non-productive economy, and our failures to think and act sustainably, $3.70 gas brings a tear to my eye. I'd probably find more joy in $7.30 gas, but hey, I'll take what I can get. This isn't anywhere near enough to get people to change their habits and actions but at least I get to chuckle a little. It'll be reported that "nobody could see this coming." Uh-huh. Just like nobody could see the housal unit crash. We'll just take it that a little instability in the Middle East, er, North Africa, was what's causing this...not our total dependence on foreign energy.
If it weren't for the extra nickel it costs for gas, we'd still be wondering where Libya was on the map...
Friday, February 25, 2011
Saving The World
I've oft mentioned here on my monologues how, to make bicycling cost effective, would require gasoline to reach $7.50 a gallon.
At least. If not more.
The reason is several fold.
First, the bike costs money; it's not as if you can go out and buy a Chinese made bike and expect it to hold up for more than two months of commuting. It won't. You'll need to spend a fair amount to get something that will survive daily use, i.e., something built in Europe or the U.S. This idea is totally absurd, of course, made only more absurd by realizing that the Chinese probably ride bikes more often than any other nation but manufacture bikes for export that are completely worthless. I like to believe that they build good quality bikes for their own use but turn around and manufacture complete garbage for export to the U.S. because they know we don't give a damn about anything other than price; we'll drive several million vehicle-miles to our WalMarts to buy junk bikes for our kids thinking we're "saving the world" by getting our children to ride imported bikes while we continue to exclusively commute by car.
Second, 65% of us live in suburbia and, by definition, cannot function without multiple motorcars. Even if we feign environmental support by bicycling to work every other day, we get rat-fucked by our elected leaders who can't raise the gas tax so much as a nickel without fear of losing the next election. So they raise vehicle license fees instead. As a consequence, you, the noble bicyclist, get to pay more for a car that sits more often in the driveway because you're out "saving the world" bicycling a few days a month.
Third, your motorcar insurance company doesn't give you a 50% reduction in your premium if you commute by bicycle 50% of the time. It's not linear. No, you may perhaps get a paltry 3% reduction if you drive 94% less. The only way to gain any real reduction is to off the car, which is an impossible proposition as 65% of us live in car-dependent suburbia. It's not as if we can jettison the car for a bike; no, we have to buy and maintain a bike in addition to the car. We think we're out "saving the world" by bicycling, yet we have no choice but to encourage even more coal-fired electric aluminum smelters to build both cars and bikes.
Fourth, if you bicycle, you're gonna eventually rack up a few hundred thousand dollars worth of reconstructive surgeries, blood transfusions, ambulatory services, pain pharmaceuticals, lost work productivity and months of painful physical therapy sessions because of the bike/car accident that you will invariably find yourself in. You have never been properly instructed how to operate a bicycle -- society has only ever shouldered and subsidized the cost of trying to teach you how to drive a car, but not how to ride a bike or how to share the road with bicyclists while behind the wheel. You cannot "save the world" by bicycling when you're gonna need to be transported in a diesel powered ambulance to a coal-fired illuminated emergency room manned by seven-figure-salaried doctors who mainly drive inefficient, imported fossil fuel powered luxury sedans, all because that driver plowed you down while texting his mistress as he was driving on a major surface road that was designed not for all users but only for the timely, efficient movement of several hundred thousand vehicular units. If it's not the car that plows you down, it's the "new" 38-year-old who thinks that bicycling the wrong way is safest,
even though the big white arrow painted in the lane says otherwise.
We complain about gasoline rising seven pennies per gallon, but at the same time we realize that to make alternatives to solo-occupant gasoline-powered commuting attractive we'd need gasoline to nearly triple in price...which ain't gonna happen.
At least. If not more.
The reason is several fold.
First, the bike costs money; it's not as if you can go out and buy a Chinese made bike and expect it to hold up for more than two months of commuting. It won't. You'll need to spend a fair amount to get something that will survive daily use, i.e., something built in Europe or the U.S. This idea is totally absurd, of course, made only more absurd by realizing that the Chinese probably ride bikes more often than any other nation but manufacture bikes for export that are completely worthless. I like to believe that they build good quality bikes for their own use but turn around and manufacture complete garbage for export to the U.S. because they know we don't give a damn about anything other than price; we'll drive several million vehicle-miles to our WalMarts to buy junk bikes for our kids thinking we're "saving the world" by getting our children to ride imported bikes while we continue to exclusively commute by car.
Second, 65% of us live in suburbia and, by definition, cannot function without multiple motorcars. Even if we feign environmental support by bicycling to work every other day, we get rat-fucked by our elected leaders who can't raise the gas tax so much as a nickel without fear of losing the next election. So they raise vehicle license fees instead. As a consequence, you, the noble bicyclist, get to pay more for a car that sits more often in the driveway because you're out "saving the world" bicycling a few days a month.
Third, your motorcar insurance company doesn't give you a 50% reduction in your premium if you commute by bicycle 50% of the time. It's not linear. No, you may perhaps get a paltry 3% reduction if you drive 94% less. The only way to gain any real reduction is to off the car, which is an impossible proposition as 65% of us live in car-dependent suburbia. It's not as if we can jettison the car for a bike; no, we have to buy and maintain a bike in addition to the car. We think we're out "saving the world" by bicycling, yet we have no choice but to encourage even more coal-fired electric aluminum smelters to build both cars and bikes.
Fourth, if you bicycle, you're gonna eventually rack up a few hundred thousand dollars worth of reconstructive surgeries, blood transfusions, ambulatory services, pain pharmaceuticals, lost work productivity and months of painful physical therapy sessions because of the bike/car accident that you will invariably find yourself in. You have never been properly instructed how to operate a bicycle -- society has only ever shouldered and subsidized the cost of trying to teach you how to drive a car, but not how to ride a bike or how to share the road with bicyclists while behind the wheel. You cannot "save the world" by bicycling when you're gonna need to be transported in a diesel powered ambulance to a coal-fired illuminated emergency room manned by seven-figure-salaried doctors who mainly drive inefficient, imported fossil fuel powered luxury sedans, all because that driver plowed you down while texting his mistress as he was driving on a major surface road that was designed not for all users but only for the timely, efficient movement of several hundred thousand vehicular units. If it's not the car that plows you down, it's the "new" 38-year-old who thinks that bicycling the wrong way is safest,
even though the big white arrow painted in the lane says otherwise.We complain about gasoline rising seven pennies per gallon, but at the same time we realize that to make alternatives to solo-occupant gasoline-powered commuting attractive we'd need gasoline to nearly triple in price...which ain't gonna happen.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Saint Dale
Last year I enjoyed watching the Daytona 500 -- from someone who decries the autocentric, auto brutalized nature of our living arrangements, I like this race, I'm drawn to it. Among the things I want to do in my life, I want to attend this spectacle once.
While not exactly in the bible belt, Daytona, Florida very nearly falls inside its boundary. Guns, God, and NASCAR define much of the southeast. In many respects I consider myself fortunate that my parents just happened not to have been raised there. You can be assured that there wouldn't be a Franklin Monologues if they had.
This year's Daytona 500 held all the same enjoyment as watching flies fuck. The track was fully resurfaced during the winter, allowing drivers to bump draft, which really destroyed the race in my little, non-autocentric view. What was interesting, nonetheless, was the near-constant memorializing of Dale Earnhardt who died a decade ago Sunday on that same track.
All those fans holding up three fingers during the silent, third lap. This is how gods are created. The day he died is now considered Black Sunday. His number "3" was retired, never again to be used on a NAScar for the rest of humanity. His death, something of a martyrdom for NASCAR safety, has "saved" many others from following the same fate. A half million people know more of Dale's life than they do of Jesus (perhaps because all accounts sorta skip everything between 3 and 30.) Perhaps in a few hundred years the records on Senior will get fuzzy, too, and Saint Dale will have deemed to have risen after "3" days on Easter Tuesday.
I'm not making this stuff up...
While not exactly in the bible belt, Daytona, Florida very nearly falls inside its boundary. Guns, God, and NASCAR define much of the southeast. In many respects I consider myself fortunate that my parents just happened not to have been raised there. You can be assured that there wouldn't be a Franklin Monologues if they had.
This year's Daytona 500 held all the same enjoyment as watching flies fuck. The track was fully resurfaced during the winter, allowing drivers to bump draft, which really destroyed the race in my little, non-autocentric view. What was interesting, nonetheless, was the near-constant memorializing of Dale Earnhardt who died a decade ago Sunday on that same track.
All those fans holding up three fingers during the silent, third lap. This is how gods are created. The day he died is now considered Black Sunday. His number "3" was retired, never again to be used on a NAScar for the rest of humanity. His death, something of a martyrdom for NASCAR safety, has "saved" many others from following the same fate. A half million people know more of Dale's life than they do of Jesus (perhaps because all accounts sorta skip everything between 3 and 30.) Perhaps in a few hundred years the records on Senior will get fuzzy, too, and Saint Dale will have deemed to have risen after "3" days on Easter Tuesday.
I'm not making this stuff up...
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Toys in the Attic
My German born co-worker tells the story of a drunken night some fifteen years ago. He's at home with several friends and after several beers, the topic of guns and ammo is raised. The gun in the attic is withdrawn and paraded around like a toy.
Suffice to say, the hole in his refrigerator was caused by the inadvertent discharge of his .45 while demonstrating his [unloaded] handgun to his friends. Fifteen years later, not but a few months ago, he replaces the old inefficient fridge with the hole in it with another that was subsidized by SMUD.
In my mind, guns are nothing but toys for adult males. I own three, which is three less than the number owned by the average gun owner in the U.S. There are currently 200,000,000 guns in the U.S.; 2/3rds of a gun for every man, woman and child.
They are toys. Cellularized telephones are toys, too. So are in-dash nav systems, they are toys, too, along with GPS systems, headrest DVD players, iPads, iPhones, etc. If they enanced the productivity of Americans I'd say they could be tools, but as we all use them to play games, to twitter, to twatter, to network, to bitch about our bosses, to complain about our restaurant service, or to blog about trivial shit like I do here, they do nothing to make us more productive; indeed they distract us and make us counterproductive, so they are just...toys.
What I find impressive is how a few tens-of-thousands of these toy-owners can argue that owning a MAC-10 assault weapon, or an AK-47, or an AR-15, or all three, is provided to us via the 2nd amendment. The ownership of such devices doesn't enhance our GDP, and arguably doesn't enhance our own security...although they would certainly think otherwise.
I own a few, and the only reason I use them is for play. I plink cans. I shoot clay shells. I shoot the occasional duck and goose but I can hardly call this "puttin' food on the table." I have not once used any for "self defense," or to "protect my family," or any of that other horseshit espoused by the radical right. I don't believe the mantra that "without the second amendment, there'd be no first amendment." This is nothing more than right wing, anti-government phobia in my little opinion. And it is indeed little.
What I am questioning is the assertion by these people, the ones who use guns as toys and for playthings, that the ownership of a 45-round assault rifle should be protected by the 2nd amendment. Under that argument, I suppose I can maintain my 4-round hand grenade arsenal without conviction, too, along with my 60-cal, my squad automatic weapon, and my two Claymore mines I regularly deploy to prevent unwanted trespassers on my Elk Grovian housal unit. Fuck, I might as well admit I have three Light Anti-Tank Rockets and one TOW missle at the ready, just in case you try to come after my beta-VCR or first generation I-Pod shuffle.
At what point do we accept that the ownership of sixty round assault rifles and LAW rockets is a perversion of the right to bear arms? We already illegalize my current ownership of hand grenades and Claymore mines (stolen during my service in the Army), but at what point should we do the same with the "toys" used by a few hundred thousand second-amendment diehards?
8,400 Americans were killed by firearms last year, not including the greater number of suicides by firearms. We can discount this number, yes, as we do the 40-odd thousand killed in automotive accidents. These deaths are effectually caused because a handful of grown-ups simply cannot submit to any restrictions on the toys they can have, or how they can be played with.
We will never, never!, live in a country where we can protect children in supermarket parking lots, by-standers in hair salons, or simply refrigerators from drunks.
"From my cold dead hands." Well, that's something I could agree with...
Suffice to say, the hole in his refrigerator was caused by the inadvertent discharge of his .45 while demonstrating his [unloaded] handgun to his friends. Fifteen years later, not but a few months ago, he replaces the old inefficient fridge with the hole in it with another that was subsidized by SMUD.
In my mind, guns are nothing but toys for adult males. I own three, which is three less than the number owned by the average gun owner in the U.S. There are currently 200,000,000 guns in the U.S.; 2/3rds of a gun for every man, woman and child.
They are toys. Cellularized telephones are toys, too. So are in-dash nav systems, they are toys, too, along with GPS systems, headrest DVD players, iPads, iPhones, etc. If they enanced the productivity of Americans I'd say they could be tools, but as we all use them to play games, to twitter, to twatter, to network, to bitch about our bosses, to complain about our restaurant service, or to blog about trivial shit like I do here, they do nothing to make us more productive; indeed they distract us and make us counterproductive, so they are just...toys.
What I find impressive is how a few tens-of-thousands of these toy-owners can argue that owning a MAC-10 assault weapon, or an AK-47, or an AR-15, or all three, is provided to us via the 2nd amendment. The ownership of such devices doesn't enhance our GDP, and arguably doesn't enhance our own security...although they would certainly think otherwise.
I own a few, and the only reason I use them is for play. I plink cans. I shoot clay shells. I shoot the occasional duck and goose but I can hardly call this "puttin' food on the table." I have not once used any for "self defense," or to "protect my family," or any of that other horseshit espoused by the radical right. I don't believe the mantra that "without the second amendment, there'd be no first amendment." This is nothing more than right wing, anti-government phobia in my little opinion. And it is indeed little.
What I am questioning is the assertion by these people, the ones who use guns as toys and for playthings, that the ownership of a 45-round assault rifle should be protected by the 2nd amendment. Under that argument, I suppose I can maintain my 4-round hand grenade arsenal without conviction, too, along with my 60-cal, my squad automatic weapon, and my two Claymore mines I regularly deploy to prevent unwanted trespassers on my Elk Grovian housal unit. Fuck, I might as well admit I have three Light Anti-Tank Rockets and one TOW missle at the ready, just in case you try to come after my beta-VCR or first generation I-Pod shuffle.
At what point do we accept that the ownership of sixty round assault rifles and LAW rockets is a perversion of the right to bear arms? We already illegalize my current ownership of hand grenades and Claymore mines (stolen during my service in the Army), but at what point should we do the same with the "toys" used by a few hundred thousand second-amendment diehards?
8,400 Americans were killed by firearms last year, not including the greater number of suicides by firearms. We can discount this number, yes, as we do the 40-odd thousand killed in automotive accidents. These deaths are effectually caused because a handful of grown-ups simply cannot submit to any restrictions on the toys they can have, or how they can be played with.
We will never, never!, live in a country where we can protect children in supermarket parking lots, by-standers in hair salons, or simply refrigerators from drunks.
"From my cold dead hands." Well, that's something I could agree with...
Climate Change Skepticism
I have long been something of a climate change skeptic -- not a skeptic, really, and not a denier, but perhaps I approach the subject with simple restraint -- I think it's too early to know whether or not us humans are altering climate.
However -- when I think about CFCs forty years ago and how there's [not much] denying that they caused ozone depletion, and then I think about how a million square mile hole above the Antarctic was created by the propellants in some underarm spray cans and hair mousse, well, it doesn't seem so far fetched that a few thousand coal fired power plants and seven hundred million cars might, just might, be cause for warming.
The way I see it, we are going to crack apart every last hydrocarbon chain for its stored energy regardless, because that's what we're biologically built to do -- consume natural resources. We will extract it all until there's nothing left, global warming be damned. So really, I have no interest in climate change, because I know the moment even the most stalwart environmentalists go without their coal fired electricity for one snowy New England winter night, global warming will magically cease to register as a problem.
You can see it today, where environmental legislation developed before our little economic slowdown is now being deferred. No need to bother with implementing California's diesel truck emission rules because the poor economy reduced emissions more than the new law would ever do. There are fewer cement trucks pouring new housal unit slabs these days.
What I do like about global warming is that it might act as a catalyst for creating better places to live. Perhaps we'll realize the stupidity of building Stocktonian housal units for commuters to Oakland eighty miles distant as gasoline approaches five bucks a gallon, when gasoline availability begins its inexorable global decline. While resource scarcity may not have anything to do with warming, do you think for a minute that an IT professional who commutes to the Bay Area from Tracy every day gives a damn about rising tides and the displacement of millions in Bangladesh? No way. If it raised the price of his imported Bengali collared shirts a dollar or two, ho-hum.
I say bring on cap and trade. Bring on other measures to reduce CO2. While I will not bother with the macro-climate, I will bother with the changes such legislation would bring to my bicycle riding on Franklin Boulevard. If climate change legislation reduces the volume of particulate matter I ingest while bicycling alongside diesel powered tractor trailers, well, count me in as your #1 supporter.
However -- when I think about CFCs forty years ago and how there's [not much] denying that they caused ozone depletion, and then I think about how a million square mile hole above the Antarctic was created by the propellants in some underarm spray cans and hair mousse, well, it doesn't seem so far fetched that a few thousand coal fired power plants and seven hundred million cars might, just might, be cause for warming.
The way I see it, we are going to crack apart every last hydrocarbon chain for its stored energy regardless, because that's what we're biologically built to do -- consume natural resources. We will extract it all until there's nothing left, global warming be damned. So really, I have no interest in climate change, because I know the moment even the most stalwart environmentalists go without their coal fired electricity for one snowy New England winter night, global warming will magically cease to register as a problem.
You can see it today, where environmental legislation developed before our little economic slowdown is now being deferred. No need to bother with implementing California's diesel truck emission rules because the poor economy reduced emissions more than the new law would ever do. There are fewer cement trucks pouring new housal unit slabs these days.
What I do like about global warming is that it might act as a catalyst for creating better places to live. Perhaps we'll realize the stupidity of building Stocktonian housal units for commuters to Oakland eighty miles distant as gasoline approaches five bucks a gallon, when gasoline availability begins its inexorable global decline. While resource scarcity may not have anything to do with warming, do you think for a minute that an IT professional who commutes to the Bay Area from Tracy every day gives a damn about rising tides and the displacement of millions in Bangladesh? No way. If it raised the price of his imported Bengali collared shirts a dollar or two, ho-hum.
I say bring on cap and trade. Bring on other measures to reduce CO2. While I will not bother with the macro-climate, I will bother with the changes such legislation would bring to my bicycle riding on Franklin Boulevard. If climate change legislation reduces the volume of particulate matter I ingest while bicycling alongside diesel powered tractor trailers, well, count me in as your #1 supporter.
Mort-Gage
I made mention of the "morting" of my mortgage as a consistent argument against the unsustainable nature of the way we live. I argue that if we didn't run up such massive private and public indebtedness, we'd naturally live more sustainably.
We need to import two thirds of our energy...and that percentage is only going to increase with the way my City of Elk Grove (along with how the rest of our nation) intends on expanding. We are pinning our future economic hopes on the timely extraction of Nigerian crude oil or the continued washing of Alberta tar sands. This is because we know that domestic US oil production has declined every year since 1970 and will continue to decline every year going forward for as long as we remain a nation. The US allotment has been used up; no, not entirely, but if we started producing oil in 1880 and it peaked in 1970, we can surmise that by 2075 we'll have used virtually all of it. Perhaps my kids will still be alive then, and most certainly my grand kids will be.
All for what? Suburban sprawl. WalMart's "warehouse on wheels" to enable the importation of cheap shit from Asia. Chilean grapes in February. Duck hunting in December.
The way I see it, we are still borrowing from the future to support our lifestyles. I don't want to argue that we ought to leave anything for follow-on generations -- we are incapable of that regardless. I do want to argue that if we didn't borrow from the future we'd all live better lives than we currently do.
I read an article in the Sacramento News & Review today that suggested that one of our cannabis clubs overlooks the most depressing thoroughfare in Sacramento -- Power Inn Blvd. It indeed is nothing more than an auto-dominant six lane highway, used to shuttle Elk Grovians northwards each day to their jobs in Sacramento and other ancillary cities like Rancho Cordova, and back again in the evenings. We use the single, one time allotment of fossil fuel to solo-commute heroic distances, and in my mind I believe our future generations will look upon this as a complete waste. Today, we decry the actions of men who chopped down the largest Sequioa in Calaveras County, some ninety years ago, yet they didn't think anything of what they were doing. Only in hindsight do we recognize the error of their ways.
Nonetheless, I see us as completely and irrevocably discounting the future to support our current suburban lifestyles without one fucking consideration of the impacts we are making towards our nation's future. We all know we are consuming external energy to support the excessive driving of our Muranos and Lexi and X5s and Land Rovers but because they provide us with such a sense of power and dominance over nature and each other we fail to ever question our use of them. We don't give a damn about the environmental degradation of the Nigerian coastline, so long as we get liberal, regular supplies of cheap gasoline to visit our Bay Area relatives every weekend. Let them Nigerians piss off. They're black and un-American, so fuck 'em, let them eat gruel, they ought to be happy with that.
If we couldn't buy our Altimas and Highlanders on credit, if we couldn't require our future efforts to purchase these vehicles via payments on time, and instead we were forced to develop the money ahead of time to buy these things, and instead we were forced to account for the future reduction in availability of the fuels used to power them, perhaps we'd have a better sense of the sorts of future discounting we've done to allow 95-mile round trip commutes from Elk Grove to jobs in the Bay Area. Perhaps we'd never have built 3,400 sq ft garage majals along the banks of the Consumnes River in the first place...
We need to import two thirds of our energy...and that percentage is only going to increase with the way my City of Elk Grove (along with how the rest of our nation) intends on expanding. We are pinning our future economic hopes on the timely extraction of Nigerian crude oil or the continued washing of Alberta tar sands. This is because we know that domestic US oil production has declined every year since 1970 and will continue to decline every year going forward for as long as we remain a nation. The US allotment has been used up; no, not entirely, but if we started producing oil in 1880 and it peaked in 1970, we can surmise that by 2075 we'll have used virtually all of it. Perhaps my kids will still be alive then, and most certainly my grand kids will be.
All for what? Suburban sprawl. WalMart's "warehouse on wheels" to enable the importation of cheap shit from Asia. Chilean grapes in February. Duck hunting in December.
The way I see it, we are still borrowing from the future to support our lifestyles. I don't want to argue that we ought to leave anything for follow-on generations -- we are incapable of that regardless. I do want to argue that if we didn't borrow from the future we'd all live better lives than we currently do.
I read an article in the Sacramento News & Review today that suggested that one of our cannabis clubs overlooks the most depressing thoroughfare in Sacramento -- Power Inn Blvd. It indeed is nothing more than an auto-dominant six lane highway, used to shuttle Elk Grovians northwards each day to their jobs in Sacramento and other ancillary cities like Rancho Cordova, and back again in the evenings. We use the single, one time allotment of fossil fuel to solo-commute heroic distances, and in my mind I believe our future generations will look upon this as a complete waste. Today, we decry the actions of men who chopped down the largest Sequioa in Calaveras County, some ninety years ago, yet they didn't think anything of what they were doing. Only in hindsight do we recognize the error of their ways.
Nonetheless, I see us as completely and irrevocably discounting the future to support our current suburban lifestyles without one fucking consideration of the impacts we are making towards our nation's future. We all know we are consuming external energy to support the excessive driving of our Muranos and Lexi and X5s and Land Rovers but because they provide us with such a sense of power and dominance over nature and each other we fail to ever question our use of them. We don't give a damn about the environmental degradation of the Nigerian coastline, so long as we get liberal, regular supplies of cheap gasoline to visit our Bay Area relatives every weekend. Let them Nigerians piss off. They're black and un-American, so fuck 'em, let them eat gruel, they ought to be happy with that.
If we couldn't buy our Altimas and Highlanders on credit, if we couldn't require our future efforts to purchase these vehicles via payments on time, and instead we were forced to develop the money ahead of time to buy these things, and instead we were forced to account for the future reduction in availability of the fuels used to power them, perhaps we'd have a better sense of the sorts of future discounting we've done to allow 95-mile round trip commutes from Elk Grove to jobs in the Bay Area. Perhaps we'd never have built 3,400 sq ft garage majals along the banks of the Consumnes River in the first place...
Monday, February 14, 2011
Ignorance Is Bliss
I want to ignore the national debt just like everyone else. Including you. I really think it doesn't mean much, which is why ignoring it is acceptable. The national debt (at fourteen point two trillion, $14,200,000,000,000) and/or the annual deficits (at one point four trillion, $1,400,000,000) mean nothing to the average American "consumer." Recall my argument that we are no longer American citizens -- we are simply consumers. "Consume you fuck...that's all you are good for."
Today our "economy" is wholly dependent on the borrowing of 11% of GDP and the monetization of two-thirds of all new federal debt via continous Federal Reserve purchases of debt. In my little opinion, and it is indeed little, we are simply carrying forward the same elements (excessive consumer borrowing, money for nothing, chicks for free) that caused our current condition. I suspect that our current governmental actions will cause another future "calamity" sometime during the next few years.
This is nothing more than a speculative guess from a single, meager constituent. Yet I look around me and I see the complete evisceration of manufacturing jobs where I live. There isn't one within a fifteen mile radius of where I live. I am one of those miscreants who believe that the "service" industry has to have an underlying real productive base in which to service, and as this continues to devolve, so does our economy.
I blog about this as if I care. In the end I really don't. I work in a recession/depression proof industry. I carry exceedingly low levels of personal debt. I maintain skills that would likely be sought after under every imaginable economic calamity. I could watch our economy implode and I think that I'd fare better than most, as I've somewhat better prepared for it (in my humble opinion).
Implosion is not likely. No. However, the slow demise of our "exceptionalism" is most certainly a possibility, as we 1) cannot produce our own domestic energy needs , 2) cannot manufacture anything anymore, 3) export gaming, social networking, cellularized telephone software and other trivial services that are the core of our "new" economy, and 4) fail to educate our kids relative to other nations...there are a dozen other items that I could continue with...
Our debt is conveniently and systematically being ignored by everyone. In the end it may not matter. I look around at all my "neighbors" who have magically found ways to ignore their debts through short sales, loan modifications, defaults, foreclosures, debt restructuring, settlements, or bankruptcy, and I see my city of Elk Grove that has magically found ways to ignore its debts through short sales, loan modifications, defaults, foreclosures, debt restructuring, settlements, or bankruptcy, and I see my state of California that has magically found ways to ignore its debts through short sales, loan modifications, defaults, sales of state buildings, debt restructuring, settlements, or bankruptcy,and I see my federal government that has magically found ways to ignore its debts through short sales, zero interest loans to big banks, devaluation of currency, debt restructuring, settlements, and potentially, bankruptcy.
Ignorance of our debts is certainly bliss.
Today our "economy" is wholly dependent on the borrowing of 11% of GDP and the monetization of two-thirds of all new federal debt via continous Federal Reserve purchases of debt. In my little opinion, and it is indeed little, we are simply carrying forward the same elements (excessive consumer borrowing, money for nothing, chicks for free) that caused our current condition. I suspect that our current governmental actions will cause another future "calamity" sometime during the next few years.
This is nothing more than a speculative guess from a single, meager constituent. Yet I look around me and I see the complete evisceration of manufacturing jobs where I live. There isn't one within a fifteen mile radius of where I live. I am one of those miscreants who believe that the "service" industry has to have an underlying real productive base in which to service, and as this continues to devolve, so does our economy.
I blog about this as if I care. In the end I really don't. I work in a recession/depression proof industry. I carry exceedingly low levels of personal debt. I maintain skills that would likely be sought after under every imaginable economic calamity. I could watch our economy implode and I think that I'd fare better than most, as I've somewhat better prepared for it (in my humble opinion).
Implosion is not likely. No. However, the slow demise of our "exceptionalism" is most certainly a possibility, as we 1) cannot produce our own domestic energy needs , 2) cannot manufacture anything anymore, 3) export gaming, social networking, cellularized telephone software and other trivial services that are the core of our "new" economy, and 4) fail to educate our kids relative to other nations...there are a dozen other items that I could continue with...
Our debt is conveniently and systematically being ignored by everyone. In the end it may not matter. I look around at all my "neighbors" who have magically found ways to ignore their debts through short sales, loan modifications, defaults, foreclosures, debt restructuring, settlements, or bankruptcy, and I see my city of Elk Grove that has magically found ways to ignore its debts through short sales, loan modifications, defaults, foreclosures, debt restructuring, settlements, or bankruptcy, and I see my state of California that has magically found ways to ignore its debts through short sales, loan modifications, defaults, sales of state buildings, debt restructuring, settlements, or bankruptcy,and I see my federal government that has magically found ways to ignore its debts through short sales, zero interest loans to big banks, devaluation of currency, debt restructuring, settlements, and potentially, bankruptcy.
Ignorance of our debts is certainly bliss.
Just Don't Crash
As a citizen of the auto-brutalized city of Elk Grove, I commute to work each day to Sacramento, as do the vast, vast majority of Elk Grovians. Elk Grove holds only a handful of jobs worthy of its median cost of housing, so most of us commute -- a half million person/miles each day, to SACTOWN, to OAKTOWN, to Marysville, to where ever...
The City of Sacramento recently approved a crash tax, intended on forcing Elk Grovians who commute there and cause a accident to pay for the fire, ambulatory, or other costs associated with their bad driving habits that result in an accident.
I was on the fence regarding this measure. On one hand, I congratulate cities who realize that importing drivers to their jobs creates an unfair burden on their residents by having to fund public safety personnel for imported accidents, but on the other hand, I realize Elk Grovians are already taxed to provide these services as Elk Grovians.
In the end I embrace the idea of crash taxes. Let the assholes who cause accidents pay for them.
Today while at my cousin's house I witnessed a ~25 year-old Hispanic five houses down exit his driveway in his Silverado and gun it all the way to the stop sign. His windows were down. His left arm was resting on the window sill. He was clearly expressing his machismo by acting like a selfish fucking prick racing himself down a residential street. If he were an out-of-towner and he caused a wreck I would have no problem assigning him the costs associated with it. As it is, as a [presumably] Sacramentan, the costs associated with the future wreck(s) he'll cause will be absorbed by Sacramento taxpayers. In the end I have no problem with the causality of wrecks -- let those who cause them pay for them.
Commenters far and wide decry this as a means to "drive people out of the city." Another commenter says "get back to work and stop wasting my tax dollars on ways to tax the people or get out of office."
This is why I rarely read the comment sections on Sacbee.com or other media. The responses are too often badly worded, misspelled, totally incoherent, or just pointless. "Get back to work and stop wasting my tax dollars on ways to tax the people..." Back to work doing what?"
I will support this crash tax. I will ignore bloggers' comments that this will "incentivize people to shop elsewhere other than Sacramento." Tell me -- when was the last time you heard of anyone make a conscious decision to not shop a particular location because of the potential for taxation? This nation is full of ignorant, sophomoric, mindless consumers -- do you really think that a conscientious shopper means anything to a corporation already selling gobs of shit to a third of a billion other mass consumers who don't give a fuck about anything other than price?
Please.
Simply, drive carefully in Sacramento if you want to avoid the crash tax. What harm can come from following that advice, huh?
The City of Sacramento recently approved a crash tax, intended on forcing Elk Grovians who commute there and cause a accident to pay for the fire, ambulatory, or other costs associated with their bad driving habits that result in an accident.
I was on the fence regarding this measure. On one hand, I congratulate cities who realize that importing drivers to their jobs creates an unfair burden on their residents by having to fund public safety personnel for imported accidents, but on the other hand, I realize Elk Grovians are already taxed to provide these services as Elk Grovians.
In the end I embrace the idea of crash taxes. Let the assholes who cause accidents pay for them.
Today while at my cousin's house I witnessed a ~25 year-old Hispanic five houses down exit his driveway in his Silverado and gun it all the way to the stop sign. His windows were down. His left arm was resting on the window sill. He was clearly expressing his machismo by acting like a selfish fucking prick racing himself down a residential street. If he were an out-of-towner and he caused a wreck I would have no problem assigning him the costs associated with it. As it is, as a [presumably] Sacramentan, the costs associated with the future wreck(s) he'll cause will be absorbed by Sacramento taxpayers. In the end I have no problem with the causality of wrecks -- let those who cause them pay for them.
Commenters far and wide decry this as a means to "drive people out of the city." Another commenter says "get back to work and stop wasting my tax dollars on ways to tax the people or get out of office."
This is why I rarely read the comment sections on Sacbee.com or other media. The responses are too often badly worded, misspelled, totally incoherent, or just pointless. "Get back to work and stop wasting my tax dollars on ways to tax the people..." Back to work doing what?"
I will support this crash tax. I will ignore bloggers' comments that this will "incentivize people to shop elsewhere other than Sacramento." Tell me -- when was the last time you heard of anyone make a conscious decision to not shop a particular location because of the potential for taxation? This nation is full of ignorant, sophomoric, mindless consumers -- do you really think that a conscientious shopper means anything to a corporation already selling gobs of shit to a third of a billion other mass consumers who don't give a fuck about anything other than price?
Please.
Simply, drive carefully in Sacramento if you want to avoid the crash tax. What harm can come from following that advice, huh?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Double Digits
I don't need a graphical description of the rising costs of healthcare in our greatest nation in the world:
No, I can look at my paycheck and see the double digit annual increase in premiums for myself.
This exponential growth might, just might, be acceptable if there was a concomitant increase in the real health of our nation's inhabitants and if we knew this exponential growth would slake at some future point.
But there isn't, and arguably we're seeing a decline in our real health, as we allow increasingly subsidized corn syrup to take on a greater share of our diets, as we allow suburban development out on the fringes of civilization to prevent people from walking to take care of basic living needs. We are living longer, indeed. But push that graph out another fifty years. Can we accept 75% of our GDP to be used for cat scans and pharmaceuticals when we coulda just walked the dog thirty minutes a day?
No, I can look at my paycheck and see the double digit annual increase in premiums for myself.
This exponential growth might, just might, be acceptable if there was a concomitant increase in the real health of our nation's inhabitants and if we knew this exponential growth would slake at some future point.
But there isn't, and arguably we're seeing a decline in our real health, as we allow increasingly subsidized corn syrup to take on a greater share of our diets, as we allow suburban development out on the fringes of civilization to prevent people from walking to take care of basic living needs. We are living longer, indeed. But push that graph out another fifty years. Can we accept 75% of our GDP to be used for cat scans and pharmaceuticals when we coulda just walked the dog thirty minutes a day?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Socialized Costs
"Privatize the profits and socialize the losses."
This has been oft repeated during our recently-extinguished minor economic slowdown; you know, the recession that's been in our rear view mirror for the past fourteen months. Every time we think of the Goldman Sachs bailout or that which was bestowed upon General Motors, this phrase comes to mind.
I think, however, the better phrase would be "privatize the profits and socialize the costs." This is the way we've been doing things for the past few decades, where we've discretely discounted the future for the sake of short-term economic benefits.
I'll offer up examples where we actively socialize costs:
I wonder why we've been so complicit in the hosing we've gotten. It's been slowing working for several generations now. Was this sorta thing inevitable?
This has been oft repeated during our recently-extinguished minor economic slowdown; you know, the recession that's been in our rear view mirror for the past fourteen months. Every time we think of the Goldman Sachs bailout or that which was bestowed upon General Motors, this phrase comes to mind.
I think, however, the better phrase would be "privatize the profits and socialize the costs." This is the way we've been doing things for the past few decades, where we've discretely discounted the future for the sake of short-term economic benefits.
I'll offer up examples where we actively socialize costs:
- The assignment of cheap labor to manufacture things in foreign nations whose environmental laws are less onerous. We socialize the costs of 8,350 mile shipping routes as we leave trails of oceanic, atmospheric and localized pollution in their wake.
- We allow suburban sprawl developers to reap profits while increased traffic and stupendous energy requirements are then placed on the shoulders of those who move there (to the "cheap" subdivisions).
- Target and Kohls can freely utilize the taxpayer's funding of miles of roadways to keep their warehouses on wheels rolling, selling cheap imported shit while passing the costs of traffic and road maintenance to the taxpayer instead of the user through higher diesel taxes.
- Sarah Palin splatters how Joe the Plumber thinks universal health care "sounds like socialism," yet the socialized costs of taking care of millions of uninsured by the healthcare industry still occurs.
- Bank of America's credit card division eliminates hundreds of human call center employees who can easily route calls for customers and installs computerized call routing, laying the "costs" of frustration and failed routing onto their customers.
- WalMart sets up operations on cheap land on the suburban fringe and destroys the middle class economy of small towns while we go along for the ride because of the "greater good" of saving five dollars on an imported stapler.
- The "cost" of cheap Chinese merchandise manifests itself in broken staplers every two years instead of twelve, causing us to shitcan them sooner, causing more frustration than what would have otherwise occured, adding the costs of diesel machinery to dispose of this stuff in local (and sometimes distant) landfills.
- Our "richest nation in the world" is an amazing panorama of ruined cities with broken institutions and demoralized populations surrounded by Big Box Meccas and decaying suburban rings...don't tell me that's not a "cost."
- Access to liberal and cheap supplies of diesel to allow Home Depot to move imported "housal unit improvement" merchandise from Asia to Albany is fostered through multiple foreign wars and the supporting of "unfriendly" regimes who sit atop 60% of all remaining oil.
I wonder why we've been so complicit in the hosing we've gotten. It's been slowing working for several generations now. Was this sorta thing inevitable?
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Mortgage Burning Party
Today is the first Thursday of the month and I made my third to last housal unit payment this afternoon. Only two left.
It may come off odd, but I will admit that for the past eighteen years I have always enjoyed making my housal unit payment. I think it's because I fastidiously kept track of my mortgage -- it's something of an amusement to watch my balance decrease each month.
Since 1997 I've been keeping track of my finances via an Excel spreadsheet, and as a consequence I had my mortgage laid out before me each and every month. I'll go out on a limb and assume that the vast, vast majority of mortgagee's don't do this, and indeed, bury their heads in the proverbial sand regarding the amount of mortgage debt they carry. By doing so, they never actively attempt to reduce it, to pay it off faster, to remain cognizant of their obligations. They pay their minimum and get back to the NASCAR race on the HDTV, or, perhaps go out and finance that new GMC Yukon instead.
Fair enough.
There's no doubt that I cannot devote time and energy to any number of other things, either. Eliminating my mortgage has simply been a priority of mine for as long as I've been a housal unit owner, and it's taken dedicated, continuous, unwavering, constant, unyielding, fastidious and steadfast effort on my part to get where I am today. I gloat about it on this blog. I admit that. This is going to be a defining moment for me, this April, yes. I have no qualms about telling everyone I know how close I am to paying this thing off.
And I'm worried about the person I'll become afterwards.
What will become of me? Will I go blow my paychecks at Red Hawk (kreee-ee-ahhh) Casino? If I have nothing to pay off anymore, what will I gloat about? In some sense, the act of reducing debt has been an identifying trait, yet without debt I lose that identity.
This may seem completely absurd. I realize that. But I am what I am. I lose something that I've been focusing on for a dozen years.
Do you remember the show Eight Is Enough? I distinctly remember an episode where Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten) throws a mortgage burning party. That was October 19th, 1977. I've had a burning party in mind for thirty four years. I have, since that time, thought about throwing my own mortgage burning party. But I also have reservations.
Is a mortgage burning party acceptable? Who do I invite? Will I get support and congratulations, or will it be muted hatred and jealousy? Am I just trying to show off against others my age who are still sitting on 6-figure balances? Are these in vogue these days? It is gloating? Is it showing off?
The truth is, had I ever been invited to someone else's burning party (and I haven't), I'm positive that would have lit a fire under my ass to pay off my mortgage even faster than I did. I see this as an opportunity to show others that this kinda thing is possible, even if it takes dedicated, continuous, unwavering, constant, unyielding, fastidious and steadfast effort.
These days, people throw parties when someone dies. I don't really think a mortgage burning party is all that odd, and if its construed as gloating, well, then some people can just decline the invite. I could see it as gloating if I hadn't paid every nickel of my mortgage myself. I didn't get an inheritance or a lottery windfall or paid it off via some other form of unearned riches. This was all my own effort. There's no gloating about that.
I have always thought about this. I've considered spending the equivalent of one month's payment on a party...this would throw a hecka good one. I thought about buying a good bottle of 1995 wine, the year I started my mortgage, and finishing it off at the party. Kobe beef, ostrich sausage, New Zealand lamb, homebrew and the best professional brews on the menu. I thought about exactly how I'd burn the papers -- I want to make sure I don't inadvertently burn my housal unit down in the process -- how ironic that would be.
I was perhaps thinking maybe I'd follow the old convention of drilling a hole in the newel post on my stairway, deposit the papers (or their ashes) in there, and then cap it with an ivory button, called the mortgage button. This will then be a reminder every day that this fucker is paid for.
It may come off odd, but I will admit that for the past eighteen years I have always enjoyed making my housal unit payment. I think it's because I fastidiously kept track of my mortgage -- it's something of an amusement to watch my balance decrease each month.
Since 1997 I've been keeping track of my finances via an Excel spreadsheet, and as a consequence I had my mortgage laid out before me each and every month. I'll go out on a limb and assume that the vast, vast majority of mortgagee's don't do this, and indeed, bury their heads in the proverbial sand regarding the amount of mortgage debt they carry. By doing so, they never actively attempt to reduce it, to pay it off faster, to remain cognizant of their obligations. They pay their minimum and get back to the NASCAR race on the HDTV, or, perhaps go out and finance that new GMC Yukon instead.
Fair enough.
There's no doubt that I cannot devote time and energy to any number of other things, either. Eliminating my mortgage has simply been a priority of mine for as long as I've been a housal unit owner, and it's taken dedicated, continuous, unwavering, constant, unyielding, fastidious and steadfast effort on my part to get where I am today. I gloat about it on this blog. I admit that. This is going to be a defining moment for me, this April, yes. I have no qualms about telling everyone I know how close I am to paying this thing off.
And I'm worried about the person I'll become afterwards.
What will become of me? Will I go blow my paychecks at Red Hawk (kreee-ee-ahhh) Casino? If I have nothing to pay off anymore, what will I gloat about? In some sense, the act of reducing debt has been an identifying trait, yet without debt I lose that identity.
This may seem completely absurd. I realize that. But I am what I am. I lose something that I've been focusing on for a dozen years.
Do you remember the show Eight Is Enough? I distinctly remember an episode where Tom Bradford (Dick Van Patten) throws a mortgage burning party. That was October 19th, 1977. I've had a burning party in mind for thirty four years. I have, since that time, thought about throwing my own mortgage burning party. But I also have reservations.
Is a mortgage burning party acceptable? Who do I invite? Will I get support and congratulations, or will it be muted hatred and jealousy? Am I just trying to show off against others my age who are still sitting on 6-figure balances? Are these in vogue these days? It is gloating? Is it showing off?
The truth is, had I ever been invited to someone else's burning party (and I haven't), I'm positive that would have lit a fire under my ass to pay off my mortgage even faster than I did. I see this as an opportunity to show others that this kinda thing is possible, even if it takes dedicated, continuous, unwavering, constant, unyielding, fastidious and steadfast effort.
These days, people throw parties when someone dies. I don't really think a mortgage burning party is all that odd, and if its construed as gloating, well, then some people can just decline the invite. I could see it as gloating if I hadn't paid every nickel of my mortgage myself. I didn't get an inheritance or a lottery windfall or paid it off via some other form of unearned riches. This was all my own effort. There's no gloating about that.
I have always thought about this. I've considered spending the equivalent of one month's payment on a party...this would throw a hecka good one. I thought about buying a good bottle of 1995 wine, the year I started my mortgage, and finishing it off at the party. Kobe beef, ostrich sausage, New Zealand lamb, homebrew and the best professional brews on the menu. I thought about exactly how I'd burn the papers -- I want to make sure I don't inadvertently burn my housal unit down in the process -- how ironic that would be.
I was perhaps thinking maybe I'd follow the old convention of drilling a hole in the newel post on my stairway, deposit the papers (or their ashes) in there, and then cap it with an ivory button, called the mortgage button. This will then be a reminder every day that this fucker is paid for.
The Bully Of The Block
Never seen such backed up traffic on S Street than this afternoon. As I left the SMUD parking lot on bicycle I could see the stacked up traffic halfway between 65th street and 59th. This is where I really enjoy bicycling, knowing that I get to avoid all that, compared to being a solo occupant vehicular commuter.
I have no patience as a vehicular commuter. I have no idea why, but that's what it is. I have to assume that everyone else can manage their 35 yearly hours stuck in Sacramento traffic better than I, because I know I can't. I get frustrated easily. I get pissed off. I can't handle people who don't signal. But people who don't signal outnumber those who do signal.
I now realize that, and consequently I'm a much more sober driver now. I know that getting pissed at all you doesn't solve anything, as I can't ram you with my truck, or force you off the road, or cause you an accident, or anything else. Many of you are, simply, assholes. I've come to expect that I have to live amongst you. There's nothing I can do.
Nonetheless, that realization has been somewhat liberating. I no longer try to stop you from cutting into the through-lane from an exit-only lane -- I just accept it. I'm a lot more forgiving, but only for my own sake. I still think most of you are assholes, and these thoughts are still there, yes. But I don't get quite so upset these days.
Someday I will get the opportunity to witness a crash. It hasn't happened yet, but someday I might. I think about how I'd react. I think about what it would take to pull one of these people out of a burning car, or something like that. Truthfully, I think that I would be more damaging to them that the accident they just caused. I don't think I could contain myself. I'd likely kick the shit out of an already injured asshole, just because, and I wouldn't have any regrets doing so.
It's unfortunate that I think this way, but I cannot help myself. It's who I am. I feel the need to extract revenge against people who routinely fucker away their responsibilities towards others, towards the society they live in.
It's the bully in high school. It's the same thing as being a harassed kid hoping that something bad would befall the bully. Watching a bully (or bad driver) take his lumps would be completely satisfying. I think this is nothing more than human nature, at least for those of us who normally respect others.
I was able to weave in between a quarter mile of stacked up traffic on S Street this afternoon and it felt good...it always feels good because I know what I'm avoiding by not driving my vehicular unit. Along with getting a workout, riding alongside stacked traffic is about as good as it gets. I have no problems with feeling this way, 1) because traffic isn't normally stalled, 2) if I were driving I'd be contributing to everyone else's traffic as there would be one more car on the road, and 3) I have an intrinsic hatred toward extreme auto dependency.
This makes me want to get on the bike each morning, with a hangover, with sore quads, when I'm cold, when it's drizzling, whatever.
I have no patience as a vehicular commuter. I have no idea why, but that's what it is. I have to assume that everyone else can manage their 35 yearly hours stuck in Sacramento traffic better than I, because I know I can't. I get frustrated easily. I get pissed off. I can't handle people who don't signal. But people who don't signal outnumber those who do signal.
I now realize that, and consequently I'm a much more sober driver now. I know that getting pissed at all you doesn't solve anything, as I can't ram you with my truck, or force you off the road, or cause you an accident, or anything else. Many of you are, simply, assholes. I've come to expect that I have to live amongst you. There's nothing I can do.
Nonetheless, that realization has been somewhat liberating. I no longer try to stop you from cutting into the through-lane from an exit-only lane -- I just accept it. I'm a lot more forgiving, but only for my own sake. I still think most of you are assholes, and these thoughts are still there, yes. But I don't get quite so upset these days.
Someday I will get the opportunity to witness a crash. It hasn't happened yet, but someday I might. I think about how I'd react. I think about what it would take to pull one of these people out of a burning car, or something like that. Truthfully, I think that I would be more damaging to them that the accident they just caused. I don't think I could contain myself. I'd likely kick the shit out of an already injured asshole, just because, and I wouldn't have any regrets doing so.
It's unfortunate that I think this way, but I cannot help myself. It's who I am. I feel the need to extract revenge against people who routinely fucker away their responsibilities towards others, towards the society they live in.
It's the bully in high school. It's the same thing as being a harassed kid hoping that something bad would befall the bully. Watching a bully (or bad driver) take his lumps would be completely satisfying. I think this is nothing more than human nature, at least for those of us who normally respect others.
I was able to weave in between a quarter mile of stacked up traffic on S Street this afternoon and it felt good...it always feels good because I know what I'm avoiding by not driving my vehicular unit. Along with getting a workout, riding alongside stacked traffic is about as good as it gets. I have no problems with feeling this way, 1) because traffic isn't normally stalled, 2) if I were driving I'd be contributing to everyone else's traffic as there would be one more car on the road, and 3) I have an intrinsic hatred toward extreme auto dependency.
This makes me want to get on the bike each morning, with a hangover, with sore quads, when I'm cold, when it's drizzling, whatever.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Zero-G Network
We are definitely witnessing a resurgence in conspicuous consumption. I saw it on the roadway today -- quite a few SUVs with their $4,500 rims and low profile tires and, interestingly, tinted side windows.
This has long been illegal in this state but somehow there are quite a few who purposely disregard that law and somehow they're still driving around. It just probably isn't enforced, much like driving while using the cellularized telephone. Ho-hum.
Can't say that I don't willfully ignore the law, though. On occasion I blow through a red light on the bike. When no one's around. There's the crucial difference -- it's not that I do so to be conspicuous, unlike some alpha male jackoff who has every intention of flaunting his Escalade's tinted windows because he knows it's illegal. I wonder if conspicuous consumption is common in other societies. I will say that yes, it likely exists, but with some caveats. I'd wager it isn't something the middle class of other societies do, rather it's probably held to those who are much higher up the economic totem.
As for me I think that I've reached my consumptive limit, sometime back in 2007. All my needs are met, I don't particularly strive for anything new, and indeed I more or less limit my purchases to replacement items these days.
I brew beer and on occasion I think about a new brew tree or a recirculating wort chiller or stainless fermenter, etc., but I realize my old turkey fryer and a white plastic bucket do just fine. The turkey fryer also fries turkeys, how about that. I spend some replacement money on new tubing, or a new cork or some bottle caps, yes. But my needs have been met with what I have.
Same with my cellularized telephone, a hand me down. Five, maybe six years old. It's on the Zero-G network, a good five generations behind. I can find my way around town just find without a nav app, thank you very much. I can find an Italian restaurant, too. My 1996 California paper map works just fine -- we're only adding/expanding onto freeways that already existed back then.
Still have a standard television. It ain't wide screen, it ain't HD, has no HDMI inputs. It's big, yes, but it still works. Doin' fine.
My 1997 bicycle has 14,000 miles on it and I'd like to put another 44,000 on it. No intention of replacing it with a carbon fiber unit or other such technological wizardry just because I can. It works fine. Just gotta keep up with the maintenance, that's not too hard.
I'd go on and on but you get my drift. I have reached the point of saturation, where any further consumerism on my part would be artificial. My intrinsic needs have clearly been met...and arguably I'm better off than many, which would lead some to argue that if I didn't have the housal unit or the boat or the three cars or the XXX already then I'd be clamoring for more. Perhaps, but I don't think so.
I hit that consumptive limit in 2007, when I decided I'd had enough having stuff. It became clearer to me that material ownership isn't that critical -- that social ownership is more valuable. Social capital is something that I strive to improve these days although with mixed reviews. This is a tough one for me, but nonetheless the consumption of a new vehicle or housal unit or bicycle or iPhone won't allow me to reach that any faster or better. Today we find artificial demand pumped into us by excessive advertising and marketing and of course we can't afford all that new stuff so we borrow from the future to gain access to those goods today...hence a nation full of personal debtors, personal bankruptcies, municipal debts, city debts, state debts and federal debts.
Not only are my needs met but satiety is achieved, along with carrying very little debt. Not a bad place to live in, I should say...
This has long been illegal in this state but somehow there are quite a few who purposely disregard that law and somehow they're still driving around. It just probably isn't enforced, much like driving while using the cellularized telephone. Ho-hum.
Can't say that I don't willfully ignore the law, though. On occasion I blow through a red light on the bike. When no one's around. There's the crucial difference -- it's not that I do so to be conspicuous, unlike some alpha male jackoff who has every intention of flaunting his Escalade's tinted windows because he knows it's illegal. I wonder if conspicuous consumption is common in other societies. I will say that yes, it likely exists, but with some caveats. I'd wager it isn't something the middle class of other societies do, rather it's probably held to those who are much higher up the economic totem.
As for me I think that I've reached my consumptive limit, sometime back in 2007. All my needs are met, I don't particularly strive for anything new, and indeed I more or less limit my purchases to replacement items these days.
I brew beer and on occasion I think about a new brew tree or a recirculating wort chiller or stainless fermenter, etc., but I realize my old turkey fryer and a white plastic bucket do just fine. The turkey fryer also fries turkeys, how about that. I spend some replacement money on new tubing, or a new cork or some bottle caps, yes. But my needs have been met with what I have.
Same with my cellularized telephone, a hand me down. Five, maybe six years old. It's on the Zero-G network, a good five generations behind. I can find my way around town just find without a nav app, thank you very much. I can find an Italian restaurant, too. My 1996 California paper map works just fine -- we're only adding/expanding onto freeways that already existed back then.
Still have a standard television. It ain't wide screen, it ain't HD, has no HDMI inputs. It's big, yes, but it still works. Doin' fine.
My 1997 bicycle has 14,000 miles on it and I'd like to put another 44,000 on it. No intention of replacing it with a carbon fiber unit or other such technological wizardry just because I can. It works fine. Just gotta keep up with the maintenance, that's not too hard.
I'd go on and on but you get my drift. I have reached the point of saturation, where any further consumerism on my part would be artificial. My intrinsic needs have clearly been met...and arguably I'm better off than many, which would lead some to argue that if I didn't have the housal unit or the boat or the three cars or the XXX already then I'd be clamoring for more. Perhaps, but I don't think so.
I hit that consumptive limit in 2007, when I decided I'd had enough having stuff. It became clearer to me that material ownership isn't that critical -- that social ownership is more valuable. Social capital is something that I strive to improve these days although with mixed reviews. This is a tough one for me, but nonetheless the consumption of a new vehicle or housal unit or bicycle or iPhone won't allow me to reach that any faster or better. Today we find artificial demand pumped into us by excessive advertising and marketing and of course we can't afford all that new stuff so we borrow from the future to gain access to those goods today...hence a nation full of personal debtors, personal bankruptcies, municipal debts, city debts, state debts and federal debts.
Not only are my needs met but satiety is achieved, along with carrying very little debt. Not a bad place to live in, I should say...
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Thundering Herd
I dropped the boy off at school today via private motorized vehicle. I am not going to work today, yet as I was driving the kid I was able to witness the rest of the Elk Grove Thundering Herd go about their daily ritual of grinding out solo commutes to work in other cities.
I'm impressed by the quality of their vehicular units. Very few drive cars like mine, a Honda Civic. No, they were mostly SUVs and light duty trucks and mid-sized sedans, but not too many economy cars. I'd wager the average value of each of these units at about $23,000 a piece.
Take a look at the following graph of oil consumption by nation:
then look around your own neighborhood. It's not hard to understand how we consume a quarter of the world's oil, and we do so for such trivial things...like driving a fourteen year old boy to school.
There is no doubt that China and India will develop (they are developing) their own suburban enclaves that will encircle their old cities, as people there will tire of pollution plagued environments and seek to escape to the fresh air of the suburbs twenty two miles distant. They'll still need to work in those same cities, so these nation's inhabitants will grind out their own commutes. They are developing, and you can see from the graph that even during a global economic slowdown they've increased their consumption. Our consumption dropped significantly due to the popping of our hallucinated economic bubble. We don't manufacture anything anymore, nor are we bulldozing tens of thousands of acres annually to build new sprawl (only 351,000 new housal units were built last year), so a lot less oil is being consumed here. For now.
The investment we've plowed into our roads and bridges and our beautiful private vehicles is all so dependent on easy, cheap access to 18.6 million barrels of oil a day, or 6.8 billion barrels per year. All of ANWR has 10 billion barrels.
So the entirety of Alaska's Arctic Refuge is but for less than two years of continued Elk Grovian commuting to work. Our economy loves to stress the value of purchasing more fuel efficient vehicles or perhaps even batterized ones, claiming a whopping 30% savings in annual fuel costs yet all you'd have to do to get a 50% reduction is to fill that seat next to you with another soul and have no capital outlays whatsoever by doing so. No capital outlays while increasing your social capital. There's an idea that's past due.
But we'd rather trade our $23,000 gasoline cars in for $35,000 batterized cars and continue to drive solo sixty miles a day to our cubicles in other cities. And for that, I should thank you for keeping our economy afloat for a few years longer. I will do my part and drive my boy home from school today.
I'm impressed by the quality of their vehicular units. Very few drive cars like mine, a Honda Civic. No, they were mostly SUVs and light duty trucks and mid-sized sedans, but not too many economy cars. I'd wager the average value of each of these units at about $23,000 a piece.
Take a look at the following graph of oil consumption by nation:
then look around your own neighborhood. It's not hard to understand how we consume a quarter of the world's oil, and we do so for such trivial things...like driving a fourteen year old boy to school.
There is no doubt that China and India will develop (they are developing) their own suburban enclaves that will encircle their old cities, as people there will tire of pollution plagued environments and seek to escape to the fresh air of the suburbs twenty two miles distant. They'll still need to work in those same cities, so these nation's inhabitants will grind out their own commutes. They are developing, and you can see from the graph that even during a global economic slowdown they've increased their consumption. Our consumption dropped significantly due to the popping of our hallucinated economic bubble. We don't manufacture anything anymore, nor are we bulldozing tens of thousands of acres annually to build new sprawl (only 351,000 new housal units were built last year), so a lot less oil is being consumed here. For now.
The investment we've plowed into our roads and bridges and our beautiful private vehicles is all so dependent on easy, cheap access to 18.6 million barrels of oil a day, or 6.8 billion barrels per year. All of ANWR has 10 billion barrels.
So the entirety of Alaska's Arctic Refuge is but for less than two years of continued Elk Grovian commuting to work. Our economy loves to stress the value of purchasing more fuel efficient vehicles or perhaps even batterized ones, claiming a whopping 30% savings in annual fuel costs yet all you'd have to do to get a 50% reduction is to fill that seat next to you with another soul and have no capital outlays whatsoever by doing so. No capital outlays while increasing your social capital. There's an idea that's past due.
But we'd rather trade our $23,000 gasoline cars in for $35,000 batterized cars and continue to drive solo sixty miles a day to our cubicles in other cities. And for that, I should thank you for keeping our economy afloat for a few years longer. I will do my part and drive my boy home from school today.
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