Category: Reality

The lived world, as experienced by direct observation and scientific analysis of data.

The Real Cause of Unemployment: Automated and Outsourced Over-Production

May 13, 2014

In a growth economy, new jobs are created on a regular basis because new production expands the employment base. In a shrinking economy, just the opposite happens. The U.S. and most of the industrial world have enjoyed the benefits of expanded production and employment for many decades, minus the occasional downswings of the “business cycle,” … More The Real Cause of Unemployment: Automated and Outsourced Over-Production

The Incredible Darkness of Being…a Cop: Warrior or Peacemaker in a Dangerous World. Part II

April 11, 2014

We Americans have a strange schizoid view of public service. A dedicated Santa Fe school teacher finally quit recently, because he had a family to support and he could make much more clerking at Trader Joe’s with better and cheaper health insurance, working much fewer hours and not having to take his work home every … More The Incredible Darkness of Being…a Cop: Warrior or Peacemaker in a Dangerous World. Part II

The Great Jobs Myth and the Transformation of the Growth Economy, Part I

January 30, 2014

A lot of congressional politicians and media pundits of both Republican and Democratic persuasion are jabbering these days about “job creation.”  The 2014 mid-term elections are fast approaching and nobody wants to be caught looking indifferent to the lack of jobs for an increasingly large numbers of Americans. Their approaches are different, of course.  The … More The Great Jobs Myth and the Transformation of the Growth Economy, Part I

What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part III

January 18, 2014

The economics profession provides the ideology, the corporations fund the politicians and their lobbyists write the legislation, the congress formalizes the legal cover and the stacked courts confirm it, the Federal Reserve provides the “fractional reserve” lending authority, and the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe” direct capital to drive the endless-growth economy that is … More What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part III

What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part II

January 16, 2014

The reality we face in the coming decades involves three integrated crises: 1) the consolidation of the corporate state driven by the debt-based endless corporate-growth economy, which increasingly damages populations by isolating them from economic resources and destroys the environment we all need, in service to short-term profit and political power; 2) accelerating resource depletion … More What It Will Take: Living in a World We Made But Never Expected to See, Part II

Individualism and Its Discontents

November 30, 2013

Why Our Culture Keeps Us from the Pursuit of Happiness Individualism may be the most entrenched and pervasive icon of American civilization.  After all, personal liberty was one of the founding principles of the republic formed in rebellion against the oppressive rule of the British monarchy and its economic elite.  Rarely mentioned, however, is the … More Individualism and Its Discontents