Capital Bikeshare via kwout

Now DC is getting in the fun with Capital Bikeshare. From their website, it looks like the program is just about identical to B-cycle. I signed up in a hurry–$50 well spent to support a great program.

Even though I own a bicycle, there are some great benefits:

1. No need to worry about my bike getting stolen or mangled in a public rack
2. One way trips are easy
3. The bikes are designed for city cruising (with fenders, baskets, lights, and chain covers)

So check it out! Capital Bikeshare!

1. Cut taxes for the rich and for businesses (see: Republican Party)
2. Use government spending as a stimulus (see: Democratic Party)

Let’s take a look at #1. The logic goes as follows: If I’m a business owner and my tax bill goes down, I will have more money to hire employees and will thusly create jobs.

There’s just one problem: in today’s economic reality, it’s pure fantasy. To illustrate why, consider a quote from a visionary businessman, Henry Ford.

“It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.”

Therein lies the rub. Businesses have shed jobs and are not hiring because demand is much lower. Regardless of how much or how little they pay in taxes, there is no incentive to hire any more employees than required to meet demand. Ford understood this, which is why he focused on reducing prices while simultaneously paying his workers higher than the prevailing wage–by increasing the number of potential customers (many of whom were also employees) he could grow the business.

This is the theory behind government spending, unemployment benefits, and tax cuts for the poor and middle class. Only by increasing demand can we expect to increase employment and grow the economy. Cutting taxes for the richest 2% is beyond foolish–it’s reckless.

I’ve been cooking up some good ideas that will hopefully materialize shortly. In the meantime, here’s a photo of me and Arvind at the summit of Mt. Sneffels near Ouray, Colorado. 14,150 feet of fun!

Imagine if we went back to a time when most children road bicycles as their primary form of transportation (instead of as passengers in Mom or Dad’s SUV). A child could put in at least 6-10 years of bicycling before they ever got behind the wheel of a car. By internalizing the skills of defensive driving, I think it’s a reasonable conclusion that they would be much safer drivers once they got a license at age 16.

What would it take to get kids on bicycles? I can think of two hurdles:

1. Many people buy bicycles in a big box store like Walmart or Target. They cost $100 and 100% garbage. These bikes are extremely heavy, poorly assembled, and feature inferior components. Due to the increased weight, rolling resistance, and friction, riding one of these bicycles is not fun at all. I don’t blame kids for letting their Huffy grow dusty in the back of the garage. Real bicycles are purchased at a bicycle shop and cost $200-500. This may seem like a lot, but a well-built and well-maintained bicycle will easily last 25 years if not more.

2. Our suburban landscape is not at all bicycle friendly. Many kids in the US live on a cul-de-sac or feeder road that leads directly to a 2- or 4-lane highway. This is not conducive to bicycling whatsoever. Fortunately, many communities are building bicycle lanes and dedicated bicycle paths. I suspect that this trend will continue as gas prices rise again into the $4 range and bicycling is seen as a more attractive mode for kids and adults alike.

As the icing on the cake, getting more kids onto bicycles is a great way to fight childhood obesity. A casual bike ride to and from school every day would do wonders for our youth.

Here’s a video from 1947 produced by the Defense Department warning Americans about the dangers of false leaders. Jump to 2:15 and see if you can relate it to any of the loud voices in contemporary times.

Excerpt:
“Now friends, I’m just an average American. But I’m an American American. . . and I ask you, if we allow these things to go along, what’s going to become of us Real Americans?”

Right?

Now can we please agree that regulation is NOT Socialism? Rather, smart regulation actually enforces the level playing field upon which free markets thrive.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

–Charles Darwin

Keep this in mind next time you hear a blow-hard politician or “expert” spouting off some nonsense.

I had a hunch that our collective psyche wasn’t all smiles, but I didn’t realize it was this bad. 10 out of the top 10 are used to treat either depression or anxiety (or both). And looking at the total number of each prescription used, a shocking high percentage of Americans must be on one or more of these drugs. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not well.

What could be causing such a widespread incidence of these mental diseases? Without bothering to actually read any of the medical/scientific literature, I have a few guesses:

The American Dream is dying. There was a time not so long ago when some honest hard work and perseverance was a ticket to the comfortable middle class. For most of us, that’s just not true anymore. We’ve watched as real wages hit a plateau in the 1980s and haven’t increased much since. We just lived through a catastrophic real estate boom & bust that cut us twice: first the middle class watched their single largest investment lose half its value, then we were forced to bail out the big banks that exacerbated the crash with our tax dollars. Ouch. Now we’re on the verge of the Baby Boomers retiring and all we hear from Washington is that Social Security is broke, Medicare is broke, and our debt is going to crush our economy. Not a good time for the dreamers.

We’re surrounded by hucksters, fraudsters, charlatans, swindlers, and flimflammers. Big business can’t be trusted. The “health care” industry is screwing us. Politicians are slimier than ever. The financial seems to be robbing us blind while securing billions for themselves. Even the legal community is looking less-than-trustworthy with increasingly politicized judicial appointments, elections, and decisions. Legitimate journalism is dead. The Catholic Church can’t be trusted with children. And government regulators are failing their basic mission while we pay the price. The very fabric of our civil society seems to be tearing at the seams–no wonder we’re all depressed and anxious.

Our role as a super-power may not last. We helped the Allies win WWI and WWII. We beat back the spread of Soviet Communism in the Cold War. And we’ve spent the last few decades since serving as peacemakers for the world. But now we’re engaged in two intractable wars in a part of the world that isn’t fond of Western influence. We’re trading barbs with two armed-and-unstable regimes. Our efforts at building peace in Israel/Palestine have all but failed. At the same time, China has increased both its wealth, stability, and influence in the world. Our long-standing allies in Europe and the UK have cooled somewhat. And our public display of political tomfoolery has drawn international mockery. We’re still the #1 world super power today, but how long can it last?

We’re trashing our planet and can’t find the will to stop. Whether it’s the long-term impact of global climate change or the immediate and visceral display of environmental ruin in the Gulf of Mexico, we’re failing spectacularly at our role of environmental steward. What’s worse is that we know exactly what the problems are but can’t find the will to change our ways. For previous generations, environmental disasters came in large part due to ignorance. As the environmental movement came alive in the 1970s, we made dramatic and real improvements in the way we treated our waterways, our atmosphere, and wildlife. Since then, we’ve continued to learn more about the dangers of unchecked CO2 emissions but we’ve done virtually nothing to change the equation. Worse, our (untrustworthy) business, political, and journalism communities have gone to great lengths to confuse and obfuscate the truth.

It’s enough to make you feel downright depressed.

Global Rich List via kwout

We hear a lot about the richest 1% in the U.S. What about in the world? Who are these fat cats?

I guess it’s me.

Two observations:

1. The middle class in the U.S. is very wealthy relative to our global neighbors. Let’s not forget this as we talk about how to tackle global problems like climate change and resource scarcity.
2. The wealthiest 1% in the U.S. are so astronomically wealthy compared to the rest of the world that it’s bordering on obscene. These are NOT the small business owners that politicians love to talk about while cutting taxes for the rich. These are the super-elite earning hundreds of millions of dollars per year. And after decades of successful political manipulation by the rich, they pay very little in taxes relative to their wealth. Does it make sense to anybody that a family earning $250,000/year and a multi-billionaire earning $250,000,000/year are in the same tax bracket? I didn’t think so.
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