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To say that I am not a fan of being tracked might be an understatement. After each use on the internet, and that means each and every use, I fervently run programs that clean my computer or mobile device of cookies, background data and even registry seedlings. But even after all of that, the information that follows me is often still embedded somewhere. When I open Amazon --and this is all without signing in-- the products which I had previously looked at are there. Jump to a different laptop and it still exists. Those of you who happen to own one of their Fire tablets can simply jump to their "shop" page where all of your previous orders are located, as well as your credit card information; in other words you're permanently signed in which is a bit scary if your tablet is misplaced or stolen. But in today's world we tend to shrug our shoulders as if we're resigned and basically saying what can we do, almost as if this is the trade-off or price we have to pay. So I was a bit surprised to notice that Google had begun randomly sending me variations of my recent photos and videos. A series of pictures of my dogs became an animated movie of sorts, a strobe-like presentation that was actually quite innovative. Next came images of older things with their colors shifted to ultraviolet or black & white, as shown in the examples. Then came a shortened movie Google made of a few of my video clips and photos all pieced together with some soothing rap-like music (if such a thing exists), none of which (music or clips) I would have picked; but truth be told, I rather enjoyed them all. I recognize that there is likely no human doing any of this, that while humans may have done the coding and produced the algorithms, the piecing together and sending of the information is all handily and speedily sent out with lightning efficiency by computers...one might even say it's Google's foray into creative artificial intelligence.This acceptance might be coming at a cost, however, something being again brought up in a recent piece in the NY Review of Books in a piece by Christopher R. Browning. For the most part I give limited attention to the "tribal" partisanship often cited by NY Times columnist David Brooks, even as I find myself nodding my head in agreement (perhaps because "tribal" is now such a trendy word). The divides are happening everywhere, whether by religion or income or political stance. But what Browning's piece brought to mind was the systematic approach, once so vivid in China's and Russia's history, now apparently happening in the U.S. Let the press expose Trump's alleged tax frauds throughout his life (as reported in the NY Times) and we shrug. Have the Republican-controlled Congress rush the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh during the Supreme Court hearings and refuse to release over 100,000 emails of his and even refuse some witnesses the chance to testify, and we shrug (one has to remember the words of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell when he refused to even consider much less hold hearings on Obama's Supreme Court nominee until after Obama was out of office); watch that same party's once-staunch stand of balanced budgets go by the wayside as our nation heads into an unheard ocean of debt, and we shrug. Life is good. Business is booming, and the unemployment numbers have dropped (having finally reached and now slightly passing the same levels during the latter years of Obama's administration); even the retirement portfolios have grown. It all looks quite rosy...or does it? As author Browning seems to point out, this is following an eerie pattern of a systemized controlling of the press, then the legislature, then the judiciary...check, check, and check, mate. The people? Us? That will be the final and the easiest part.
Here's a quick number: $20,000,000,000,000.* That will be the anticipated debt of the U.S. in a few years (some estimates put the figure as high as $33 trillion). As but one example, if you spent $20 million each day since the day Jesus was born you would still not have reached our total debt. Currently the government is paying close to $1 billion per day just in interest to keep our revolving line of credit open. Hey, give farmers subsidies because of the tariffs? No problem (print more money). Add to that defense budget? No problem (raise the debt ceiling). Cut taxes for everyone, especially the upper ten percent? No problem (their savings will trickle down). Provide more health care or education to those making less than $2000 per month? Oops, there's no money. So imagine this rosy picture -- you want a new car, and not a basic car but maybe a sporty car; it will go nicely with your other new toys such as that giant television and perhaps that new remodel on the house, simple things like the modern kitchen outfitted with all the latest tech, everything matching your new Apple iPhones and Echo dots scattered throughout. Just put it on the card, or cards. Your portfolio is through the roof and your home is now valued at way more than you ever anticipated. Have some fun, go wild, you deserve it, spend some cash. If that scenario sounds a bit too familiar it might be because that is pretty much the attitude of Congress...spend now because surely we'll have more than enough to pay it all back later because isn't everything great?. Okay, this Congress might be gone when the bill is actually due but hey kids, they say, we certainly had a great time (England's The Guardian calls our Congress a gerentocracy due to its aged members).
None of this would have truly bothered me before because I admit that I have also been guilty of giving a shrug or two. I attended a few political rallies (to no avail), and I still shop at Costco (along with zillions of others); and yes I've come to realize that civil discourse today is just a step away from turning into civil war. Hot button topics seem to grow exponentially. But I'm also aware that a few of my friends are having a tough time, as in they're working hard at steady jobs but still not making enough money to eat properly or to pay some of their bills. The thought of them buying a new jacket to replace that tattered old one is as unimaginable as them going out to eat at a restaurant. And perhaps I am haunted by the fact that I may have slowly crept into that chin-up percentile that is certainly not rich but comfortable. Bills are paid and if something minor breaks, I can have it fixed. How did this distance become so vast, even in my life of ordinary work?
This new American middle-class aristocracy (don't blink for you may be in it yourself) was the disturbing subject of author Matthew Stewart in The Atlantic. Here's just part of what he mentioned in the piece: One of the hazards of life in the 9.9 percent is that our necks get stuck in the upward position. We gaze upon the 0.1 percent with a mixture of awe, envy, and eagerness to obey. As a consequence, we are missing the other big story of our time. We have left the 90 percent in the dust -- and we’ve been quietly tossing down roadblocks behind us to make sure that they never catch up...Let’s suppose that you start off right in the middle of the American wealth distribution. How high would you have to jump to make it into the 9.9 percent? In financial terms, the measurement is easy and the trend is unmistakable. In 1963, you would have needed to multiply your wealth six times. By 2016, you would have needed to leap twice as high --increasing your wealth 12-fold-- to scrape into our group. If you boldly aspired to reach the middle of our group rather than its lower edge, you’d have needed to multiply your wealth by a factor of 25. On this measure, the 2010s look much like the 1920s...If you are starting at the median for people of color, you’ll want to practice your financial pole-vaulting. The Institute for Policy Studies calculated that, setting aside money invested in “durable goods” such as furniture and a family car, the median black family had net wealth of $1,700 in 2013, and the median Latino family had $2,000, compared with $116,800 for the median white family. A 2015 study in Boston found that the wealth of the median white family there was $247,500, while the wealth of the median African American family was $8. That is not a typo. That’s two grande cappuccinos. That and another 300,000 cups of coffee will get you into the 9.9 percent.
Too often in today's world it has become a bit too easy to not look at the "other" side, to stand on "our" side as defiantly and decisively as Braveheart. But what happened to open arms and the attitude of "can we just sit down and talk about this?" Instead it would appear that we are dividing ever more into our groups and moving from having a friendly discussion to one of pointy fingers or clenched fists. What's next? An actual physical attack, a charge forward only this time with a gun or in the case of our governments, actual weapons of mass destruction? Perhaps that mass destruction is already happening inside our inner selves as we compromise our morals and values and look away. Why care about others? They should have made better choices; it's not up to me; I can't help them all; go get a second job; they're just lazy; they'll spend it all on booze or drugs. What happened to us that such dialogues are even entering our heads? Are we now becoming like star struck lovers undergoing a bitter divorce and wondering what the heck happened? How could we have changed so rapidly and so much? At one time we cared for each other and would have done anything for the other person.
Okay, back to the spend, spend, spend thing with no accountability. I'm no financial expert by any means so I generally turn to magazines such as Barron's, and Forbes, and others such as Money, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Fortune, magazines whose specialty is to research, explore and explain that complicated world of the markets to the rest of us. And here's what the latter had to say about our runaway debt (the highest debt our government ever previously reached was under the last Republican President, George W. Bush, at a record $1.5 trillion...under Trump, you can multiply that figure by an anticipated 20+ times): By 2028, America’s government debt burden could explode from this year’s $15.5 trillion to a staggering $33 trillion -- more than 20% bigger than it would have been had Trump’s agenda not passed. At that point, interest payments would absorb more than $1 in $5 of federal revenue, crippling the government’s capacity to bolster the economy, and constraining the private sector too...On our current course, we’re headed for a morass of punitive taxes, puny growth, and stagnant incomes for workers -- a future that’s the precise opposite of what Trump champions...Indeed, if our politicians finally grow a collective backbone and strive to put America’s finances on a firm footing, the pain will be wrenching. Even though tax increases can be phased in, they’ll still need to start at a high plateau because we’ve waited so long, and they’ll rise from there. America has never seen anything like the kind of tax hikes that could be in the cards. Over time, consumers will have less to spend on cars, appliances, iPhones, and vacations. Sales and profits will suffer. And the likely consumer pain might generate political pressure to undo at least some of the corporate tax cuts that Trump is so proud of. Yikes!
To be honest, the U.S. isn't alone as countries such as France and England jump into the debt picture (France's new budget features $29 billion in tax cuts, while Britain's Theresa May recently said: Let me say this very clearly: Whatever your business, investing in a post-Brexit Britain will give you the lowest rate of corporate tax in the G-20.); Comcast just plunged itself into $100 billion of debt with its purchase of Sky TV. And in the U.S. consumer confidence is at a near-record leading analysts to predict a record year of sales this Christmas season. So perhaps those "stylized" photos of Google (their term) are indicative of something bigger, that many more of us are rather enjoying this altered view of reality, unsolicited or not; but we may be finding that those rose-colored glasses are actually prescription lenses and that we not only like them but now think we need them. The trouble is that there aren't enough glasses to go around. Perhaps it's time for some of us to give those glasses to others who might really need them...perhaps it's time to take a few deep breaths and take a look inside of ourselves, to take the time to find out who we really are and perhaps to find out what we direction we want to go from here.
*Having trouble visualizing an amount as large as a trillion? This graphic might prove both helpful and depressing.
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