A Piece of Your Cookie

Unions came into being to counter the  "Gilded Age" "Robber Barons."  At the height of the union years, pre-Reagan, some report a CEO's salary was ~70 times the worker's wage.  Current information is the average CEO's salary is over 1000 times the average worker's wage.

"A unionized public employee, a member of the Tea Party, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate with a dozen cookies. The CEO takes 11 cookies, says to the Tea Partier, 'Watch out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie.'"

Why is the Tea Party so entrenched with the new "Robber Baron?"

NFL Players "Union" vs. Wisconsin Public Employees Bargaining Rights

Let's watch the play-out of the NFL players bargaining rights.  Will it have the same outcome as the Wisconsin Public Employees Bargaining Rights?

Will money and power determine outcome of each?

Gingrich Comes Clean

Jason Linkins at Huffington Post published quotes of our probable next US President - "There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate, [he's alluding to his adultery - twice]" Gingrich told CBN's David Brody, in an interview taped at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition and posted online Tuesday night."


Another Gingrich sentence the linguist,  Noam Chomsky, may even have trouble outlining. - "And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them," Gingrich said.


Paraphrasing - "I love this country so much I had to commit adultery." 


Where are the deep thinkers?
   

Sheen, Ghadafi, Walker, Palin

A survey measuring the media coverage of Charlie Sheen's spiral, Ghadafi's power struggle, and Wisconsin Governor's bargaining fight would be interesting. My take is Sheen's spiral is getting the most coverage. Consolation? - Does Sarah Palin's media coverage suffer?

US Addiction and Consumption Wars

Huffington Post reported recently , "During a joint news conference at the White House, [US President] Obama praised [Mexican President Felipe] Calderon for his "extraordinary courage" in fighting the violent drug cartels that have been responsible for deaths on both sides of the border. Obama pledged to speed up U.S. aid to train and equip Mexican forces to help in those efforts, but he also acknowledged that the U.S. must stem the flow of cash and guns to Mexico that have aided the cartels. "We are very mindful that the battle President Calderon is fighting inside of Mexico is not just his battle, it's also ours," Obama said. "We have to take responsibility just as he's taken responsibility.""

As a friend once emailed, "Our addictions to cars, addictions to drugs...keeps our foreign policy out of whack as we've always gotta' invade to secure the oil for continuing our consumption...and invade to destroy the drug producing countries to stop our consumption."

The congress can always tweak the stretched US Federal budget to fund guns and troops but what about spending to heal our addiction to energy and drugs?

Who's The Villain Here?

Huffington Post reports Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican Governor, is laying off workers unless the Democratic Senators return from Illinois to countenance senate removal of public workers' right to unionise.

 AP 3/3/2011 - "Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says he will issue lay off notices to 1,500 state employees Friday if his union bill doesn't pass by then."

	I've labored long and hard for bread, For honor, and for riches, But on my corns too long you've tread, You fine-haired sons of bitches.
—Black Bart, 1877

Does the villain's poem fit the workers' plight?

Constitutional Amendment

Yesterday Mark Penn penned (sorry about that) an article on Huffington Post proposing a constitutional amendment protecting the Internet from being shut down. Maybe the amendment could replace the 2nd amendment. It is obvious from the current world revolts the Internet is more instrumental in protecting honour and justice than an AK-47 is protection from tanks and nuclear weapons.

However, a friend suggested we won't need an amendment as Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, FaceBook, Twitter and other major Internet corporations would never allow the Internet to be shut down.  He is correct, much as the NRA and gun lobby will never allow amendment to the 2nd amendment.

Quoted from The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome -  (Susan Wise Bauer) 

"The wanderers of the ancient world were gaining the edge over the organized kingdoms: “The foreign lands burst forth and scattered in the strife,” Rameses III wrote on his temple wall, “no land could stand before them. They laid their hands on countries as far as the circuit of the whole earth.”4 Most of the “whole earth,” as it happened, had been suffering through a decade of on-again, off-again drought, the same famine-producing dryness that probably sent the Libyans into the Delta. To thirsty wanderers, Egypt, with its always-watered lands, began to look like the world’s prize jewel. [emphasis mine] Not long into Rameses III’s reign, an organized alliance of invaders headed his way."

Ramses III reigned from 1186 to 1155 BCE. The falls of many cultures result from over indulgence and lack of resources to feed the people. Reading of the Russian drought, their embargo of grain, diminishing pure water resources in Africa, high food prices in the revolting Arabic sovereigns reminds me basics don't change. People need food and power needs greed. When each need reaches the extreme, revolt happens. The Wisconsin revolt is a simple example.

Just musing. Shall we talk of global warming?

New Site

We are trying something new. Our family website, defenbaugh.org, was becoming a burden to maintain and the original purpose was to get ideas to others. Google's blog seems to do the same with no overhead. We'll see how it works.

In the mean time, I'd like to recommend Matt Taibbi's book, Griftopia. It describes what's happening in the world of finance and what it's doing to the US of A and the world. Greed and the greedy throughout history have always been prevalent. History seems to cycle and one of the low points of the cycle is when the little people start banging things in the street. The people in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Wisconsin are banging pots and pans. Hunger and poverty will create that.