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5 July 2009:

My sermon, "From Competition to Compassion" went very well this morning. One person responded that I had "done a good job of taking a topic about a crisis and leaving her feeling positive." My treatment of this is that there are plenty of reasons to feel fear in the face of the current economy and world environmental crisis. So what do you do about that fear and how do you make progress in a world of such huge and seemingly intractable problems? I offered some ways and incorporated some interaction between those who attended. I am willing to deliver (more like conduct) this sermon elsewhere, in other U.U. Churches, in churches of other denominations, or for other non-church groups or meetings. Contact me for more information.

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3 June 2009:

Most people never thought it would happen. General Motors in bankruptcy? Chrysler bought up by Fiat? Major newspapers ceasing publication? Citibank kicked off the New York Stock Exchange as a penny stock?

So, what's next? Let's see, we have the financial sector, the automotive sector, the traditional news sector. Next comes the education sector, the medical sector and the crime and prison sector.

So, why do I point this out? Because I'm hoping that fewer people just get depressed by all this and more people work on a vision for how to live from now on. Try www.mbaoath.org as an example.

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5/29/2009 4:01:35 PM:

So, the question is this: What good does it do to know what's going to happen? For example:

I just finished reading part of an article in The New Yorker magazine (June 1, 2009 issue) about how folks at J. P. Morgan invented credit default swaps and essentially broke the entire economy, all to come crashing down with them a decade later. This was after reading another article in the same issue about a small town in Texas where medical costs are two to three times what they are in neighboring communities.

Great stories, but, ...

The real story is the parallel between the two stories. The one about medical care costs shows that it's ultimately due to doctors turned business entrepreneurs, trying to maximize profits by treating the patient (and by implication the insurance industry and government resources) as a monetary source instead of someone to care for. Same thing the guys at the banks and investment houses were doing, as described in the first article. Or look at my experience with credit cards, also over the last decade. What prompted me to become so angry as to use a term like "blood dripping from their teeth" to describe the architects of credit card agreements? In the words of one commentator I heard on the radio, they changed from looking at customers as people needing services to treating them like prey.

The answer ... the theme that runs through all of this and much more, ... is a culture wide philosophy of taking more value out than you put in and not caring who or what has to take up the slack. Increasingly, we're seeing that there is no one and no place to take up the slack that doesn't come back to hurt all of us, and in a big way.

So, the shift we're now facing is from not caring to caring. For each other. For the planet. A shift away from aggression and toward love.

So, if this is inevitable, then what should I do about telling this story? To whom should I tell it? Take the example of same-sex marriage. Based on demographics, it's only a matter of time before it's legal everywhere because the younger you are, the more likely you're in favor of approving it. So, if people maintain their support for it as they age, then those who oppose it will eventually die off and those who support it will replace them and it's a done deal.

So why waste energy explaining that to anyone? If it's going to happen anyway, just let nature run its course, right?

This is the question I am asking myself about the Age of Aquarius and the current transition. If it's going to happen anyway, why bother going to all the trouble to write about it or make a video about it or go on the lecture circuit? Who cares? What possible good will it do?

This is not meant as a rhetorical question. I am currently puzzling over this. It has to do with how I plan to spend my time in the near future. What is worth doing and what is not. With my financial resources dwindling, this is a crucial question. Can I expect to make even a portion of my living (i.e. pay the bills) offering my opinion? Clearly, there are millions of other people trying to do just that, writing in their blogs, etc.

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24 April 2009 - Every time you see an ad for prescription drugs on TV, that's what I call "Medical Waste." Every ad for a hospital, competing with other hospitals, is just more medical waste. Every ad for a new device or procedure is largely just more medical waste. Every dollar for these ads comes out of your pocket in the form of rising insurance costs, and it's all wasted money. All this money is being spent by an industry that pretends to respond to a 'free market' that doesn't really exist for medical care.

Please do what you can to eliminate as much medical waste as possible. Find the little hospital that offers care just as good as the big hospitals and go there instead. Seek out other ways to improve your health without the drugs being advertised. No, nobody is running expensive ads on TV for simple cures and aids that cost little or nothing, such as a good neck rub from a friend to relieve stress. We have to do this together, for ourselves, without the big medical corporations.

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4 April 2009 - On the economic front, I'm getting word that the tentacles of the Medical Industrial Complex now reach out to distort news and opinion as far away as PBS hallowed "Frontline" program. To me, that's desperation and it means we're on the verge of a huge collapse. At least more and more people are fed up with being treated as wallets that can be emptied by providing unnecessary medical procedures, excess drugs, etc.

When it comes to public schools, a collapse is coming, but it's going to be a much harder fall and take a lot longer, sadly. In many places public school curriculum, teaching methods, etc. are hopelessly obsolete and antiquated. Students either 'vote with their feet' and simply drop out or duck their heads and comply until they finally graduate.

The public seems to be of two minds. On one hand, people are slavishly supporting this antiquated system, and on the other hand, they are refusing to pay for it. This hypocrisy cannot last, and eventually, big changes must come. The time for "education reform" has long since passed. The current system is so hamstrung with politics, profit, biases, academic snobbery, etc., that it cannot be reformed, it can only collapse as new ways to support our children's natural desire to learn emerge. Home based learning (notice I'm not using the term 'schooling') is one way that is emerging.

As more adults lose their jobs, both the above changes will be accelerated. First, former employees who used to have their employers pay a portion of their so-called "health insurance" will see themselves exposed to the full cost. Many will be unable to pay it and will drop from the rolls of the insured, helping to bring the industry into collapse that much sooner. At the same time, many of these adults, with more time on their hands, may (I'm not sure about this, but perhaps) begin to join together to spend more time with their children and their friend's or neighbor's children, going on field trips (to places or events with little or no cost) and sharing expertise, life skills, etc. across generational boundaries.

After all, how many stories have you heard about a young person who is called in to fix the VCR programming, the cable box, the cell phone, etc. I think if we can recognize how learning flows in all directions, we stand to honor and respect people younger than ourselves as well as older, as we all have skills and experience to share with each other. The school model, where older people are directed only to 'teach' younger people (and not the other way around) is artificial and much too limited and will eventually pass away.

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28 February 2009 - I finally decided to put my message on the economy out there ... beyond these web pages. So I created two bumper stickers and a new domain name under which to sell and promote them, messagerain.com You can see the stickers and purchase them if you like, if you click on the link.

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23 February 2009 - On the news, I keep hearing about violent drug gangs in Mexico. What are we to do? Shall we just stand by for the kidnappings? The killings? Now, students are being told not to vacation there this Spring. What do we do, throw up our hands and live in fear of violent gangs? No, we work diligently to put an end to drug prohibition. Nowhere in any of these news stories did I hear any mention of the core problem here. If this is the best that Newspapers and the evening news on TV can do, then perhaps it is time for them to collapse. The core problem is simple: You cannot use laws to dictate social behavior. Laws only work when they follow the lead of culture, not try to control it. Laws that run counter to what the society, the current culture, really wants will eventually fail every time. Sure, they'll remain on the books. And they might be enforced sporadically. But such laws only waste time, money, and lives in the long run. Laws should codify what we already really do or actively desire to do, not what we wish we had the courage to do or wish other people would do.

We should make as many drugs legal as possible. We need honest information for individuals, and services (education, treatment, etc.) to deal with the issue of drug use among the population. Laws and jail are not working, have not worked, and have come along with terrible side effects. Side effects such as violent drug gangs in Mexico, now spilling over into the United States.

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4 January 2009 - Culture - So, President Elect Barack Obama chose Rev. Rick Warren to conduct the inaugural prayer on January 20th. Yes, it's controversial. But I'm cool with it. Perhaps if I had just married another man in California, I wouldn't be so accepting. But I'm not in that position.

This is part of why I voted for Senator Obama. He's not afraid to 'talk with the enemy' because, in the long run, there are actually very few true enemies. And by keeping the conversation going, perhaps we can avoid all kinds of recriminations, back stabbing, and other counter productive squabbles. Hey, let's see if we can find some common ground. There might be more than we anticipate.

But back to marriage for a moment. How did we get into this mess? I think of those who say, ok give the gays equal rights, just don't call it 'marriage.' But, clearly, it's too late for that. If one religion says that same sex marriage is forbidden but another says it's ok, what's a government to do?

We could ask the government to step out of the marriage business, but with over a thousand various legal 'features' of marriage, the job is daunting, to say the least. When it comes down to fighting over the definition of a word versus the right to visit one's spouse in the hospital or receive substantial tax breaks (both government, not religious features of marriage), I say the civil rights win and the word loses.

Perhaps certain religions can adopt the use of some kind of additional adjective, such as "Holy Marriage" as opposed to just plain "Marriage." But as of now, I'm solidly behind full legal marriage for all couples, regardless of the gender of the spouses.

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9 December 2008 - The Economy - I just responded to a message from People for the American Way. They wanted ideas. I thought about expanding on what I wrote a few days ago. Here's what I said to them:

"When a corporation or bank is 'too big to fail' that means that it's a direct threat to our nation based solely on its size, even if it seems to be doing well, financially, at the moment. Shifting market forces could turn any such entity into an unmanageable risk at any time.

My idea is to make sure that no business can grow into such a position. We broke up the phone company, and we can do it again now, many times, if necessary. We need to block mergers that would create entities that would achieve 'too big' status, before they happen.

We don't want to put the economy back on the same track it's been on. That was the 'dead end spur track to disaster' that's brought us to the economic train wreck we're experiencing now as we hit the end of the line.

No, our task is to put our economy on a new track. One that works in concert with nature instead of exploiting it. One that supports small businesses and a decentralized approach to sustaining our nation and its people. The time for big money is over.

But, perhaps, the federal government is not up to the task. Perhaps international corporations can use other techniques to stay big and still remain a threat, ready to blackmail us, the taxpayers, at any time. So we must urge the public to do the following:

- save at the smallest community bank you can find that you trust
- reduce credit card use as much as possible (even if you pay it off every month, they still collect fees from the merchants)
- shop at locally owned shops as much as possible
- buy locally manufactured or grown goods and supplies, as much as possible
- buy used or remanufactured items as often as possible, especially things that can be repaired, as opposed to new or 'throw away' items

... and keep doing these things no matter how bad the news gets (because there will be a huge amount of bad press, at first). Eventually, this will work.

"Also, with regard to interest rates. My idea is to call for raising interest rates well above their current lows. We have a credit crisis because of the over use of credit at all levels, personal (credit cards), home mortgages, all the way up to wall street credit default swaps, and the federal government itself, running a war by borrowing to pay for it. We have been running an 'economy' for at least the last 30 years by speculation and borrowing, both from others and from nature itself (by wasting planetary resources that should be preserved for the future).

So, if this is what we've done, then the best way to reverse it is to have banks and the government raise interest rates. This will reward those who save and discourage borrowing. Again, the press will report that the results are catastrophic, etc., at first. We must stick with it, however, because if we do, the economy will eventually solidify as people develop new habits for managing and investing their money."

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6 December 2008 - The Economy - I'm reflecting on yesterday's message & photo. I realize that I left out the part about what we can do, regardless of what our government officials decide to do. That is,
- put any savings we might have into the smallest banks
- put away our credit cards
- shift our purchases as much as possible to the smallest shops.
Yes, prices might be a little higher, but what's that when compared to 700 Billion dollars of our taxes? It's time to take more responsibility than to just shop for the lowest price, regardless of anything else. Are you with me on this? I'd love to hear your comments.

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5 December 2008 - The Economy (again) - I'm feeling angry and feisty today. I have found the Senate and House hearings on the "big three automakers" as they are called, depressing, annoying, and somewhat absurd. After trying to make a similar statement over the past few days and realizing that it was way too wordy, I decided to pare it down to the essentials. Here is a photo:

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17 November 2008 - The Economy - I was just thinking about how to illustrate the principle of 'size matters' as I see it. Take the world of professional baseball. I often hear or read of complaints about the huge salaries that baseball players receive. But I am not surprised. The number of baseball teams has not increased nearly as fast as the population. So, per player, there are more fans than ever, all wanting to watch the same few teams play. They all can't fit into the ball park at the same time to watch the game, so we have radio and TV to enlarge the number of "seats" up into the millions (the fans are just called "viewers" instead). So now, the amount of money made by each team is vastly greater than it was years ago. More public, same few teams, ... it's basic arithmetic. So, the players "should" get the salaries they pull down, in my opinion. They represent a very valuable commodity to the team's owners, and all the other businesses that are involved in professional baseball. The audience pays good money to see the 'star players' play. And that audience is now huge, so the salaries are also huge.

The same principle applies to very large corporations. Salaries and bonuses for corporate executives have increased dramatically because we're focusing on those who run our largest corporations. In 1908, when General Motors was founded, there were 88 million people in the US and well over 100 automobile manufacturers, all competing. Now, there are 300 million people and only three "Big 3" car makers. It stands to reason that there would be a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few people at the top. As banks merge, there are fewer and fewer larger and larger banks. So, again, a lot of money ends up in the hands of a few executives. These salaries are proportionate to the ratio of numbers of public served, to the number of banks serving them.

The alternative is, as I've pointed out previously, to do business with smaller institutions whenever possible. Starve out the corporations and organizations that have become too large to be managed fairly in our society. We have the power.

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13 November 2008 - The Culture - I was just watching a video from Orion Magazine, http://www.orionmagazine.org/ where they interviewed a number of people about what's next. Right away I thought of my own video, Future Versions, not yet completed as I write this, and my sermon "Forgiveness in the Age of Climate Change" which you can now watch on the Energy Stories web site.

One person said that we've been "Living beyond our means," and I thought "that's it!" That's the expression I'd been looking for. That's because I realized that that it both describes the over use of credit in our society and how we are using up planetary resources faster than they can be replenished. In a sense, we're living on borrowed money and we're living on borrowed resources. The "we" in this case is everyone. The current credit crisis, as it has been called, stems from the over use of credit at all levels, from the individual who buys everything with credit cards and has run up a huge debt, to the family with a home mortgage now bigger than the value of the house itself, to Wall Street firms sagging under bad debts from the unregulated credit default swap market, to the federal government itself, running two wars and other things on money borrowed from China and elsewhere.

Then, as is pointed out in "The Story of Stuff," (see link on the Energy Stories site), we're running the 'materials economy' as a 'linear system' on a 'finite planet' - which we cannot do indefinitely.

So, when I hear on the news that President Elect Barack Obama will have to get the economy back on track, I realize that he will not be able to do any such thing! We don't want our economy back on that track. That track is a dead end spur that ends with a train wreck of monumental proportions. We may not all recognize this yet, but we really can't keep living beyond our means without courting disaster.

As it is, we're already witnessing the kind of disaster this causes, and, fortunately, we're already building a new kind of economy. It's still small, so it's not easily recognized as "the" economy yet. But we're doing it, nonetheless.

My hope is that more and more of us recognize that that's what we are doing, understand that morally and spiritually it's the way to go, and participate. I don't doubt that this will happen. I hope to encourage it because the sooner more people understand this change, the sooner we'll cease courting disaster and instead begin courting a wonderful new age.

P. S. I realize that I have begged the question, what do I mean by a 'new kind of economy?' I'm not talking about capitalism versus socialism. To me, the difference between those and other economic systems is dwarfed by the size of the organizations that participate. What we are changing is two things. One is abandoning huge corporations (that are now failing) and settling back down to more face to face transactions between small and more flexible business entities and individuals. Two is a realignment of our thinking from human centric to nature centric. That is, changing our attitude toward nature from something to be feared and dominated (the idea of 'wilderness' as a dangerous place, hundreds of years ago) to something that we are an integral part of. If we fear or dominate or destroy it, then we are only fearing, dominating, and ultimately destroying ourselves. It seems to have taken a population growth to nearly 7 billion humans and beyond, and dire warning signs (melting ice caps and extinct species) to bring all this to our attention.

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8 November 2008 - The Economy - The latest news is that the US government is preparing to 'rescue' the 'Detroit Automakers.' Perhaps this is our only option, but I am disappointed. To me, any corporation that is labeled "too big to fail" already plays too significant a role in our economy to be thought of as "private enterprise" any longer. To those in the recent campaign who leveled the label of 'socialism' at Barack Obama, I say you're already too late. The 'socialism' of which you speak is already in practice. Whether it's General Motors or AIG, any company that is 'too big to fail' and 'requires a government bail out' is essentially another form of government already. Donating tax dollars to prop them up amounts to no more than official confirmation of this fact.

A number of people I talk with don't seem to understand my point, here. I say this because, clearly, such companies already have a direct influence over our lives - easily as much influence as government itself. Their 'can't fail' status means that we are now exempting them from responding to free market forces. If their continued functioning is "essential" to our economy, then to me that is equivalent in status to a branch of government when it comes to their power and influence over the public. No, we did not elect them to this 'government status' by voting for them in an election. But we, did, in effect allow them to achieve their 'lofty' position by letting them grow as big as they have become.

I'm not saying that any one person is to blame in this. This is not a partisan problem, as these large companies have been growing through leveraged buy outs, mergers, and 'quasi monopoly practices' for decades by now. Rather, I'm trying to point out that "size matters." In this case, it is up to us, the public, to act to prevent any organization from getting so large that it becomes indispensable to the economy of the nation as a whole. Sure, we can do this through government regulation, etc. But we can also have an impact by choosing to do business with smaller companies and businesses wherever we can.

In fact, I strongly recommend that you adopt this policy in your life right now. It will cost you little or nothing to simply steer your spending dollar away from the huge businesses and toward the smaller ones. By now, we all should know that you never get something for nothing. The big box stores with their 'low, low prices' often achieve this by cheating their employees out of benefits, supporting overseas jobs versus domestic ones, and cheapening products by forcing manufacturers to produce special lower quality models for sale in their stores in order to do business with them. So, yes it may cost more to buy from a smaller merchant. But at least you have a chance to pay the real cost of what you buy, and help stop socializing big business in the long run.

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5 November 2008 - Politics & the Nation: When Bill Clinton was running for president, the guiding phrase was "It's the economy, stupid." And although in this election, there will be those who say that economics was the most significant factor in the election yesterday, I did not base my decision to vote for Barack Obama on just that. In fact, I expect that during his administration, I will disagree with his decisions on the economy more than once.

No, I voted for Barack Obama because I wanted to change one thing, primarily. That thing was the attitude of the administration overall. Someone speaking on a news program a few weeks ago described the methods and attitude that marked the Bush administration as "brass knuckle politics" and I thought that was a good term to describe the dread I had been feeling the past eight years. I think George Bush's approval ratings descended to record lows not because of any one policy, but because of the mean, unforgiving, uncaring, and at times downright nasty approach he and the vice president and closest advisors took numerous times. To me, it was truly an administration of divisiveness with a "winner takes all and the rest be damned" attitude, above all else. The smirk on his face repeatedly showed this side to me. At first, I think some of those who voted for him thought it was a smart way to be. A kind of "ha, ha, sucker, I won and you lost! - Now I've got the power and you're going to be sorry." sort of thing.

My opinion is that the war in Iraq wasn't about oil primarily, but it was about creating a conduit through which money could flow from public coffers directly to military contractors who were the friends and colleagues of administration officials. And it worked. When you hear about billions for the war spent every month, ask yourself not only where it comes from (taxes and deficit spending) but where it goes! Who ends up with these billions? We seldom discuss it.

Yes, it worked for awhile. But an attitude like that, a strategy like that, left no future. The Bush administration, in a way, burned up the Republican Party, took its fuel and consumed it, leaving only soot and smoke behind. If the Republican Party is to be a force in American politics in the future, then its members that believe in the principle of fair play and legitimate goals must prevail. The idea that a 'pit bull,' however dressed, or wearing whatever paint on its face, can serve as the standard bearer for the party is a sad mistake and will leave it with the same depressing future it was left with by the George Bush presidency.

John McCain's concession speech, by contrast, was respectful and considerate. It showed me that he, as a person, is able to respect the needs of the nation over his own or some in his party. I hope that the sentiment he expressed becomes a guide for the future, rather than those who chose to boo at him as he spoke.

Way back when Barack was just starting out, I watched as, time after time, he took the high road when controversy came his way. He repeatedly asked that we not indulge in back stabbing, character assassination, or other 'dirty politics.' When accusations of racism were leveled at him, due to his association with his former pastor, he didn't grab for the tar brush to swing back. Instead, he stood up before everyone and stated his principles and belief that we can all work together. He didn't ask to stand just for black voters or liberals or any one group. He kept repeating that he wanted to bring the country together. Time and again, I watched as he focused on his dreams, his plans and policies, while his opponent based his campaign on attack and smear and distortion of what he stood for. Luckily, it didn't work and Barack Obama is now our President Elect.

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3 November 2008 - Politics & the Nation: Here are my predictions for what's going to happen for the election and beyond. First, there are a lot of undecided voters so it appears that the race for president is still up for grabs. In the last two elections, it came down to one or two states, so there was a lot of bickering about vote counts, manipulated results, etc. I don't think that will happen this time. The tide is turning, and it has turned enough that Barack Obama will win by at least two or three states, giving his ticket a decisive majority of electoral college votes, making him president elect. In fact, I think, with the vast numbers of new voters, Senator Obama could end up with a much bigger margin than pre election polls would suggest. I also predict that the Senate will shift to a greater number of Democrats and fewer Republicans. The Democratic majority won't likely be 'veto proof' (greater than 2/3) however. With a Democrat as president, it won't matter that much, at least in the beginning.

Now, let's look at Nov 5th. Unlike in the last two elections, headlines won't be dominated by ballot counting issues. Instead, there will be huge headlines as the first acknowledged multicultural person will have been elected. Some of the celebrations around this fact alone will perhaps get over exuberant (with a disproportionate amount of news coverage, of course), but for the most part, the jubilation will be civilized and positive. Of course, after a short rest, the president elect will take on the job of choosing personnel for the executive branch, from cabinet officials on down.

Looking out for the entire 4 year term, times are going to continue to be rough. In spite of the great expectations developed for Barack Obama during the campaign, his term will be anything but easy. The world is shifting in significant ways and it will be difficult to keep up for anyone, the president included. First off, when it comes to taxes and economics, the old-style "liberal" tradition of having the federal government take a heavy hand will run up against the current world wide trend of decentralization in all areas. Power is leaking away from Washington, D.C. and will continue to do so, no matter what Congress or the President might want to have happen. This shift is not going to be a smooth one. Instead, there will be plenty of disagreement to go around along with numerous shocks from outside government, in the form of both human and natural events. By that, I mean human, such as shifts in diplomacy, governmental changes, economic instability, shifts in trade and protections, political unrest, and even perhaps war in some areas. Although I am thoroughly convinced that there will not be anything like another World War, there could be smaller wars in various parts of the globe. By natural events, I'm referring to hurricanes/monsoon/typhoon type storms, weather and climate pattern shifts, changes in ice caps, glaciers, and icebergs, ocean levels, flows, temperatures, dissolved gasses, etc. Some of these changes will be continuous but others will be sudden and disruptive.

In general, as much as we've placed our attention on electing a president and the changes that are supposed to bring, our job will be to stay adaptable on all levels, of government as well as in other institutions and areas of life, all the way down to the family and individual level.

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3 November 2008 - Blog started at 9:00 AM.