Goodbye Alan Greenspan and Lee Raymond

Steven Guccione

It’s often advised that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. It’s also advised not to speak ill of the dead.  I’ll ignore both of these in the special occasion of the deaths of Alan Greenspan and Lee Raymond.

Greenspan was the long time chair of the federal reserve and presided, more ignominiously, during the Bush Administration.  Both Bushes I suppose, but mostly the younger Bush.

Bush started his administration with the biggest tax cuts in US history, all for big corporations and the wealthy.  Then came 9/11 and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And Katrina.  All of this was paid for by debt, papered over by low interest rates, supplied by Mr Greenspan.  This only delayed the inevitable by blowing a massive real estate bubble.

Once Republicans were shown the door by voters in 2008 the plug was pulled and a very predictable crash in the housing market, banking and eventually other financial markets followed.  This has become known as The Great Recession.  This was predicted as early as 2001 and flags raised by observers across the spectrum, including Congressman Ron Paul, a fellow follower of crank economist / philosopher Ayn Rand.

By the time the bill came due, Greenspan had quietly retired.  The ensuing cleanup was mostly a gift to the banking industry with ordinary Americans left paying the price.  The subsequent bad economy also served to hamstring the recently elected Democrats, including Barak Obama, from doing, well, just about anything.

I also heard the former head of Exxon, Lee Raymond,  also passed away.  During his tenure his company profited massively from Bush’s wars in the Middle East. He was also a champion denier of climate change.  The world is an increasingly warmer place, with more erratic weather, because of Dr Lee Raymond.  In the long run his destructive influence  may even rival that of Alan Greenspan.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan dies at 100

Longtime Exxon CEO Lee Raymond’s legacy of climate denial and misinformation lives on

is on wrong corner

Steven Guccione

When you look up our house on Google Maps it comes up with “is on wrong corner”.  Not sure what this means or who tagged our house this way, but I haven’t been able to change it.  A friend suggested we just start referring to our house as “Casa Esquina Equivocada”.

The White Working Class

Steven Guccione

I often wondered why poor white farmers in the Old South were so in favor of slavery, even willing to die for the right of wealthy plantation owners to have slaves.  After all, they were supporting the competition, bigger farmers working with the advantage of free (slave) labor.  To compete with slave farm labor, non-slave farmers would have to live, more or less, like slaves.

There is always talk of people who “vote against their own interests”, but I never believed this.  People always support their own interests.  They are just clearly getting something valuable in return, at least something valuable to them personally.

I remember when I was young asking my father why poor whites in the south (where I was raised) supported the oppression of blacks. Certainly it just lowered everyone’s wages.  It made no sense to me even back then.  Of course it makes no economic sense.  My father explained it quite simply:  (poor blacks) are the only thing between them and the bottom.

Clearly being guaranteed a buffer against being the absolute bottom of society was valuable to poor whites.  They may be poor but somebody else would always be poorer.  Amazingly this is enough for those willing to exploit it to gain political power.

This longish Guardian (UK) article touches on these historical ideas through US history.  But nearly every place in the world has similar structures.  Those in power exploiting the poorest with racist arguments of their own value over The Other.

The white working class knows the American project isn’t working. Here’s why that will never matter to them

UV Index

Steven Guccione

I thought the UV index only went up to 10.  It seems it mostly did when the index was created. Looks like we will be hitting 12 today.

An index of 0 corresponds to zero UV radiation, as is essentially the case at night. An index of 10 corresponds roughly to midday summer sunlight in the tropics with a clear sky when the UV index was originally designed; now summertime index values in the tens are common for tropical latitudes, mountainous altitudes, areas with ice/water reflectivity and areas with above-average ozone layer depletion.

DOJ claims xAI’s unpermitted gas turbines are a matter of ‘national, economic, and energy security’

Steven Guccione

This AI data center says it is in Memphis but it appears to be in Mississippi south of Memphis.  It currently uses dozens of unpermitted gas turbines for power.  The US Department of Justice has blocked lawsuits because it is now a matter of national security.  NAACP is involved in the lawsuit so it would seem this is in a predominantly black neighborhood.

DOJ claims xAI’s unpermitted gas turbines are a matter of ‘national, economic, and energy security’

FIFA’s Haiti jersey ban echoes the long campaign to discredit and downplay the Haitian Revolution

Steven Guccione

Haiti had perhaps the only successful slave revolution in history, and the first country ever to ban slavery.  Not mentioned in the article is that in 1820 Haiti was forced to pay the French the equivalent of about a half a billion dollars adjusted for inflation.  This was for lost property, including slaves themselves.  The debt was finally repaid fully in 1947.  This Haitian independence debt was a major factor in the lack of development in Haiti over the last century.

FIFA’s Haiti jersey ban echoes the long campaign to discredit and downplay the Haitian Revolution