tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014075006969917149.post8097505979267765106..comments2024-03-17T05:58:44.116+08:00Comments on Economic Policy: Transforming the Middle ClassUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014075006969917149.post-69739797197566028442013-12-03T08:05:46.294+08:002013-12-03T08:05:46.294+08:00In the beginning, life was perilous and difficult....In the beginning, life was perilous and difficult. Food was eaten raw, predators were a leap away and the agenda for each day was just to survive to the next.<br /><br />Then fire was discovered, food was cooked, metal was forged, and new dimensions of being alive were activated.<br /><br />As the populations grew, nature was harnessed, plant and animal farms expanded, and cultures developed, first by simple drawings on the walls of caves, then by development of hand signs followed by languages.<br /><br />When few became many concentrated in specific places, communities came into being so that the devastation of natural disasters became more apparent.<br /><br />Meanwhile, many together caused hygiene to be a concern so that pestilence wiped out some as well. <br /><br />Because of the close-knit mutual dependency, feelings of attachment were developed and the losses felt started the first question of life:<br /><br />why?<br /><br />Without any answer on the ground, they turned to the Sky and sought solace in a quantum leap started from the self progressing to others.<br /><br />In being preternaturally inquisitive, some asked why louder and in looking at the sky, they saw the stars. And started to wonder about the patterns in physical events in much the same way they had noticed the patterns of seasons and the sniffs of danger.<br /><br />To make sense of those patterns, they started to count and experiment which led to systems of predictive quantification which led to new applications that harnessed not just nature but the models of nature by which motive force and power could tap for faster progress, mostly in the material direction.<br /><br />That brought comfort, enlarged and protected communities and created a new sense that enriched daily life by liberating it from the drudge of boredom.<br /><br />And yet even in plenty and security, the same first question remains. To this very day.<br /><br /><br /><br />wallahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17580252352785040456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014075006969917149.post-49652397542190320002013-12-03T00:37:43.955+08:002013-12-03T00:37:43.955+08:00We are, where we are.
Along a Schumacherian vein,...We are, where we are.<br /><br />Along a Schumacherian vein, the small man in his small house can be as happy as the big man in his mansion because, at any one time, both can only be in one place respectively so that in each instantaneous moment, the calculus of personal satisfaction is just a single-variable function of the personal philosophy of life.<br /><br />The happiness of the big man testing out every square foot of his mansion cannot be multiples bigger than the happiness of the small man standing in his meager lot because the happiness of either is only realized at each single place at any one time.<br /><br />Having two hand-phones does not enable one to conduct two conversations at the same time.<br /><br />Man is made for solitary singularity but can only survive in multiple plurality. <br /><br />A hidden message perhaps to care more for others than for oneself.<br /><br />The ennobling lesson of life.<br /><br />It could be half the problems of the world are caused by forgetting there are limitations to everything.<br /><br />And the other half must have been caused by thinking there is no limitation to anything.<br /><br />That's why we have the middle class. In the middle.<br /><br />guten morgen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />wallahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17580252352785040456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014075006969917149.post-24083272870814710652013-12-03T00:05:56.183+08:002013-12-03T00:05:56.183+08:00A creative class that will inspire the middle clas...A creative class that will inspire the middle class.<br /><br />A creative class is made up of highly educated and independent-minded individuals making their living by creatively solving complex problems.<br /><br />We don't have a creative class. The entrepreneurs we have are people who burrow their way through red tape, borrow their way to finance their enterprise and barrow their loads in daily grinds to make an extra buck for tomorrow's dream. <br /><br />They don't solve complex problems of the world. Because they were not given much of an education of any differentiating standard. So they don't know what is needed to become classy creatives.<br /><br />They only compensate by trying to be independent-minded. But being so without an ecosystem to germinate ideas or share resources or create new uses and designs or solve hardy and tricky problems will not yield great solutions, for that matter the breakthroughs that world markets of worth demand in common pursuit of real improvements.<br /><br />The people of the creative class are the people who will start the new industries that will push growth and create opportunities for the people of the middle class to rise up another notch.<br /><br />Affordability and mobility are this century's pillars of the earth.<br /><br />titbit:<br /><br />The Pillars of the Earth is a novel by Ken Follett whose day and month of birth is the same as that of John Maynard Keynes. And one other person active in this blog.<br /><br />wallahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17580252352785040456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014075006969917149.post-16999910929112441092013-12-02T23:52:12.796+08:002013-12-02T23:52:12.796+08:00People will always want to improve. Improvements c...People will always want to improve. Improvements cost money. Prices will always go up. If income disposed to buy improvements is static as in the case for most wage-earning middle income earners, then they will become poorer defined by increasing inability to buy what they want let alone need.<br /><br />What is galling in our case has been the false sense of comfort created by distorting our economic performance through subsidization. <br /><br />This sense of performing well lulled too many into thinking we are competitive in the world market to which our economy and livelihoods are linked. <br /><br />As subsidies get shaved off one by one, reality sets in because the life-support system in the earlier years is now unplugged when the patient has yet to be able to ventilate his own lungs.<br /><br />To the false performance caused by ignoring our costs have been subsidized must also be added the false benefits of privatization which in our case has only served to socialize costs but privatize profits.<br /><br />And the effects of false privatization has in turn been magnified by unseemly spending of enormous amounts of public funds to no accountable effect for public good.<br /><br />Meanwhile we forget a country can only be sustained in its development by the same thing needed to sustained the propagation of families.<br /><br />Which is.....wallahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17580252352785040456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014075006969917149.post-33376062362514354062013-12-02T23:31:20.638+08:002013-12-02T23:31:20.638+08:00To start and run a country is akin to starting and...To start and run a country is akin to starting and running a family. <br /><br />First people come together and get attracted. Then biology takes over and some more are created. A sense of responsibility replaces both happy and go lucky. Roots are sowed and the great grind begins. Along the way, the drama of life unfolds. Ups and downs round and round. Then stock take and wonder why. Finally the curtain drops as things slow down to peter to a stop.<br /><br />If the family is run well, the principles of life and the discipline of conduct will see all through whatever the challenges and tribulations inevitable to come.<br /><br />If otherwise, relationships will break, people will go do their own thing, and the family will lose its identity, direction and role as anchor and safe harbor. The roof over the heads will be blown away.<br /><br />That's why ceilings fall these days.wallahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17580252352785040456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5014075006969917149.post-37848382352901897062013-12-02T21:16:24.254+08:002013-12-02T21:16:24.254+08:00Good post. I wholeheartedly agree.Good post. I wholeheartedly agree.deminimisnoreply@blogger.com