I ran across an essay by Tennessee Williams following the success of The Glass Menagerie. Here are three excerpts (the whole essay, that can be found here, is well worth reading):
"It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial. The right condition for him is that in which his work is not only convenient but unavoidable."
***
"Nobody should have to clean up anybody else’s mess in this world. It is terribly bad for both parties, but probably worse for the one receiving the service."
***
"Then what is good? The obsessive interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, that first made the experience of living something that must be translated into pigment or music or bodily movement or poetry or prose or anything that’s dynamic and expressive—that’s what’s good for you if you’re at all serious in your aims. William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. “In the time of your life—live!” That time is short and it doesn’t return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition."
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Ah, Cassandra
Ah, Cassandra, as I grow older I empathize with you more and more. While I don't have your clear foretelling of the future, the signs and portents point to catastrophe. When? I don't know. Precisely how? I don't know.
The paths of those making decisions are ignorant, foolish, and short-sighted, amplifying the destructive effect of past foolish, ignorant, and short-sighted decisions. I have made my share of short-sighted, ignorant, and foolish decisions. I have had to live with the consequences of those decisions, and taken my lumps. Out of those experiences I draw several lessons:
The current irresponsible actions that ignore each of these realities — such as the recent tax vote; action rejecting the new START treaty; the failure to regulate systemically threatening institutions; the failure to act so as to preserve a viable middle class as a large portion of the population; the allocation of resources to consumables instead of true (not financial) investments in people and projects having long-term, general benefits; the sacrifice of individual liberties for apparent security; and the deferral of costs into the future — are simply continuations of threads begun many years ago. My impressionistic belief is that these threads came into being in the U.S. as those who had experienced want and the implacable, impersonal impact of extrinsic forces — primarily, for the generations immediately preceding us, World War I, the Great Depressions, and World War II — ceased to be the primary decision makers. Instead, both individually and as a society, those who had inherited prosperity from those who had come before and had faced only (seemingly) individual hardship transitioned into decision making positions, believing that they, not their precursors, were the creators of the blessings of political security and liberty and economic bounty bestowed upon them, or, even worse, that these conditions are the natural state of things and not the result of vast efforts by many people over many years.
As this transition occurred, the fallacious belief also gained ascendency that individual actions are the sole cause of consequences to the individual, and that therefore the conditions each of us finds ourselves in are a result of our own actions. On one level this is certainly true, but it is also incomplete, since actions are taken in the context created by the greater community and the objective reality of the universe. If left alone without the context of the community and the resources we together provide to each other, most of us would starve within weeks. We must view our actions as having both individual and community consequences, and take responsibility for both.
Altruism is a species trait because it is beneficial. We take care of each other not only because there will be times when we cannot take care of ourselves, but also because the aggregate of contributions by all are greater than the sum of the individual contributions of each. Synergy is real.
Perhaps each cycle must have its ragnarock. I hope this is not true, that we can learn from what has gone before, and act in wisdom reflecting the realities listed above, but the course of events is not encouraging. If we do not learn from the past, reflect, and act in wisdom, catastrophe and re-creation await.
The paths of those making decisions are ignorant, foolish, and short-sighted, amplifying the destructive effect of past foolish, ignorant, and short-sighted decisions. I have made my share of short-sighted, ignorant, and foolish decisions. I have had to live with the consequences of those decisions, and taken my lumps. Out of those experiences I draw several lessons:
- There's no free lunch. When you screw up, you or someone else pays, one way or another.
- Violate Walter's Law that the unintended consequences of any decision always vastly outweigh the intended consequences and its corollaries at your peril.
- Delay in taking corrective action makes things worse, not better. Things don't fix themselves. See item 1.
- We do not live in an existential universe where belief orders the universe. Just because we would like something to be true, does not make it so.
- Reality always trumps pretend in the end.
The current irresponsible actions that ignore each of these realities — such as the recent tax vote; action rejecting the new START treaty; the failure to regulate systemically threatening institutions; the failure to act so as to preserve a viable middle class as a large portion of the population; the allocation of resources to consumables instead of true (not financial) investments in people and projects having long-term, general benefits; the sacrifice of individual liberties for apparent security; and the deferral of costs into the future — are simply continuations of threads begun many years ago. My impressionistic belief is that these threads came into being in the U.S. as those who had experienced want and the implacable, impersonal impact of extrinsic forces — primarily, for the generations immediately preceding us, World War I, the Great Depressions, and World War II — ceased to be the primary decision makers. Instead, both individually and as a society, those who had inherited prosperity from those who had come before and had faced only (seemingly) individual hardship transitioned into decision making positions, believing that they, not their precursors, were the creators of the blessings of political security and liberty and economic bounty bestowed upon them, or, even worse, that these conditions are the natural state of things and not the result of vast efforts by many people over many years.
As this transition occurred, the fallacious belief also gained ascendency that individual actions are the sole cause of consequences to the individual, and that therefore the conditions each of us finds ourselves in are a result of our own actions. On one level this is certainly true, but it is also incomplete, since actions are taken in the context created by the greater community and the objective reality of the universe. If left alone without the context of the community and the resources we together provide to each other, most of us would starve within weeks. We must view our actions as having both individual and community consequences, and take responsibility for both.
Altruism is a species trait because it is beneficial. We take care of each other not only because there will be times when we cannot take care of ourselves, but also because the aggregate of contributions by all are greater than the sum of the individual contributions of each. Synergy is real.
Perhaps each cycle must have its ragnarock. I hope this is not true, that we can learn from what has gone before, and act in wisdom reflecting the realities listed above, but the course of events is not encouraging. If we do not learn from the past, reflect, and act in wisdom, catastrophe and re-creation await.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Energy and the economy
In the interesting note found in the UT Alumni newletter, this research draws a correlation between energy efficiency in the production and use of energy and expansion in the economy. Makes sense, and introduces an additional argument for policies that encourage energy that efficient to produce and efficiency in consumption.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Misleading graphs
I really dislike misleading graphs. Here is an example of one that appeared in the New York Times on December 3, 2010 (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/so-much-for-momentum/?src=busln ):
With this graph, you can see that the amount of construction spending in December 2008 had dropped about 10% from the base year, while construction spending in October 2010 had dropped nearly 30% (27.7% to be exact)!
If, conversely to the first example, one wished to emphasize how badly things are developing, on can limit the scale to the display scale, which is often done in publications. Thus the graph would be:
At first glance, one would have the impression that the amount of construction spending was slightly higher at the time of the last bar in October 2010 (35 on the graph below — sorry, I'm not good enough with Excel to put the month names) than in December 2008 (13 on the graph below), and things were getting better still.
Wrong!
Note in the light gray type the "Change from previous year." While this type of graph is accurate as a trend display (and even better for that if on a rolling average not a year-over-year), it can be very misleading if seen as a display comparing state from period to period.
Actually, while the rate of decrease in construction spending has slowed during 2010, the actual amount of decrease continues to accumulate, albeit in an uneven trend with a slight upward movement over the past three months. Thus, if one takes December 2007 (1 on the graph below), at the beginning of the crash, as the base year, and compares each period to that base, one can see the real trend in total construction spending (using the source Census Bureau data http://www.census.gov/const/www/totpage.html).
The more accurate impression is given by the same type graph with a full scale:
With this graph, you can see that the amount of construction spending in December 2008 had dropped about 10% from the base year, while construction spending in October 2010 had dropped nearly 30% (27.7% to be exact)!
If, conversely to the first example, one wished to emphasize how badly things are developing, on can limit the scale to the display scale, which is often done in publications. Thus the graph would be:
This, of course, is depressing, thus the choice of a misleading graph to represent the information in a way designed to make it look more favorable than it really is.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Let Them Fail!
Once again Ireland has come into the limelight with failing banks, excessive public debt, and a failing economy.
The idea of converting private debt -- that owed by the banks to private individuals -- into the public debt of a sovereign state is simply ridiculous. Making depositors whole assures that there will be an orderly banking system. Making creditors of banks whole simply assures that those creditors and the banks funded by them will take irresponsible risks.
It is not a goverment's job to assure that banks do not fail. Failure is the way resources are reallocated in a capitalistic system: wise decisions are rewarded, and unwise ones punished.
Ireland and any other government faced with failing banks should simply let them do so, then use government resources to mitigate harms directly while allowing those responsible to bear the consequences of unwise decisions.
The idea of converting private debt -- that owed by the banks to private individuals -- into the public debt of a sovereign state is simply ridiculous. Making depositors whole assures that there will be an orderly banking system. Making creditors of banks whole simply assures that those creditors and the banks funded by them will take irresponsible risks.
It is not a goverment's job to assure that banks do not fail. Failure is the way resources are reallocated in a capitalistic system: wise decisions are rewarded, and unwise ones punished.
Ireland and any other government faced with failing banks should simply let them do so, then use government resources to mitigate harms directly while allowing those responsible to bear the consequences of unwise decisions.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Acts of Desperation
Last week, immediately after the election, the Fed announced that it would expand its 'Quantitative Easing' – another more acceptable term for printing money – by $600 billion (just so we remember, sometimes its better to use the actual zeros for the orders of magnitude: that's $600,000,000,000) in purchase of US Treasury bonds. This is an act of desperation of the first order, utilizing untested monetary tools no-one ever thought would be necessary.
With the loss by the Democrats of the election (as a result of not doing enough in my opinion, not too much), this move came as no surprise. Although fiscal policy actions by the federal government through direct expenditures for goods and services (think road, trains, research, and education) is the best and proven way to stimulate the economy, this was not to be. In fact, proposed government action is exactly the opposite.
This action is likely to ineffective. Free capital markets allow the capital put into circulation to go to markets offering much higher returns than the US, such as those in developing economies that have interest rates of 8% or more (as opposed to a real negative rate on US funds). Thus the funds are likely to tend to produce significant asset bubbles and high inflation in the recipient economies, while doing little for the domestic economy.
If the state and federal governments really do reduce spending, as they seem likely to do, watch out and batten down the hatches as we revisit lessons which should have been learned in the early 1930's.
With the loss by the Democrats of the election (as a result of not doing enough in my opinion, not too much), this move came as no surprise. Although fiscal policy actions by the federal government through direct expenditures for goods and services (think road, trains, research, and education) is the best and proven way to stimulate the economy, this was not to be. In fact, proposed government action is exactly the opposite.
This action is likely to ineffective. Free capital markets allow the capital put into circulation to go to markets offering much higher returns than the US, such as those in developing economies that have interest rates of 8% or more (as opposed to a real negative rate on US funds). Thus the funds are likely to tend to produce significant asset bubbles and high inflation in the recipient economies, while doing little for the domestic economy.
If the state and federal governments really do reduce spending, as they seem likely to do, watch out and batten down the hatches as we revisit lessons which should have been learned in the early 1930's.
Friday, August 6, 2010
The way governments deal with money annoys me
As I was walking this morning, I happened to pass someone in a brand new city pickup truck.
Most of the city, state, and federal vehicles I see are like this; almost none are older than 3 or 4 years. Now, the city I live in is broke. Not desperately broke like some, but they are cutting fire protection, police protection, park and recreation operating hours and maintenance, and streets.
But still, there was this brand new truck! Now I know that new vehicles have less maintenance and are more reliable than old ones. I, however, drive a 12 year old, well maintained car, and do just fine. So do most of the people I know. Only those with considerable resources have new cars, and even then often buy lightly used vehicles because it makes more economic sense. The most recent information I remember said that the fleet average age for all cars in the US was now somewhat in excess of 8 years.
Why don't government employees drive cars that long or longer? Maintenance should be less expensive with fleets and employee (or volume contract) workers and parts. We all would save money.
This is only one symptom of how government (and sometimes other organizational) spending gets out of synch with what we do in our private lives. It annoys me.
Most of the city, state, and federal vehicles I see are like this; almost none are older than 3 or 4 years. Now, the city I live in is broke. Not desperately broke like some, but they are cutting fire protection, police protection, park and recreation operating hours and maintenance, and streets.
But still, there was this brand new truck! Now I know that new vehicles have less maintenance and are more reliable than old ones. I, however, drive a 12 year old, well maintained car, and do just fine. So do most of the people I know. Only those with considerable resources have new cars, and even then often buy lightly used vehicles because it makes more economic sense. The most recent information I remember said that the fleet average age for all cars in the US was now somewhat in excess of 8 years.
Why don't government employees drive cars that long or longer? Maintenance should be less expensive with fleets and employee (or volume contract) workers and parts. We all would save money.
This is only one symptom of how government (and sometimes other organizational) spending gets out of synch with what we do in our private lives. It annoys me.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Folly Day
I hereby nominate July 11 as a new holiday: Folly Day, to celebrate foolish decisions. The date is in honor of the decision to allow Skylab to deorbit instead of being boosted to a higher orbit and maintained for future use, all because of funding issues. 21 years of space policy idiocy and underfunding, to be followed, it appears, by even more as we lose the ability for manned launches to orbit. Of course, the Saturn-Shuttle-Constellation sequence is itself an example of the folly of scrapping working technology before newer technology is fully proven and reliably available.
Perhaps others have nominations for such decisions?
Perhaps others have nominations for such decisions?
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