Crankenomics 102

Cheat Sheet No. 3a

Image by 1820796 from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device  

"I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two million dollars." -Mark Twain

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

O.K., where was I...

{You declared that you self-identify as a (sorta/kinda) wild-eyed free marketeer and libertarian and threatened to explain what you mean by sorta/kinda. Not exactly news given that you've written about this in the past.}

Thanks, Dana. Relatively speaking, it was the distant past given that the ever-accelerating pace of life nowadays can make last week seem like the distant past. 

Anyway, I dropped a hint when I mentioned that I think America is "...morally required to install a rationally designed effective safety net to catch everyone that fate shoves off the trampoline, but not necessarily for those who deliberately jumped off because they thought it would be fun." -me  

Now, sorta/kinda points to the fact that mainstream libertarians (I freely acknowledge the term mainstream libertarians is about as semantically accurate as cooperative cats) tend to hold a dim view of the welfare state. 

"Our answer to poverty has largely been to create more and more programs, while throwing more and more money at the problem. That has failed to truly empower the poor. There are better alternatives." 

The quote above is from an article on libertarian.org that discusses the tons of money irrationally and ineffectively dispensed by The Fedrl Gummit. However, the author of the piece, Michael Tanner, doesn't offer much in the way of specific/realistic "better alternatives."

Libertarians like to point out that if not for all the money redistributed by The Fedrl Gummit, people would be forced to find a way to get by, and philanthropy would pick up the slack. But as to exactly, and realistically, how ya get from here to there, well... 

That's the reason for my sorta/kinda. 

While I'm as fully aware as anyone that The Fedrl Gummit, all government entities for that matter, are staffed by H. sapiens as flawed as the rest of us, and powered by other people's money, America is currently devolving into a nation of economic serfs.

I'm all for at least acknowledging the problem before the Rental Coral just down the road starts renting out guillotines.   

 

 I'm a wild-eyed free marketeer because "the market" got us here. 

{Where?}

Here. The USA, despite its sins and flaws, is the best the planet has done so far, which is why so many people who don't/can't take our way of life for granted, are trying to get here. Legally or otherwise.

{Yeah, but...}

There are always yeahbuts. That's reality. If whoever is the wealthiest/most attractive/healthiest/etceterist person in the world at any given moment is run over by a bus, that's the/a mother of all yeahbuts. 

{Well yeah, but...}

Fine. Any reasonably well-adjusted adult should be aware that despite its sins and flaws, all things considered, the USA is the best the planet has done so far. Please note that I didn't say that there's not a lot of room for improvement.

While our more or less free market has a proven track record, I suspect that almost none of its fans believes that a libertarian utopia is any more possible than a utopia of any sort. There's no shortage of socialists, communists, eteceterists who do seem to believe utopia is possible but many are too young and idealistic to know better, yet. 

Many are, or should be, old enough to know better. 

Most Americans are just trying to pay for a given lifestyle which they've been told is possible for those willing to work hard and live in "the land of the free." 

A very long story short in which the devil resides in his/her/their comfortable condo in the details: Nowadays, Americans are discovering the cost of decades of borrowing, spending, and printing money. 

I'll leave it to the economists to debate exactly how we got here and what can/should be done, but the bottom line is that Inflation — short-term, long-term, and systemic — is turning us into a nation of haves and have-somes. 

{You mean have-nots? And why did you capitalize inflation?} 

I mean have-somes. The have-somes are caught in the middle between the haves and have-nots. They're working their bums off and marching in place double-time. I capitalized Inflation because it seems to keep inflating. 

{What was that popping sound?}

Systemic racism and social injustice are not our primary problems. The haves vs. the have-somes is what should keep us up at night. 

There are more jobs currently available than people who want them and The Fedrl Gummit hands out grants and loans to pretty much anyone who wants to learn how to do something someone is willing to pay for. 

Big BUT, they're also not stingy when it comes to financing the accumulation of knowledge/skills by someone who wants to learn how to do something for which nobody wants to pay very much. 

Rack up enough personal and national debt while subsidizing everything from homeownership to ginormous whale/bird-killing windmills with other people's money and before you know it, here we are. 

If you're smart/lucky/hardworking/networked enough to generate/have generated enough income to be far enough ahead of the game to accumulate and maintain a bit of wealth, good for you. I'm available for lunch (but I prefer breakfast). 

However, it's now widely reported that 60% of us live from paycheck to paycheck. From what I can tell, this appears to be true.

{They should try to get promoted.}

They're not stupid. They know there are only so many bosses needed, only so many people who should be a boss, and that only a minority of bosses can beat the game given that the value of a dollar keeps sliding down a slippery slope. 

This is why when Oliver Anthony started singing about "Overtime hours for bullshit pay" because "...your dollar ain't shit, and it's taxed to no end" a lot of people looked up from their grindstones.

To be continued... and wrapped up, next column. 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

P.S. I've been asked by OSHA to remind all my gentlereaders to never operate a grindstone without a government-approved noseguard. 

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

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Crankenomics 101

Cheat Sheet No. 3

Image by 1820796 from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Persistent auditory hallucination and charming literary device

"The complexity of economics can be calculated mathematically. Write out the algebraic equation that is the human heart and multiply each unknown by the population of the world." -P.J. O'Rourke 

 

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

Dana, did I ever tell you about when I was a boss at a hooge, globe-spanning corporation?

{I gather that your nephew's magic mushroom harvest went well this year?}

Seriously, I was one of five assistant warehouse managers at a facility that served the Cleveland market for Toys Я Us back in the 80s, for about three years.

{One of five? Now that I believe.}

In fact, I participated in setting up the Cleveland market, from scratch, after returning from about nine months of training in the New York market. 

{As in New York City?!?}

Yup. I lived out on Long Island (pronounced lon-guy-lund) for a bit as a store management trainee and then on the New Jersey side of the city as a warehouse management trainee for the majority of my stay — at company expense. 

It was the closest I ever came to the experience of having prosperous parents shipping me off to college and picking up most of the tab. It was also the only part of my time with TЯU that I enjoyed.

{Cause New York was cool, and fun, right?}

Meh. There's nothing in NYC that you can't find in any other reasonably large city; there's a lot more of it, but it costs a lot more.  

I've been a boss a bunch of times but that was the only time in my long and storied career that I was a genuine corporate salary slave.

{You had a career?}

Several, and this was before all those predictions that the members of the generations following the Boomers would change careers multiple times. I've always been a man ahead of my time. 

{Wait... salary slave? Do you mean wage slave?}

I define salary slaves as (usually) overworked and underpaid low-level bosses who collect the same salary no matter how many hours they put in, as opposed to their (usually) overworked and underpaid employees (wage slaves) who get paid by the hour. 

{Usually?}

There are notable exceptions. For example, everyone who works for UPS works their bums off, but everyone is well paid. Unfortunately, this is not a common phenomenon. Millions and millions of relatively low-skilled worker bees and their relatively low-level supervisors limp from paycheck to paycheck with absolutely no sense of financial security.

{Who you callin' low-skilled? My UPS man person...}

Has to be very good, and very fast, at his/her/their job. UPS drivers have to drive a hooge step-van in all kinds of weather and navigate up and down all sorts of roads they must share with all kinds of people — any number of whom may be texting with one hand while groping around for the joint they dropped on the floor with the other and steering with their knees. 

And have you ever noticed they're regularly accompanied by another man person in brown with a stopwatch and a clipboard?

Personally, I think an individual that can do all the jobs in say, a fast-food joint, do them well, and not only is nice to the customers but says thank you with (at least apparent) sincerity is a skilled employee. 

Of course, nowadays they're more likely to be called associates because as everyone knows, being an associate is much better than being a mere employee. 

But as far as most economists are concerned since, technically/theoretically, almost anyone could do the job (although not necessarily very well) without obtaining the right credential from an overpriced college, the sort economists graduate from, they're considered low or even unskilled. 

I get it. I wouldn't want to encounter the employees associates from my favorite Chick-fil-A when I was wheeled into an operating room for brain surgery. This is why brain surgeons are, and should be, paid a little better than employees associates who work in fast-food restaurants. 

{Right... Listen, I know that at least you think your "garrulous geezer" shtick is cool but is this going anywhere?}

Why certainly! This is only an introduction. Gentlereaders will have to read the next column or two to discover where I'm going. Not the best marketing strategy in an age of ever-diminishing attention spans I'll grant you, but it's the best I can do.   

I "self-identify" as a (sorta/kinda) wild-eyed free marketeer and libertarian. "I want the playground to have minimum rules and maximum fun. I want just enough rules to give everyone an equal shot at some swing time and neutralize the bullies." -me

I'm a free marketeer and libertarian. A libertarian is "an advocate or supporter of a political philosophy that advocates only minimal state intervention in the free market and the private lives of citizens." For the record, the definition is from Google; Google currently gets definitions from Oxford Languages. 

The sorta/kinda is due to the fact I think that a nation as well off as America is morally required to install a rationally designed effective safety net to catch everyone that fate shoves off the trampoline — many libertarians disagree — but not necessarily for those who deliberately jumped off because they thought it would be fun.  

The devil, as always, resides comfortably in the details.

I would also point out that it's also easy to argue that an effective safety net is a necessary cost of doing business no matter one's moral or ethical beliefs, or the lack thereof. I'd rather pay taxes than be attacked by _______ when I'm out and about, and not everyone can live in a well-guarded, fortified lair in the mountains of Ohio like me and mine do. 

To be continued... 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.   

A.I. Yi Yi!

Image by Andy from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids — the Stickies — eventual selves to advise them and haunt them after they've become grups and/or I'm deleted.  

Trigger Warning: This column rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, or grups may result in debilitating psychological trauma.  

 

About 

Glossary 

Featuring Dana: Hallucination, guest star, and charming literary device

"With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon." Elon Musk  

Dear Stickies and Gentlereaders,

For the record, this column has not been written by an artificial intelligence, I pinky swear. 

{Huh. How would they know?}

How would who know what?

{Your readers, how would they know? What's to prevent an artificial intelligence from lying, and claiming to be you?}

Just a sec', Dana, I'll be right back...

Okay, it looks like the existing complex web of national and international standard organizations is already working on this. Obviously, it's gonna take a minute, but they'll eventually hammer out a system for certifying whether or not a given something or other was created by an artificial or meat-based intelligence.

At least I hope so.  

They've got a lot of experience in this sort of thing which is why you don't get electrocuted when you plug in electronic devices manufactured all over the world. For example, at America's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), "Delivering the needed measurements, standards and other tools is a primary focus for NIST’s portfolio of AI efforts."

{Cool, but in the meantime? And what if...}

Funny you should ask. An article (AI Junk is Starting to Pollute the Internet) in the Wall Street Journal, Colonel Cranky's personal paper of record, caught my eye a while back and...

{I thought you were Captain Cranky?}

I've been promoted, Dana. You'll be receiving an invitation to the induction ceremony/party shortly.

Check out the article dear gentlereaders if you're interested in details. Far be it from me to steal content written by a fellow H. sapien, WSJ reporter Robert McMillan. 

{But what if "Robert McMillan" is actually an it and...}

However, I learned something from the article that in retrospect should've been obvious to me given how common a trope it is in science fiction, regardless of format, for a device controlled by an artificial intelligence — robots, computers, spaceships, etc — to choke to death on corrupted or deliberately deceptive input.

The article is primarily about how spammers, and other blackguards and ne'er-do-wells, are using A.I. to execute scams. But the thing that really interested me was reading that slowly but steadily more and more of "the cloud" consists of content that's created by A.I. 

From the article "...researchers worry that the language models will become less useful, a phenomenon known as 'model collapse.'”  

So what's model collapse? Artificial intelligence is based on tech called large language models. A.I. feeds on the content of "public data sets," that is to say, all the internet content theoretically already created by H. sapiens. But our fellow meat puppets, perhaps even you, are experimenting with A.I. for fun and/or profit to create content.  

A given artificial intelligence can eat data faster than Joey Chestnut can eat hotdogs and remember, and use, more data than that kid in Sister Mary McGillicuddy's class that made the rest of us look stupid and was the reason S'tr graded on a curve. 

Artificial intelligence software, like the currently famous ChatGPT for example, regurgitates content created by itself in response to commands/inquiries by H. sapiens. "Experts" predict that this is going to eventually result in the cyber equivalent of what happens when you make a copy of a copy that's a copy of a copy. 

{Oh yeah? Well just wait till, inevitably, some meat puppets start falling in love with his/her/their artificial companions...} 

It's already happening, just wait till they start self-identifying as software, or a robot, and start canceling people for being cyberphobes while waiting for the singularity. 

Anyways... That's model collapse. I hope to live long enough to discover if Pandora can close the box before artificial intelligences (intelligensi?) start killing us in our sleep, or if it turns out that A.I. is going to save the world. 

The law of unintended consequences is always in effect, which I find endlessly fascinating (except for when it negatively impacts me of course). 

Stuff happens...  So I would suggest that it's better to be safe than to be sorry, that a buyer should be wary, and that since life's just one darn thing after another, you should keep your fingers crossed and be careful because you never know what's comin' down the pike.

After all, It pays to pay attention.

A note on last week's column. The voters of Ohio voted down the attempt by the Republicans currently in control of the state to make it much harder for the little people to both get a referendum on the ballot and pass it if they do, a right they've been exercising remarkably responsibly since 1912. 

They were primarily motivated by wishing to make it harder for the people to pass a referendum that will be on the ballot in November, that's being promoted by the Democrats, that will enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. 

Rather than compromising on a law that would make abortion legal, but with restrictions similar to the ones that were included in the Roe v. Wade ruling, WHICH THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS OF ALL STRIPES FAVOR, we might wind up with a constitutional amendment that's so vague and poorly written that it might be struck down by some judge or other before or after the election. 

But it will save the members of the Ohio Legislature from having to craft and vote on a common-sense compromise.

{And yet you...}

Yes, and yet I still think the issue should be decided state by state given the sorry state of the Congress. It should've never been decided by nine unelected Supreme Court judges just because Congress will cross the street to avoid hammering out compromises that might keep a given member from getting reelected and having to get a job in the real world.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Scroll down to share my work/access oldies. Tip me, or Join Cranky's Coffee Club (and access my condensed History of the World), here.    

Comments? I post links to my columns on Facebook and Twitter so you can love me, hate me, or try to have me canceled on either site.