Whither Middle-Class America?
Age of Vision—the Early Years
America was founded by great critics, not cynics, visionaries, and rebels who saw the injustice that existed for all classes—taxation without representation. They also wanted equality—now labeled socialism by right-wing radicals. Abraham Lincoln abhorred slavery and inspired millions of well-intentioned, hard-working Americans who didn’t just wave the American flag to display superficial patriotism. Thanks to them, our country basically transformed from an agrarian to an industrial giant, with gratitude to remarkable financiers, industrialists, and philanthropists such as the Carnegies, the Fords, the Mellons, the J. P. Morgans , the Rockefellers, the Stanfords, and the Vanderbilts. The first half of the 20th century was essentially shaped by these leaders; we won two World Wars; survived the stock-market crash; and overcame the Great Depression. Hard-working middle class helped boost the standard of living of Americans seven-fold in the 20th century.
Age of Innocence and Rebellion—the 50s to the 70s
The 50s and 70s were the decades of tremendous growth, despite the Cold War threat; an expanding Interstate highway system, built to defend against the Russians, but resulted in a remarkable and unforeseen economic growth; and an explosion of the suburbia, driven by hard-working middle class, proud of a war we had just won. Everyday America worked together as one nation and became the beacon of the world. The world just followed our idealism, leadership, and successes. We reached our peak with man landing on the moon in 1969.
Following that, somehow we got arrogant and complacent, and lost our way. We had elected a crooked President, who resigned to avoid impeachment, followed by a no-op president. Having learned invaluable lessons from the energy crisis of the early 1970s, Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House. His successor Ronald Reagan, a Republican, more of a senior entertainer and story teller than a President, and one of the most overrated Presidents, systematically removed every single one of them! The problem with many Americans is that they neither read history nor learn from it. Reagan left the Governorship of California in 1968, leaving behind the biggest budget deficit and tax increase in the state’s history. For an encore, he left the biggest deficit as a President. This is the man who fought Big Government, disbanded, inter alia, the Civil Aeronautics Board, but transferred everyone one of its employees to other departments (DoT, FAA, NTSB) of the Federal government! The middle class was screwed again, in the name of reducing bureaucracy.
Age of Greed, Arrogance, and Declining Ethics —the 80s to date
As the Governor of California in the late 70s through early 80s, Jerry Brown, Jr., who drove an old Plymouth and never moved to the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento, set up the Office of Appropriate Technology during his administration to look into alternate energy sources, cleaner air, water, and the environment. Guess what? He was succeeded by a Governor—George Deukmejian—a Republican at that, who disbanded the OAT, while the media had already labeled Jerry ‘Moonbeam’ Brown as a left-leaning Liberal.
Then came the savings and loan mess—driven by crooked and greedy looters and know-all, unchecked, deregulated, rich do-gooders under the guise of leaders. Guess who bailed them out? The Federal Government from taxpayers’ money, aka, the middle class. Once again “trickle down” economics left the nation feeling sour and helpless. This was just the beginning of greed, and we thought it reached its peak during the Dot-Com and the bust that followed it, which took a toll on the middle class—again. Wealth was being accumulated by few at the top. But wait! Here comes the sub-prime mortgage mess—now to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. This is tricky lenders convincing innocent middle class that owning a home is an American birth right and extending them loans they couldn’t afford! In the meantime, Wall Street started screwing Main Street, while highly paid MBAs made off with millions of dollars in signing bonuses, salaries, yearly bonuses many times their salaries, golden parachutes, and enviable exit packages.
Our lawmakers wouldn’t initially pass a $700 billion rescue package to bail out these crooks, saying it was too expensive, but later signed a $840 billion package after many Pork Barrel projects were added! Guess who got screwed again? The poor middle class, citizens just like you and I, who have gradually become poorer over the last three decades. Once again the nation’s wealth got distributed upward to the rich few who were “defending” the American concept. Amidst all this, very few noticed that the Federal Government gave $25 billion in loans from the middle class to the clueless, asleep-at-the wheel Big Three…er, Big 2½, in Detroit because the European and the Japanese car manufacturers are eating their breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now, GM wants to buy Chrysler and, together, they will be laying off thousands of blue- and white-collar workers. Two losers don’t a winner make!
So, where did the concept of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” go?
Prologue
The elected leader of a nation leads by example. Nixon being a crook led the S&L executives to say, “Look, if our President can lie, why can’t we?” George W. Bush’s legacy is incessant lying, misrepresentation and careless leadership. Surrounded by a bunch of unethical staff members, he has led a reign of fear vis-à-vis Hitler who led a reign of terror, leading Wall Street to imitate him. Long time ago, I bought a book—actually a booklet—titled Thus Spake, Nixon that contained exactly 18 pages—all blank! (Instead of throwing it away years ago, I wish I had saved it; it would be a collector’s item now.) Dubya inherited the biggest surplus in the history of America and is leaving behind the biggest deficit, a poorer nation with little world respect! Somehow we have now lost our ways again because the driving force of our nation, the middle class, has been disarmed and dismantled. I can now see a George W. Bush Library being built in Crawford, Texas. It’ll be an outhouse!
GOD BLESS THE MIDDLE CLASS AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Whither America, Part 2
We wrote a year ago about America's undisputed leadership, but we are not so sure anymore.
Dow Jones, NASDAQ, and other indices in past few months have driven even the most brilliant, yet clueless, economists from the MIT, Stanford, and Chicago crazy. As the late Walter Reuther, former head of the United Auto Workers used to say, "Economics is the only field where you can gain eminence by never being right."
So, is America on the decline?
Yes. As long as we have greed-driven CEOs that get insanely sky-high bonuses or exit packages rewarded for cheating, stealing, and screwing stockholders, we'll mimic the decline of ancient Greece and Rome.
No. We still believe in capitalism, school prayers, gun-carrying right-wing radicals, Bible-hugging, racism, and a Viet Nam veteran who fought a useless war that we lost, and a folksy, ice-hockey mom with an IQ of 28.
Dow Jones is down almost 40% from its peak, yet we preach how capitalism can salvage the world. Roger McNamee, a well-respected VC from Silicon Valley said, "Wall Street is driven by fear and greed. But remember, fear is temporary, greed is permanent."
God save America and the world!
Dow Jones, NASDAQ, and other indices in past few months have driven even the most brilliant, yet clueless, economists from the MIT, Stanford, and Chicago crazy. As the late Walter Reuther, former head of the United Auto Workers used to say, "Economics is the only field where you can gain eminence by never being right."
So, is America on the decline?
Yes. As long as we have greed-driven CEOs that get insanely sky-high bonuses or exit packages rewarded for cheating, stealing, and screwing stockholders, we'll mimic the decline of ancient Greece and Rome.
No. We still believe in capitalism, school prayers, gun-carrying right-wing radicals, Bible-hugging, racism, and a Viet Nam veteran who fought a useless war that we lost, and a folksy, ice-hockey mom with an IQ of 28.
Dow Jones is down almost 40% from its peak, yet we preach how capitalism can salvage the world. Roger McNamee, a well-respected VC from Silicon Valley said, "Wall Street is driven by fear and greed. But remember, fear is temporary, greed is permanent."
God save America and the world!
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Why the Democrats could lose the Presidential election
Here are my reasons.
- McCain picks a right-wing, gun-toting, Bible-hugging, war-mongering, anti-abortion, pro-school prayer, National Rifle Association member woman as his running mate. Never mind McCain calls Sarah Palin the most popular governor in the U. S. Hey, what about the Governator of Kalifonia? Never mind that no one had heard of her two weeks ago; as a hockey Mom, she couldn't even manage an ice-hockey rink; she led a state with a population of about 600,000; and was the Mayor of town of fewer than 10,000 people. But wait, there is more: She has foreign relations experience because she lived close to Russia! Gimme a break! This is akin to a stupid Texan living in Brownsville claiming he can deal with the Russkies because he lives next door to Mexico!!
- Obama could have and should have picked Hillary to please women voters. Today, one of the polls reports many white women voters are favoring the McCain-Palin ticket.
- There are still many racists in our country that don’t like an African-American being elected as our President. In fact, a friend of mine in West Virginia recently told me that many Democrats in the Mountain State are not voting because they don’t like African-Americans. (I’m using a decent language; in West Virginia, as I am sure in other parts of our country, too, they still use the ‘N’ word.) All I can say is, “As a consequence, you deserve what you get, and you have no right to complain if you didn’t vote.” West Virginia is still paying a price for having voted for George Dubya in 2000. See my blog How dumb can a state be? below.
- Republicans are extremely shrewd and ruthless in digging dirt on Democratic candidates. Watch over the next ten weeks how that dirt will start piling up and may bury any hopes of a Democratic White House.
One of my very close friends said if the Republicans win the White House come November, he is moving to Canada. Something to ponder.
God Bless America and free us from right-wing, Red State, Republican radicals!
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Flattened World: America, China, and India…a Travelogue
I just returned from a brief vacation to India where I visited Bangalore, where I was born; New Delhi, India's capital; and Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. The long flights gave me a chance to catch up on my reading. I finished reading three books: The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value Through Global Networks by C. K. Prahalad and M. S. Krishnan; Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade by Bill Emmott; and The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. Reading all three books with overlapping themes —globalization, the rise of Asian giants, and America’s need to live with the new economic powers— was a nice preface to my visit to India. Here are my thoughts.
The last time I visited in India was in 2001. I flew this time, as I did then, by Singapore Airlines (SQ) — unquestionably the best airline in the world. U. S. airlines should either emulate SQ or go bankrupt, and no one will shed a tear for their demise! Most of all, the flights from San Francisco to Singapore and then on to Bangalore (BLR) [1] were memorable, thanks to the exceptional and wonderful service by SQ.
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[1] Now called Bengaluru by fanatics, thanks to the idiotic Indian bureaucrats and politicians who waste their time ‘Indian’izing English names, e. g., Bombay --> Mumbai, Madras --> Chennai, and Calcutta --> Kolkata, instead of spending money on improving the decrepit infrastructure in India; wait till the morons rename India’s capital as Dilli (Delhi) or Navi Dilli (New Delhi), just as they did New Bombay --> Navi Mumbai! As for me, I’ll stick with our English names: I still like to wear my Bleeding Madras, sip my Bombay Sapphire Gin in the veranda of my bungalow, and muse about the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Bangalore Torpedo!
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BTW, SQ appears not to hire any female flight attendants if they are over 25 years old or weigh over 120 lbs! Singapore’s Changi Airport is a remarkable city in itself. Where else can you watch movies, play Nintendo Wii, Xbox360, or Sony PlayStation, or work out in a fitness center — all for free?
The last time I visited in India was in 2001. I flew this time, as I did then, by Singapore Airlines (SQ) — unquestionably the best airline in the world. U. S. airlines should either emulate SQ or go bankrupt, and no one will shed a tear for their demise! Most of all, the flights from San Francisco to Singapore and then on to Bangalore (BLR) [1] were memorable, thanks to the exceptional and wonderful service by SQ.
==============
[1] Now called Bengaluru by fanatics, thanks to the idiotic Indian bureaucrats and politicians who waste their time ‘Indian’izing English names, e. g., Bombay --> Mumbai, Madras --> Chennai, and Calcutta --> Kolkata, instead of spending money on improving the decrepit infrastructure in India; wait till the morons rename India’s capital as Dilli (Delhi) or Navi Dilli (New Delhi), just as they did New Bombay --> Navi Mumbai! As for me, I’ll stick with our English names: I still like to wear my Bleeding Madras, sip my Bombay Sapphire Gin in the veranda of my bungalow, and muse about the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Bangalore Torpedo!
==============
BTW, SQ appears not to hire any female flight attendants if they are over 25 years old or weigh over 120 lbs! Singapore’s Changi Airport is a remarkable city in itself. Where else can you watch movies, play Nintendo Wii, Xbox360, or Sony PlayStation, or work out in a fitness center — all for free?
Arriving in the brand-new BLR airport, which is open 24 hours, was a pleasant surprise vis-à-vis the junkie airport of yesteryears, with an illy coffee shop, Pizza Hut, McDonalds, Subway, and Baskin-Robins welcoming you at the airport! Is this junk-food heaven, globalization or a flattened world? Do you care?
Driving to my lodging in Bangalore, Cross Roads Inn, was an experience — 90 minutes to travel 40 kilometers or 24 miles. You think traffic in LA, New York, or Silicon Valley is bad? You ain’t seen nothin’ until you’ve been to India! On the way, you see ultra-modern, multi-story apartment complexes — even a scaled-down version of the Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur — and buildings housing offices of the likes of HP, IBM, Infosys, Microsoft, Motorola, Oracle, Tata Consulting Services, Wipro…right next to run-down buildings and abominable slums. I am convinced zoning laws don't exist in India.
IBM has over 70,000 employees in India and HP has over 28,000. And, in the tradition of many Indian employers, especially state-owned enterprises, most companies provide free transportation to and from work to their employees in the form of buses or vans. So you see scores of buses/vans hauling HP, IBM, or Oracle employees. At the airports in Bangalore or Delhi one can’t help noticing that about 50% of the passengers are professionals or businesswomen/men with laptops in HP-, IBM- or Dell-logoed carrying cases, using cell phones, and doing their work. I did not see this on my last trip.
Years ago, it would take you five to ten years to get a landline phone in India, unless you bribed a bureaucrat. Now that the telecom industry has been privatized (although there are still some state-run carriers), all you need today is a local address to get a mobile phone. I went with my cousin to a publicly held national carrier’s office and got a mobile phone in less than 20 minutes with a pre-paid plan! By the way, India today has almost 273 million mobile phones deployed and offers one of the cheapest rates in the world, at about 2 cents per minute! Internet access in cafes and coffee shops, e. g., Café Coffee Day, the Indian equivalent of Starbucks, is widespread and mostly free; you pay about 50 cents per hour of connectivity in cybercafes.
Years ago, it would take you five to ten years to get a landline phone in India, unless you bribed a bureaucrat. Now that the telecom industry has been privatized (although there are still some state-run carriers), all you need today is a local address to get a mobile phone. I went with my cousin to a publicly held national carrier’s office and got a mobile phone in less than 20 minutes with a pre-paid plan! By the way, India today has almost 273 million mobile phones deployed and offers one of the cheapest rates in the world, at about 2 cents per minute! Internet access in cafes and coffee shops, e. g., Café Coffee Day, the Indian equivalent of Starbucks, is widespread and mostly free; you pay about 50 cents per hour of connectivity in cybercafes.
After a while, you get tired of Indian food and yearn for something American. So, I took my family for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Bangalore. The place is nice, with a decent bar and friendly staff. However, the veggie burger I ordered was the worst one I have ever tasted. It was schizophrenic and couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a veggie burger or a simple peas-and-potato patty! I can buy better veggie burgers at Trader Joe's in San Jose, California! My wife, though, enjoyed her hamburger made with imported beef from the U. S.!
Talking to many of my second cousins/nephews/nieces and young professionals at local bars…er, English-style pubs, I noted that about 80% of them, unfortunately, have no intention of going to America for higher studies: They would rather pursue a career with BT, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Reuters, or any of the multinationals cited above in India than come to the Land of Opportunity, especially now that it has become so hard to enter the U. S., following 9/11. By the way, ALL of them have read Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat.
So, is America losing out? Yes and no. Many Indians are going to Europe and Australia for higher studies, although the U. S. still remains the #1 destination. BTW, last year Australia attracted 37,000 Chinese and 28,000 Indian students, according to an Australian gentleman I flew with from Delhi to Bangalore.
As Zakaria notes in his book, America has to learn living with other rising powers and no longer act as a policeman to the world. The Chinese are dominating the African development scene, providing aid, building highways and oil refineries…without preaching human rights. Sure, China and India’s economies are showing robust growths, but will they displace America? Not quite, yet. The infrastructure in India is a disaster. For instance, Bangalore’s population has almost quadrupled to almost 7.2 million in 40 years; yet, none of the services — water supply, electric power, housing, and roads — have kept up to meet the growth. Hour-long commutes to cover barely five miles, the wasted gasoline (or petrol, as they call it there), and the accompanying pollution…we are sure are adding stress to peoples’ lives in Bangalore. Delhi is much better where all its transit buses and the three-wheeler auto-rickshaws run entirely on compressed natural gas (CNG). It is also trying to clean up its act to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
How about China? China is decades ahead of India in infrastructure — roads, highways, and electric power — but is choking with air pollution and drowning in polluted water, although it is temporarily closing many factories and drastically curtailing traffic in and around Beijing in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics. India has a shaky surface (roads, power grids, water supply, housing…) with a solid foundation (legal system, transparency, IP issues), whereas China has a solid surface (infrastructure), but a shaky foundation (questionable legal system, lack of transparency, lax IP issues, widespread piracy…).
Bottom Line
It was good to visit India after seven years, but it is GREAT to be back in America, my home!
Enjoy some pictures below:
Talking to many of my second cousins/nephews/nieces and young professionals at local bars…er, English-style pubs, I noted that about 80% of them, unfortunately, have no intention of going to America for higher studies: They would rather pursue a career with BT, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Reuters, or any of the multinationals cited above in India than come to the Land of Opportunity, especially now that it has become so hard to enter the U. S., following 9/11. By the way, ALL of them have read Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat.
So, is America losing out? Yes and no. Many Indians are going to Europe and Australia for higher studies, although the U. S. still remains the #1 destination. BTW, last year Australia attracted 37,000 Chinese and 28,000 Indian students, according to an Australian gentleman I flew with from Delhi to Bangalore.
As Zakaria notes in his book, America has to learn living with other rising powers and no longer act as a policeman to the world. The Chinese are dominating the African development scene, providing aid, building highways and oil refineries…without preaching human rights. Sure, China and India’s economies are showing robust growths, but will they displace America? Not quite, yet. The infrastructure in India is a disaster. For instance, Bangalore’s population has almost quadrupled to almost 7.2 million in 40 years; yet, none of the services — water supply, electric power, housing, and roads — have kept up to meet the growth. Hour-long commutes to cover barely five miles, the wasted gasoline (or petrol, as they call it there), and the accompanying pollution…we are sure are adding stress to peoples’ lives in Bangalore. Delhi is much better where all its transit buses and the three-wheeler auto-rickshaws run entirely on compressed natural gas (CNG). It is also trying to clean up its act to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
How about China? China is decades ahead of India in infrastructure — roads, highways, and electric power — but is choking with air pollution and drowning in polluted water, although it is temporarily closing many factories and drastically curtailing traffic in and around Beijing in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics. India has a shaky surface (roads, power grids, water supply, housing…) with a solid foundation (legal system, transparency, IP issues), whereas China has a solid surface (infrastructure), but a shaky foundation (questionable legal system, lack of transparency, lax IP issues, widespread piracy…).
Bottom Line
It was good to visit India after seven years, but it is GREAT to be back in America, my home!
Enjoy some pictures below:
My alma mater, the 
India Gate, New Delhi, built in memory of the 90,000+ Indian soldiers who lost their lives in World War I
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Everything old is new again!
I just attended a Computerworld-sponsored conference SaaScon 2008 on software as a service, held in Santa Clara, CA.
The information technology ( IT) industry loves hypes — be they thin-clients, client-server computing, object-oriented databases, ASP, ISP, MSP, xSP, virtualization, Web x.0 (where x = 1, 2, or 3), mashups, cloud computing, social computing — which drive the industry, clients get excited, and the analysts and vendors work each other. The problem with us Americans is that we do not have an emphasis or focus on history, recent or otherwise.
Specific to this conference that focused on software-as-a-service (SaaS), it was amazing to see how many attendees were excited about the concept of SaaS. SaaS is nothing new: Thirty years ago they were called Service Bureaus (remember CDC’s Cybernet?) You submitted a job with punched cards to a computer that was housed who-knows-where, got the results back, fixed any errors, resubmitted your job, and got the final results after a few runs. This was real cloud computing: You had a dumb terminal (a.k.a. green screen), usually a 3270; a computer, usually a mainframe, and a network that you didn’t know what it consisted of. You probably had a TI Silent 700 terminal with thermal paper to input and print out the results, and not a desktop/laptop with lots of memory, disk space, GUI, and a wide-screen monitor. But, you got your work done, although it probably took you longer than it would today.
So, is SaaS going to take over the world? No, but it will play an increasingly significant role. Many defense contractors, banks, and financial-services companies are not big fans of SaaS because of security and privacy issues. Nicolas Carr, of the IT Doesn’t Matter fame, has a new book The Big Switch, where he essentially expounds the concept of utility computing (aka SaaS) that Larry Ellison of Oracle and Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems talked about over ten years ago. However, Mark Benioff of salesfocre.com actually delivered the solution. Scott even predicted circa 1996 that pretty soon all appliances in your home would be networked and that your light bulbs or fluorescent lights would beg to be replaced before they die. Today, 12 years later, none of the appliances —toaster, microwave oven, refrigerator, freezer, washer or dryer — in my home have an IP address! As the late, great Arthur C. Clarke said decades ago, and I am paraphrasing it, we tend to overestimate the short-term implications and underestimate the long-term implications of a new technology.
New technologies, for the most part, supplement existing ones, and not totally supplant them. We believe SaaS will steal some thunder from the traditional perpetual-licensing model, but will not totally replace it.
The information technology ( IT) industry loves hypes — be they thin-clients, client-server computing, object-oriented databases, ASP, ISP, MSP, xSP, virtualization, Web x.0 (where x = 1, 2, or 3), mashups, cloud computing, social computing — which drive the industry, clients get excited, and the analysts and vendors work each other. The problem with us Americans is that we do not have an emphasis or focus on history, recent or otherwise.
Specific to this conference that focused on software-as-a-service (SaaS), it was amazing to see how many attendees were excited about the concept of SaaS. SaaS is nothing new: Thirty years ago they were called Service Bureaus (remember CDC’s Cybernet?) You submitted a job with punched cards to a computer that was housed who-knows-where, got the results back, fixed any errors, resubmitted your job, and got the final results after a few runs. This was real cloud computing: You had a dumb terminal (a.k.a. green screen), usually a 3270; a computer, usually a mainframe, and a network that you didn’t know what it consisted of. You probably had a TI Silent 700 terminal with thermal paper to input and print out the results, and not a desktop/laptop with lots of memory, disk space, GUI, and a wide-screen monitor. But, you got your work done, although it probably took you longer than it would today.
So, is SaaS going to take over the world? No, but it will play an increasingly significant role. Many defense contractors, banks, and financial-services companies are not big fans of SaaS because of security and privacy issues. Nicolas Carr, of the IT Doesn’t Matter fame, has a new book The Big Switch, where he essentially expounds the concept of utility computing (aka SaaS) that Larry Ellison of Oracle and Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems talked about over ten years ago. However, Mark Benioff of salesfocre.com actually delivered the solution. Scott even predicted circa 1996 that pretty soon all appliances in your home would be networked and that your light bulbs or fluorescent lights would beg to be replaced before they die. Today, 12 years later, none of the appliances —toaster, microwave oven, refrigerator, freezer, washer or dryer — in my home have an IP address! As the late, great Arthur C. Clarke said decades ago, and I am paraphrasing it, we tend to overestimate the short-term implications and underestimate the long-term implications of a new technology.
New technologies, for the most part, supplement existing ones, and not totally supplant them. We believe SaaS will steal some thunder from the traditional perpetual-licensing model, but will not totally replace it.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
What can do the Democrats in?
While Barack and Hillary are debating as to who is going to answer that phone at 3 AM, McCain flies to the Middle East to visit ‘friendly’ (read ‘oil-rich’) countries there. So, could in-fighting among the Democrats will bury them?
I suggested to a friend of mine a month ago that Barack should agree to be Hillary’s VP candidate; he laughed at me. Barack better settle for it; otherwise, as my friend speculated, the ever-shrewd Republicans are going to dig up tons of dirt about Chicago southside-raised, liberal-Princeton-student-in-the-1970s Michelle Obama, and use that dirt to bury Barack. And, with our country in such an economic mess —the dollar at an all-time low against most major currencies, oil flirting at $110 a barrel, gold over $930 an ounce, housing and sub-prime mortgage meltdowns — the last thing we can afford is another four or eight years of Republican idiocy and ideology.
I suggested to a friend of mine a month ago that Barack should agree to be Hillary’s VP candidate; he laughed at me. Barack better settle for it; otherwise, as my friend speculated, the ever-shrewd Republicans are going to dig up tons of dirt about Chicago southside-raised, liberal-Princeton-student-in-the-1970s Michelle Obama, and use that dirt to bury Barack. And, with our country in such an economic mess —the dollar at an all-time low against most major currencies, oil flirting at $110 a barrel, gold over $930 an ounce, housing and sub-prime mortgage meltdowns — the last thing we can afford is another four or eight years of Republican idiocy and ideology.
Monday, March 10, 2008
How dumb can a state be?
In a recent article, The New York Times reported that the lawmakers in the State of West Virginia, where I obtained my Ph. D., gave final approval to a bill that allows hunting education classes in all schools where at least 20 students express interest. My question is: How more stupid can you be? Whereas states such as California, where I live now and call my home, and ‘developing’ countries such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are investing in biotech, software, nanotechnology and other technologies that are shaping the 21st century, here is a stupid state investing in hunting education! This is akin to the Middle Eastern countries investing in education where almost 55% of the PhDs awarded are in Islamic studies! The modern world is being run by neither the 26 English alphabets nor the hundreds of Arabic or Chinese characters, but by ‘0’s and ‘1’s — it’s a cyber world.
West Virginia ranks among the bottom five of the 50 states in the U. S. in almost all categories — per-capita-education spending, healthcare, infrastructure spending, corporate tax incentives…And, here is a state that, for the first time in its history, voted for a Republican presidential candidate — George Dubya — in 2000. Why? Because Dubya in the last minute flew in NRA President Charleston Heston who convinced the dumb mountain dwellers that, if they voted for Al Gore, they would lose their rights to own guns and couldn’t hunt anymore! The result: West, by Gawd, Virginia is still stuck in the 20th century and, with its corrupt politicians, is emulating third-world countries. West Virginia is a beautiful state, but its politicians are making it ugly.
West Virginia ranks among the bottom five of the 50 states in the U. S. in almost all categories — per-capita-education spending, healthcare, infrastructure spending, corporate tax incentives…And, here is a state that, for the first time in its history, voted for a Republican presidential candidate — George Dubya — in 2000. Why? Because Dubya in the last minute flew in NRA President Charleston Heston who convinced the dumb mountain dwellers that, if they voted for Al Gore, they would lose their rights to own guns and couldn’t hunt anymore! The result: West, by Gawd, Virginia is still stuck in the 20th century and, with its corrupt politicians, is emulating third-world countries. West Virginia is a beautiful state, but its politicians are making it ugly.
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