Too Big to Fail

Too Big to Fail

There were laws made about how big a company could get. They are called anti trust laws. These have not been enforced in my lifetime. The Ma Bell was broken up. Microsoft got a small slap on the wrist. 

I can get with the Republicans on their idea that we need to trust the market, if only we didn’t have so many institutions that are too big to fail. Even the Republicans saw that the banks were too big to fail. They invested over a trillion dollars in banks so that they wouldn’t fail. It remains to be seen whether that money will a. go to fix large banks’ bottom lines, or 2. go to bankers who already have an unconsiounably large wage.

Too big to fail. A failure of government to enforce existing antitrust laws, not to mention to keep up with our rapidly expanding tech sector. 

Republicans could get away with complaining about too much government interference if they remained upbeholden to large interests. In the current business climate there are many big players with interests that the government upholds, Republican and Democrat alike. I do not see that Republicans have a leg to stand on when they say government should not be involved. 

Government is way involved in propping up and making laws favorable to the “too big to fail” institutions. That is how we got into the current economic downturn in the first place.

If the federal government had enforced existing laws, the economic downturn would not be as severe. If the government was able to allow new business with new ideas into the economy, things would be brighter. Growth areas have been in weapons and war and in the disastrous War On Drugs. 

There has not been a balance of guns and butter. (As we used to say) Guns have gotten most of the pie. 

Noah's Pudding

Noah’s pudding is talked about like it is a very solumn event. The way Mutsafa, who is from Turkey, explained it to me: you clean out your cupboards at the end of winter, make pudding with what you find, invite the neighbors over and have a party.


Recipe for Noah's Pudding from the Great Lakes Friendship Society (makes 30 servings)

Ingredients*:
1 cup wheat
1 cup white beans
1 cup garbanzo beans
1 cup raisins
1 cup almonds
3/4 cup peanuts
12 dried apricots
5 1/2 cups sugar
water (enough to cover) 
topping: walnuts, cinnamon

Preparation:
1. Soak wheat, white beans, garbanzo beans and almonds in water overnight.
2. Boil the above ingredients, remove the outer shell or skin.
3. Soak the raisins in boiling water until they soften.
4. Put all the ingredients above (steps 1-3) in a large pot and boil. Add peanuts and almonds (peeled and cut in half) at this point.
5. Chop the apricot into small pieces, add to mixture along with sugar.
6. Boil for 10-15 minutes. 
7. Enjoy your pudding!
*These are the ingredients we chose. Feel free to experiment with other grain, fruits and nuts. Pomegranate, sesame seeds and orange peel are recommended.
 

Obama Hustle

Signed Sealed Delivered Lyrics
Signed Sealed Delivered
Like a fool/ I went and stayed too long/ Now I'm wondering if your love's still strong
Ooh baby/ Here I am/ Signed sealed delivered/ I'm yours.
Like that time I went and said goodbye/ Now I'm back and not ashamed to cry.
Ooh baby/ Here I am/ Signed sealed delivered/ I'm yours.
Here I am baby/ Uh signed sealed delivered/ You got the future in your hands/ Here I am baby / Uh signed sealed delivered/ You got the future in your hands.
I gotta lot a things to say/ I've gotta really didn't mean.
Uh/ Seen a lot of things in this old world/ When I typed them they said.
Ooh baby/ Here I am/ Signed sealed delivered/ I'm yours.
Ooh singing this song/ That's why I know you are my only desire.
full lyrics
Elton John lyrics

I don't know the Obama Hustle, but I do know the Hustle and I will be glad of a busload of Detroiters trying to do the Hustle to a song Stevie Wonder song (Lyrics by Elton John) at the inaguration. I am told this was the song of the Obama campaign. By all accounts there will be a lot of people at the inauguration, I wonder if they will all be able to do a big line dance. I hope so.

Chicken Jokes Revisited

You couldn’t make jokes about minorities or women and now you can’t make chicken jokes. The Bird Brain myth is being smashed by researchers who talk to birds and are finding pathways of thought in what science had considered empty heads.

Irene Pepperberg has written a book about her beloved parrot and how he communicated with her. The book, titled Alex and Me: How a scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence- and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process has the scoop on how she found many levels of feeling and knowing in Parrot training. The night before he died, Alex the parrot told her to take care of herself and that he loved her. Those were the last words he said to her.

Alex made patterns and he made mischief. He understood concepts that behaviorists declared birds could not. He labeled objects. He generalized and he learned concepts and he could understand same and different, all things that birds aren’t supposed to be able to do in their little brains. It turns out their brains are more like human minds that we are willing to admit.

Family stories abound about the chickens that lived in an old Model T at my Grandparent’s house in Northville, Michigan. The family chickens sat on my Grandpa’s shoulder when he came home from work. No one had the heart to do them in, so Great Grandma Nonny came out from Detroit and did them in with her own hands. She took off the feathers and cooked them, none but her ate their friends.

I recall the chickens that lived at my friend Peter’s house in upstate New York. If they could have talked, they would have had very personable greetings, judging from their friendly chicken banter. They loved it when the children came and fed them grass from outside their enclosure, collected eggs. (Those chickens had to be enclosed in a hen house and yard covered with chicken wire or they would have become hawk food.)

We are going to have to learn to treat chickens with respect. I am unsure what this means in terms of performing the chicken dance at weddings. But eating industrially raised birds ought to be verboten. The hormones the ill-treated chickens produce that reach the table cannot be healthy.

I think about my mother now. Sometimes she told me that she would “ring my neck” when I misbehaved. I ought to have been more afraid of such a threat, as she and I come from a line of women that knew how to ring the necks of chickens.

Bon Appitite

Detroitification

Detroitification

This is a new word on me. I think of it as similar to stagflation and malaise, words used in the 70’s to describe the economy.

Having lived in Detroit and environs for most of my life, I have had time to study Detroitification close up.

I’m theorizing here; when you have large institutions, the kind that even the Bush administration say are too big to fail, there can be many different memes (Look it up. Young folks use this word all the time) running through an organization.

Lets start with abuse of power at the top. I guess the folks at the top don’t realize they are messing up. For many reasons, they are cut off from their costumers. Once in a while they will have access to cleaning staff, but you only get to clean for the boss if you have your mind right, don’t talk and do your job. Top management lives in a classic insulated bubble.

Then there are the petty dictators. They take the policy put out by the top guys (and they are mostly guys) and they try to make policy based on the flawed policy at the top. There are many forms of corruption in this pyramid, not all intentional, but practical in that the policies work for the short run.

Once policy, and all distortions there of, filters to street level (down from the metaphorical, and often physical) from the top floor it is easier to see problems. Most know on which side their bread is buttered, few complain. Those that do are marginalized as complainers.

Many consumers would have bought high mpg cars, if there had been any to buy. Those of us who bought Japanese cars in the 70’s because they were affordable and didn’t break down, soon learned that so called American car companies learned a thing or two and came up with more dependable models in later decades.

I say so called American cars because I live in the motor city and talk to people in the car industry, parts are made for cars all over the globe. Many car parts go into all cars, Ford makes a good drive train and they all use it. GM makes a good transmission, it ends up in Toyota’s cars.

I did start driving Fords again because relatives and neighbors worked at Ford. I soon found that contrary their reputation, Ford was making a car that lasted. Being sentimental people, we like to drive our cars for at least ten years in my family (we are also adverse to spending money on a new car, except for my father-in-law of whom it is said that he would buy a car rather than empty his ash tray). My old Subaru didn’t die of old age, but had to be sold lest my kids fall through holes in the floor. We sold it to a pizza delivery man. Japanese cars did have a rust problem. Car makers have taken Volvo’s lead and put an extra digit in the odometer so that the owner can keep track of miles over 100,000. I have not owned a car that didn’t make it to 150 thousand. My Fords and Mercuries have been worthy. The old soccer van saw untimely traffic accident death, when it had 150,000 miles on it.

Most of my friends are old enough to have lived through the economic downturn of the seventies. We found ways to fit into the old economy that was then the only one on the visible spectrum, though many felt like round pegs in square holes. Some found ways to create small business without money and some found illegal means to capitalize businesses that banks would not.

Now we are in another downturn, from all reports, worse than in the 70’s. Detroit and carmakers are getting a bad rap for being who they are, for not bucking trends, for making high milage cars, for having unions, for generally not being lean and mean. Mean, maybe, but not lean.

I understand this attitude a little. In traveling, I notice you get street cred just for being from Detroit. Every body drives the cars, though.

I’m speculating; we don’t have the tools in general lexicon to build a large institution. I have seen abuse of power in many places and many institutions, from religious to counter cultural as well as familiar mainstream ones. There are many ways to open a door on corruption.

I am leaning way into sociology here and don’t have a PH and d, but here is what I know: everyone must have a place at the table.

We are putting together a puzzle as we try to move along and everyone has a piece, even people who don’t know they have a piece, or people who have been maimed by a system that ignores their particular piece of said puzzle.

I don’t know how to build a table large enough for everyone to have a seat. I don’t know how to get someone to talk who has found that the best way to get along is to keep their piece of the puzzle hidden. Many theories of management have been devised to try to include everyone. Has any worked? Maybe I am too Detroitified to know. Fifty years of Detroitification has made me certain that all stakeholders must have a place at the table and since we are all in this together, everyone is a stakeholder.

(by the way, there are some neighborhoods in the city that are finding solutions to Detroitification. Ya’all come down and find out what is happening, my guess is you would learn something about bootstraps and regeneration, especially since the whole country seems to be heading in the Detroitified direction. Notable to me is that the Rouge River, a mostly urban watershed is healthier now than at any time in half a century.)