BEST INTEREST OF WHOM?

They always tell us about our best interests. Adam Smith says to let everyone act in their own absent interference. Politicians are elected on platforms that promise protection of these so called best interests. Best interests are an integral piece of this timeless ideal known as the the American Dream. The problem I have with this concept of best interests is that I see no gray area…at all. Is it just assumed that everyone has the same ranking system for what they believe to be in their own best interest? I find that hard to accept. I also find it hard to accept that our most rational thought process would lead us to believe in a system that allows a free-for-all and yet doesn’t seem to worry about extreme instances of volatility.

American stock market crashes of 1812, 1837, 1859, 1863, 1892, 1901, 1907, 1929, 1987, 2000, and 2008. The French Indian War, American Indian War, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, Grenada invasion, Panama invasion, the Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. Keep in mind this is only the volatile events of one country in the past 200 years. Is this all we are capable of? Once again I have trouble accepting that this is the most efficient possible approach to managing our civilization. I believe this list would beg the same question of any good researcher. Is there a common link between all of these I events? I think I might see one. The acquisition of power.

MICHAEL’S JOURNAL

Hi Grandpa –

How many Americans do you think read the Patriot Act in its entirety?

Michael

CLICK TO LEARN HOW MY FUTURE GRANDSON CAME TO BE

TO AFFECT CHANGE ONE MUST BE ARMED

Today is not about changing the world. Today is the push to expose yourself to any and all information you can dig up on CISPA. Learn that it’s already passed through half of Congress and now only the Senate and Obama stand in its way. Educate yourself on the fundamental rights this law tramples on. Research the history of CISPA and other cyber security bills like SOPA. Discover which companies are in support of this law and then note those who deafeningly oppose it. Today is not about changing the world. Today is about preserving it.

CISPA could allow any private company to share vast amounts of sensitive, private data about its customers with the government.

CISPA would override all other federal and state privacy laws, and allow a private company to share nearly anything—from the contents of private emails and Internet browsing history to medical, educational and financial records—as long as it “directly pertains to” a “cyber threat,” which is broadly defined.

CISPA does not require that data shared with the government be stripped of unnecessary personally-identifiable information. A private company may choose to anonymize the data it shares with the government. However, there is no requirement that it does so—even when personally-identifiable information is unnecessary for cybersecurity measures. For example, emails could be shared with the full names of their authors and recipients. A company could decide to leave the names of its customers in the data it shares with the government merely because it does not want to incur the expense of deleting them. This is contrary to the recommendations of the House Republican Cybersecurity Task Force and other bills to authorize information sharing, which require companies to make a reasonable effort to minimize the sharing of personally-identifiable information.

CISPA would allow the government to use collected private information for reasons other than cybersecurity. The government could use any information it receives for “any lawful purpose” besides “regulatory purposes,” so long as the same use can also be justified by cybersecurity or the protection of national security. This would provide no meaningful limit—a government official could easily create a connection to “national security” to justify nearly any type of investigation.

CISPA would give Internet Service Providers free rein to monitor the private communications and activities of users on their networks. ISPs would have wide latitude to do anything that can be construed as part of a “cybersecurity system,” regardless of any other privacy or telecommunications law.

CISPA would empower the military and the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect information about domestic Internet users. Other information sharing bills would direct private information from domestic sources to civilian agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security. CISPA contains no such limitation. Instead, the Department of Defense and the NSA could solicit and receive information directly from American companies, about users and systems inside the United States.

CISPA places too much faith in private companies, to safeguard their most sensitive customer data from government intrusion. While information sharing would be voluntary under CISPA, the government has a variety of ways to pressure private companies to share large volumes of customer information. With complete legal immunity, private companies have few clear incentives to resist such pressure. There is also no requirement that companies ever tell their customers what they have shared with the government, either before or after the fact. As informed consumers, Americans expect technology companies to have clear privacy policies, telling us exactly how and when the company will use and share our personal data, so that we can make informed choices about which companies have earned our trust and deserve our business.

Copy, paste, forward, reply all, tweet, post, blog, reblog, etc. Your ability to do so in the future may depend on it.

A FEARLESS YODA COULD SAVE THE WORLD

Business ownership has many benefits. You build your own schedule, no longer report to authority, possess near limitless compensation potential, and enjoy freedom from compromising the integrity of your creative input. The list is much longer than this but it shouldn’t be overlooked that running your own show comes with monumental responsibility as well. The vacation days of unplugging and trusting someone else with your responsibilities are over. With unrestricted access to the vault you can no longer live with the paycheck to paycheck mentality unless you want to add numbers to the unemployment lines. Your hours now reflect the amount of work that you’ve earned and not what someone thoughtfully schedules for you inside the constraints of some law. Oh and every problem the company has…you now have. It’s a love hate deal. More risk. More reward.

What I’m seeing though is our population not willing to take that risk anymore in an exchange for a chance at redundancy, security, and promises made from a position that rarely take into consideration the well-being of an employee outside the bricks and mortar of that institution. I know because I was there. I’ve worked for enormous corporations in the past seven years and every once in a while I would have to just stand in my cubicle and gaze around expecting Ashton Kutcher to pop out of a closet with a camera crew. People were miserable and literally hated what they were doing. On some days their cigarette breaks would outnumber their phone calls placed. Employees would flip out at their computer and storm out of the building. Drug use was present. Alcohol to cope was a must.

There weren’t many bright spots during the week. The hours were spent commuting in endless traffic, team building activities, soothing angry customers, or trying to play along with some manager who was reading “An Idiots Guide to Being a Manager” under the table during your individual weekly meetings. What I personally started to notice was that I began to typify the days of the week. In no way do I consider myself unique in this thought process as anyone sitting quietly in observation of a cubicle based workforce would no longer need a calendar to tell which day of the week it was.

Monday. How cliché is it to hate Monday? When I was working the nine to five I used to love Mondays. 52 days a year I would sink into my chair, take a deep breath, and plow through illiterate emails, indiscernible voicemails, and the exchanging of weekend war stories from the day or so of freedom granted to us minions each week. I seemed to get the joke so I never really got upset at the situation. For me it was also the 52 days of the year that reminded me of how much was waiting for me outside whatever this was. I’d usually spent the second half of every Monday designing a vegan food truck joint that operated without money or a hydroponic growing system that would allow me fresh spinach 365 days a year out of my garage. Mondays created hope. I’m convinced that if a revolution ignited, it would be on a Monday afternoon.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and even Friday all blended together for the rest of my week. Those were the days I was forced to remember the paycheck through tedious unnecessary tasks that contributed nothing to society but for some reason granted me some sort of false reassuring safety. Stretches of time when everything would become numb. Hit your call time goals, close a certain percentage of your sales calls, don’t step on any toes, and whatever you do try not to ask too many questions. I felt like I was living in Derek Cianfrance screenplay that was written for Eastwood to direct.

As Friday started to wind down the chatter of cheap drinks and two-for-one shots started to reverberate through the aisles. This was the culmination to our week. It was time to drown whatever feelings were telling us to light our computer on fire and kick it out the sixth story window. If it was a good week then we had a few extra bucks in our bank accounts to go blow on incredibly overpriced alcohol. The name of the game was speed. If you drank at a table with your friends and moved back and forth to the bar you were less likely to get cut off before you got what you needed. Then the key was to either get yourself a driver until you had no one else and I think you get where I’m going with this.

This was an average work week. It was like a roller coaster that didn’t go fast, slow, up, or down. It would just circle at a medium pace until it was time to get off or die. Be on time, get your work done, stay out of trouble, pick up your check, and repeat. This cycle went on for about six years until one of my Monday day dreams offered me a way out. I finally had the opportunity to try my own hand at this whole business thing. I was ready for a change.

This may be the only direct advice I ever offer. Do this. For the love of all that is holy do this now. Want more time? Do this. Want more money? Do this. Want less stress? Do this. I’ve heard a million reasons why people can’t make this a reality but doesn’t a greater amount of time, money, and stress relief outweigh pretty much every excuse you could come up with?

Is failure a possibility? Of course it is. Why the hell do you think people are so scared? This ever growing fear of failure has transformed this country into a group of people watchers instead of a pack of savvy risk takers. News flash. We would still be living under rocks if everyone in history gave up on everything after one attempt. 100 attempts equal a minimum of 99 failures. Fear is something you should become comfortable with. It’s part of the process. The same process that produced light bulbs, telephones, automobiles, airplanes, trains, computers, and the internet. Yoda tells us that fear is the path to dark side. That may be but who said we have to take the path? Can’t we just acknowledge that it exists and then try to learn from it. Maybe if Yoda would have embraced a little fear he might have actually won a single fight ever. I digress.

I always hear that money is too tight. I started my business with a stay-at-home mom, a newborn, one average weekly salary, $1,000, and a Dummy’s Guide to Ebay. Was it uncomfortable? Absolutely. Did I sacrifice certain luxuries that I was used to? I realized that if I wanted to make this thing work I had no choice. Did I want to quit or verbally assault my business partner a dozen times each day? Highly likely. But that’s why it’s so worth it. When you finally come up for air and realize that it’s now up to you when to go back down. The first time you get stuck in traffic on the way to the juice bar and instead of worrying about an ass chewing coming your way before you even sit down, just driving back home to begin your work day on your own terms. What about the first month you realize that you just doubled your employee salary? Tripled? I think this is the best kept secret out there.

If people knew how much money could be made working for themselves instead of selling off their labor to the highest bidder, I think you would see a large shift in our society. Small local businesses play a significant role in creating a sense of community. To this day I still remember the names and faces of all the regular business owners in my small town. The local bankers, restaurants, body shop, movie theater, general store, hardware store, and more. It was like living in Cheers where everyone not only knew your name but also knew who you were. I can see people still fighting to protect this and I know that if more people joined this class of working American we would be taking an enormous step in regaining our sense of community that seems to have grown stagnant. Take it back. Do this now.

SUPERMAN’S SPEED IS RELATIVE

Technology is the closest thing we’ll ever have to a Superhero. I know it seems bizarre to personify something so broad and making such a bold statement is sure to require some sort of formulated argument. Why not? I’m up to the challenge. Plus this has to be one of those debates that you can’t win or lose anyway right? The only goal here is to leave your stamp on the conversation so that others can draw their own logical conclusions. Sounds easy enough. My only conundrum is deciding where to begin.

Superman seems to be the standard so let’s take a look at that dogma. Supposedly the man is able to travel faster than a speeding bullet. Since speed is a unit of measurement we may be able to quantify this after all. Can man’s technology outrun the Man of Steel? What if we took the Lockheed S-71 Blackbird which has recorded speeds of over 2,100 miles per hour and pit it against Superman in a race to deliver a message from New York to Los Angeles? 3,000 miles to determine whether or not technology can really be expected to rescue us from certain doom.

Well if Superman is able to travel faster than a speeding bullet, let’s at least try to put an actual number at the top of his speedometer. I’d like to give our hero the benefit of the doubt as much as possible so we’ll pretend that the bullet he’s faster than is shot from an M-16 at over 6,000 mph. For this exercise I’d even be willing to say that when Lois has herself thrown off a building or whatever, Superman can find another gear and double that speed to 12,000 mph. Sorry, no scientific basis for the capable speed of Superman so it’s up to you to play along. Clear so far? Good.

Comparing Superman to the fastest manned aircraft on the planet is a no brainer. The Blackbird would take one and a half hours to travel from Yankee Stadium to the Coliseum. If Superman is trying to blow out his engine he can make that run in right around 15 minutes. Damn! Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe comparing superhero technology to man-made technology is just not possible. But wait. Doesn’t ingenuity have anything to say? Isn’t there someone who is willing to challenge the “shortest distance between two points” theory? Do we have it in us to look at a problem though completely different eyes and search for a solution that doesn’t even seem feasible? That thought process is what drives our evolution. That thought process is why someone like me is light years faster than Superman right at this very moment.

By the time Superman would be barreling over Pennsylvania I’d already have an email sitting in a Hollywood inbox thanks to my trusty wireless satellite enabled smart phone and its data transmission capabilities. Superman can’t even come close to competing with me. Light travels from the Big Apple to the City of Angels in about one minute. That might be my only competition. That’s how capable we are of solving most our problems with technology.

Think about the magnitude of this achievement. We created almost instantaneous information transmission. Compare that to delivering transcontinental messages by ship hundreds of years ago. If that isn’t proof of what we are capable of then nothing should be. Now all we need is for the people in charge to force themselves to view our countries biggest hurdles through this same perspective. We are currently stuck in this mindset that requires we build bigger and faster aircrafts to stay at the head of the pack. I wonder why no one with power is asking why we think aircraft is the only means of travel. Questions, questions, questions.

Why do we all have sore necks from cramming against the glass ceiling of innovation? Why do those gears move forward so slowly when the technology waiting for us will change the world? What incentives are there to revolutionize industries like energy or agriculture? Are there any incentives to keep those industries in a static state? Who has the ability to influence change inside those industries? As with all my questions I intend to push you to ask your own questions until things become less cloudy. The implications may seem cynical but we are at a crucial turning point in history and I believe the more people who understand how our system works will equate to more people wanting to change it. Ignorance truly is bliss but at one point or another, ignorance is no longer an option. When that day comes I sure hope we have a superhero or two in our corner.

AT LEAST THEY WROTE IT IN ENGLISH

Someone should tell Monsanto that the point of natural selection is that it’s natural.

SEC. 735. In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection ActH. R. 933—35 is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate or minimize potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the Secretary’s evaluation of the petition for non-regulated status, while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other authorized activities in a timely manner: Provided, That all such conditions shall be applicable only for the interim period necessary for the Secretary to complete any required analyses or consultations related to the petition for non-regulated status: Provided further, That nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting the Secretary’s authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the Plant Protection Act.

Pass this around. Hopefully people are confused enough to dig into what this really means.

I AM NOT JESSE VENTURA’S BROTHER

I ask a lot of questions. A lot. I mean it’s what I do. I don’t claim to be an expert. I don’t even claim to be smart. In fact the very premise on which my blog is built would suggest that I am beyond clueless. All I try to do is create discussion the best way I know how. I question. An art form that seems to becoming less and less prevalent and I struggle eternally to understand why. Do we just assume we’d be lied to? Do we not care? Do we feel so hopeless in facing a potentially life changing fact that the comforting naivety of looking the other way just seems like a more sensible option? When I really think about these questions I have trouble not finding a sound defense in all three justifications.

Could you really blame the person that assumes the government might not always tell the truth? Well then, let’s examine Richard Nixon. You have a president that essentially took the tumble for thinking he was above the Constitution. Not exactly a slap on the wrist in the eye of public opinion. I wasn’t even born in 1972 so all I have is what I can read in a book or what someone else can recite from memory. So I dig though what I can and realize that all I’m looking at are records of facts, quotes, statistics, etc. That’s not how I roll. I want to know what it was like being an American when you realized that a man who oversaw one the most controversial conflicts in the 20^th century had the ability to lie right to the your face. How did Americans now feel about Nixon removing us from the gold standard? What else wasn’t he given the chance to deceptively orchestrate? Ultimately if you pass on questioning because you don’t believe you’ll receive a straight answer, I simply have no rebuttal.

Maybe we don’t care. Maybe we are distracted with our Fantasy lineups, the new Manolo, our performance review, getting the kids to soccer, planning for retirement, or one of the million other bright shiny objects that are right in front of our eyes holding our attention.  I don’t see a valid reason to blame you either. At a certain point you have to handle your business. Kids gotta eat, the shoes make the woman, no one wants to work until they’re 80, and Calvin Johnson doesn’t sit on the bench. I get it. Idle hands are the Devil’s playground. If you’re happy being happy…I’m happy. I have no rebuttal.

The last defense I want to address because I know this one hurts. I’m talking about that helpless feeling. Knowing that something isn’t right but not being able to put your finger on it. Not being able to formulate a question because your brain can’t conceptualize the ramifications of a truthful answer. Hoping that if something must happen, that it please happen somewhere else. I’ve been there and once again, I have no argument.

I know the lack of control is terrifying but I’m here to pull the curtain back just a little in an attempt to relieve some of the stress. That feeling isn’t a false alarm. Those are your instincts. Your Spidey Senses alerting you to keep your eyes peeled. You are part of something that doesn’t feel natural and you as an independent thought machine are having a reaction to it. Biology 101. And I already know the question. What could one person possibly do? The answer is one of my favorites. I don’t know.

I don’t know is a perfectly good answer. The key being that you aren’t admitting defeat in stating that you’ll never know. Information is everywhere. Some good. Some bad. Some lucrative. Some insane. Some will make your blood boil while others will drain every last one of your tears. You’ll shake your head in confusion. You’ll shake your head in disgust. You’ll throw up yours hands. Scream at your computer. Discredit. Deny. Not a chance in the world that these things could be true! Panting may play a role. Trust me I’ve been there. But then a funny thing will happen.

Each time you learn something new, hear a personal testimonial, watch a new documentary, visit another country, or God forbid experience something in your own life, that information will catalogue itself. After enough time and accumulation, pieces will slide into place in your subconscious and you’ll start to see a picture that looks nothing like the world we live in. Yes I am completely aware this concept sounds crazier than an old lady screaming at a light pole. Less than a year ago I would have read my blog and blocked the site in disgust. Something you should be aware of though is that when you are on this quest for knowledge, you will find more people out there that see the same picture. People who lived through trying to align perception and reality at the cost of their sanity. Some still struggle. Hell I still struggle.

This perspective adjustment is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. The process takes time and trying to discuss it with someone who falls into the first two categories is a painful process. You’ll be a conspiracy theorist, socialist, nutjob, Jesse Ventura’s little brother, un-American, disloyal, and I’ve even been accused of treason although he was wearing frayed jean shorty shorts so I’m not sure how credible a witness he’ll end up being. Bottom line, just arm yourself with information. It’s available through more channels now than in any time throughout history and it is literally just waiting for you to come get it. Good luck.

FINISH THE WHOLE THING BEFORE YOU WRITE THE HATE MAIL

I haven’t always been like this. I used to be one of them. I thought the Bush family was royalty. I thought the world would end when Clinton was elected. I didn’t look at a platform when I voted Dubya…either time. Democrat was a dirty word in my capitalist, Republican, self-employed, self-made household and it wasn’t hard for me to accept. My parents worked their asses off building their business and watching someone put that much skin in the game made it easy for me to buy anything else they were selling.

Another filthy word that wasn’t mentioned a lot was communism. I had no idea what made a communist a communist but the reaction I’d get from my parents and other baby boomers was enough to keep me from prying too much. It was taboo to even bring it up but after listening to stories about bomb shelters, the thirteen days, or the way that the media portrayed the Soviets I had to admit that I would have been a little nervous too.

Well obviously I’ve changed my mindset a bit. My votes these days stay in my pocket and represent a vote of no confidence in the system. Instead of seeing two parties fighting for the middle ground, I see two parties pulling so hard for their own agendas that American’s only option is hoping they pick the less dangerous extreme. Needless to say it wasn’t a smooth transition in perspective. I had to face a lot of questions that I never bothered to ask. One question in particular stood out from the others. Why does America hate communism?

A while back I read a story about a professor that used his classroom to teach a capitalist lesson and slam Obama. Being an unquestioning economic faithful I might as well have taken the story as scripture. I’m not even sure if the tale is real but the first time I read it was the first time I started to understand the hatred of communism. It’s made it around the internet but if you haven’t read it yet you can take a quick look before you move on.

———————————————

An economics professor at a local college said that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich – a great equalizer.

To counter this, the professor said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little, studied even less and those who had previously studied hard, decided they wanted a free ride. So they too studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Couldn’t be any simpler than that.

———————————————

So I finish the story and have no doubt in my mind that capitalism is hands down a better economic machine. It creates competition, which produces the best products, which can be sold at the most efficient price, all in an attempt to increase the quality of life for the consumer. Simple, straight forward, and it’s near impossible to disagree with the lesson the story teaches us? People on the internet call him a genius. I still have questions.  Now I don’t want to get into the mechanisms that govern both capitalism and communism but I want to point out an incredible flaw in this professor’s attempt to recreate a communist classroom.

In previous sessions the students’ entire learning process was individualized. From the information gathering and studying to the testing and eventual scored assignments. If you worked hard you might receive an A and if you were still getting baked and playing Halo back in the dorm you might end up with a D or an F. In the altered process the professor would replace the capitalist grading methods and take a communal approach to the collection and redistribution of points to the students. Everyone gets the same grade. Simple enough right?

At first I didn’t think anything of the story other than it was pretty solid propaganda that clearly favored capitalism. Then as I imagined being a student in that class I started to question the manner in which he was trying to prove his theory. What I discovered was that he rigged the challenge to fail.  He did so by combining a communist grading system with the learning process that exists in capitalism. Hmm, I wonder why no one passed. He was teaching in a dog eat dog environment and grading as if everyone just finished a huge dinner. The catch is that not everyone gets dinner in a dog eat dog world. I’d say only about half do. Kind of like a bell curve.

In America there is no better example of capitalism than in a classroom. People scratch and claw to get to the top of the class. They stay up until two in the morning snapping Aderol in an attempt to fit as many facts inside their brain in the pursuit of the perfect grade. Perfect grades mean better schools, better schools mean better jobs, and better jobs mean better lives. Right or wrong, when I look at this process from a bird’s eye view, all I see is a Deathrace with disregard for everything but the finish line. The issue that a lot of people fail to see is that a good number of “participants” never had any interest in racing and yet they are fully involved nevertheless.  

So while I’m not a defender of communism, I don’t think this story paints an appropriate representation of what the professor was trying to accomplish. If he is going to grade communally then I think it only makes sense to teach in the same manner. Create clean channels of communication where the collective mind of the group can be used to bring the bottom half of that bell curve up and the standard deviation down. Encourage the strongest in the class to work with the weakest. Reward how many people someone has helped instead of how fast they can climb on their own. Point out the intrinsic value of helping others to help the group instead of handing out percentages and letter grades.

Question time. Can you argue that the wellness of the group is much higher when the wellness of all individuals in that group is higher? Is there a better explanation as to why our country’s wealth disappears into the top of that bell curve when we clearly only create worthy incentives that you must scratch and claw to reach? Would we be better served as a people to shrug off the bottom half of society and pretend that they are serving a necessary purpose running the counter of a Subway or helping me find a movie at Blockbuster? Those jobs exist only because people are still willing to do them. I’m not sure that’s worthy of our acceptance anymore.

One of the reasons I think people got in so much trouble for ever associating with communist literature is because once you’re exposed, it’s hard not to wonder what would happen if it were ever implemented. I for one think that a similar model would work simply because the foundation of communism is what I believe has been driven out of the struggling parts of this country. After all, the dirty word of communism is a direct relative of the word community. If we could get back to focusing on the smaller communities that we live in and continually push for decentralization at every level, call it whatever you’d like but it’s going to be sustainable, rewarding, and more liberating than anything we could ever imagine. I’ll meet you there.

BEER AND OTHER THINGS WE KILL EACH OTHER OVER

Everyone in this country should be forced to own their own business. Ok, maybe that’s a little invasive but then again have you ever read the Patriot Act in its entirety? I would argue that everyone in this country should hypothetically own their own business simply because “aint no learning like hands on learning”. I’ve owned my own business a couple times and I’m currently two years into an online husband and wife venture.

The surface benefits of not having to sit in traffic for two hours a day, never having to report to a superior, or never having to compromise on creative control are obvious. What even I hadn’t anticipated was the knowledge that comes from making mistakes yourself instead of reading about someone else’s mistakes on a scale you can’t relate to in some outdated book with an evolutionary lineage that doesn’t fork. Phew! Bottom line? I gained more knowledge in one month as a business owner than I learned in the first half of my degree.

Online retail was my first venture back in 2001 at 18 years old. Not knowing anything other than what I could teach myself with a Yahoo search query or Ebay tutorials, I studied other online stores. How did they market? How did they handle shipping? Accounting? Taxes? I was overwhelmed at the amount of moving parts on this thing and became almost too intimidated to continue.

What I quickly learned was that while everyone put their own personal touch on the different components of their business, they were all being governed by a certain set of laws that were as synonymous to business as gravity was to physics. Not laws that can be broken and remedied with sanctions, fines, or jail time although trying to manipulate these laws may get you just that. I’m talking about laws that once broken cannot exist in the same arena as a successful business. At least not in the economic paradigm where we currently reside.

It wasn’t until my final year of college that I sat through a lecture in a corporate finance course that discussed the nature of cash flow in a way that opened my eyes. The professor always laced his lectures with humor but on this day he made sure that he held the class’ attention. He prefaced the lecture by reciting to us a line that I thought was absurdly absolute. He told us that not a single thing in a business model is ever relevant if no cash exists. My ears perked up. It sounded like a challenge. Lucky for me the professor had already asked for three volunteers. Naturally I wanted to be the wrench that tried to hop into the gears so I raised my hand.

As the three of us made our way to the front of the class our professor told us to start stretching out. We began to look at each other with confused facial expressions. When we were all lined up in front of the room he then told us that we’d be racing out of the building and across town to a local bar. First one there gets a beer on him. Again with the confused looks. Finally I shrugged and got ready to head out the door. Right? Free beer on a college budget? You know what I’m talking about. Unfortunately there was a catch. The professor was going to cut all of our jugulars before we left the room. Uh…ok?

So he says he’s going to slash all three of our throats and then say go. The first one that gets to the bar gets the beer. He paused and let what he just said sink into the brains of 30 people staring back with their mouths open. I instantly knew what he was getting at and I have to say I was a little surprised he was going to such great lengths to illustrate a very simple point. I get it. A business can’t survive without cash the same way a human couldn’t survive without blood. Right? Wrong. He was pointing to something much bigger.

He went on to question his volunteers that he had ultimately just threatened to murder. He asked the girl a question. If I cut your throat, what is the first thing you would do? Without hesitation the girl responded that she’d try to cover the gash and stop the bleeding. He nodded in approval. He then asked the guy that had volunteered what his next step would be. He made a joke that he would start looking around campus for more blood. The professor smiled as if that was the dialogue he had written and once again nodded. Then he asks me the most important question yet. Would I care how I stopped the bleeding or where the new blood came from if it meant I was going to live? Whoa! Chris Angel’s mind would have just been freaked.

He wasn’t trying to lecture us on the importance of cash flow. He was going to lecture us on the the survival tactics of big business and the manipulation that occurs in an attempt to preserve the appearance of clean and self-sustaining cash flows. Whether it’s a business’ cash flow or a human being’s circulatory system that is being threatened, that entity is probably going to do whatever is necessary in order to survive without contemplating consequences or the affect their survival will take on other entities.

So is the guy who would start knocking on dorm rooms begging for more blood at any cost be any different than the U.S. Treasury shopping our bonds all over the world with almost no yield? We know through experience that once all the blood leaves that kid’s body, he will cease to exist. Why are we not able to make the same distinction with our current bureaucractic infrastructure and its monetary policy? Do we really think that we could just stop printing the $85 billion a month if we wanted to?

We’re bleeding to death and we’ll take anything we can to stop the bleeding. Even if that means that we just hook up a blood transfusion that fills us up at the same rate we’re bleeding out. Unfortunately we spend every penny, every month, and the growing deficit is pointing to the fact that we are bleeding faster than we could ever resupply.  That is why we’ll print another $85 billion next month…and the month after…and the following month after that.

So it looks like we need to answer some questions about the way we move forward. Can the American public wean itself off governmental reliance? How do we not only get off the train tracks but educate others that either don’t want to believe a train is coming or don’t care? What steps can we take to reach a sustainable level of decentralized independence in terms of social services? Finally, can we find a way to be happy with less or are we destined to bleed all over each other for free beer? Like all the insane people that have preached this before me, I have to believe that there is enough beer to go around.

FREE BABY BOTTLES AND BOTTLED UP FREEDOMS

I was watching a twenty-two month old scream through tears tonight as he protested graduation from his bottle. As a parent you run through the ritual. Try to be nice, try to be mean without laughing, pretend to ignore while you secretly take a video on your iPhone, actually ignore, start to get upset, almost lose your mind, and finally give him back the bottle. It seems hopeless to fight when you imagine the most advanced mindset that he is capable of. The kid knows what he wants, doesn’t understand why he can’t have it, and causes a riot until he gets his way. There is no rational reasoning with him at any point in this process.

So as the performance unfolds I start thinking about one question in particular which won’t leave me alone. What if we still acted this way as adults? What if one day we just refused to sell our labor to an employer because we were unhappy with the working conditions? What if we decided to stop buying a cleaning product that was considered a hazard to the consumer’s health? What would happen if we stopped everything we were doing in our lives to march around the streets waving a sign and…well…you see what I’m getting at? It seems as though some of us still have a little infancy in us. I’m here to say that’s a good thing.

The legitimacy of the Occupy movement being in question, I was still impressed by the size, speed, and worldwide coordination of the initial phase of those protests. There were no leaders, no demands, and no platform. After a couple months there weren’t any people. As of today the movement is on life support after a slow decline caused by a lack of focus. And yet when you look at those first few days it’s hard to fight the argument that people were just ready. Ready for any excuse to get pissed off. Ready to start throwing a tantrum in unison with millions of others who feel that the deck is stacked against them. Ready to shed the chains of debt and stop living in fear of creditors and late payments. Ready to recalibrate our priorities to assist in fulfilling the purpose of what a human life is truly capable of. It was a flash of brilliance that made me smile. Then something else happened. They told us not to worry. They told us not to cry. They just calmly turned on the printing press and gave us back our bottle.

Now the economy is revving back in the red again. The Dow Jones set record highs on almost half the days the market was open this month. The S&P 500 is about to set an all-time mark. The unemployment number that they give us is as low as it’s been since the collapse. Housing prices have almost rebounded to pre-crisis levels. Everything seems to be back to normal and at first glance it truly is. The issue that needs to be addressed is the definition of the word normal.

If normal is being able to take your family out to dinner a couple times a week without any strain, then we are returning to normalcy. If normal is being able to afford Netflix without worrying where that $10 a month is coming from, then we are returning to normalcy. If normal is having a couple hundred dollars left over each month and being able to justify another car payment on an already overextended credit score, then we are returning to normalcy. It’s because of these trends that I think it’s simple for economists to make the same predictions they were making in 2006 without blinking. Nothing has changed except that the RPM’s are raging at a much higher rate and this time we are truly running out of road.

So for now we have returned to our old docile state of mind. The mindset that allows us to have our bottle now at the incredible expense of future bottles. A perspective that has us content in wasting our time staring at computer screens or being a customer service punching bag instead of teaching our children how to read or learning how to grow our own food. The same state of mind that allows us to pretend that the map they’ve given us doesn’t lead right off a cliff. No worries though. The good news is that every little thing is gonna be alright. I know that some people are losing their minds with the world’s fate hanging in the balance and I can understand that what is likely going to happen will look like the end of the world. That being said I’d like to offer a different perspective.

I believe that this is just the next step in evolution. I think once again technology will have an opportunity to deliver us into the next age of our species like it has done time and time again. Imagine the technology just waiting to revolutionize transportation, communication, horticulture, medicine, energy production, and any other advancement that has been hindered thus far by those that stand to lose from progress. It’s almost limitless.

So don’t worry about what’s coming. Look forward to the opportunity we’ll be given to rebuild. Think of all the disrepair in our social services that we can correct by decentralization and local accountability. Think about reclaiming our food supply and returning a balance to our environment by eliminating the need for factory farming. Think about reintroducing thousand year old social norms of spending the majority of time with our families and friends while enjoying the simpler things in life. What do I think about? I like to think about how we’re soon to be given back the single most valuable asset in the history of mankind. Time. I for one am excited.