Singleness Of Purpose

Nearly two years ago…  What would JESUS do?  Weep.

Right now, this minute, is the time to decriminalize marijuana and hemp. The savings of beau coups bucks on enforcement/prosecution/incarceration predicated on illogical, inconsistent, capricious legislation has always been ignored to the peril of Justice. It is ignored to economic peril. God knows — literally, God knows — we care about money in a way that we do NOT care about Fair Play.

Hemp is a completely renewable energy source, the oil of which can be used in biodiesel. Independent truckers are dropping off the charts. Trucks deliver America’s Stuff. America can’t live without Stuff. If there will only be a few giant Trucking Companies…no different than a few giant oil companies, no different than a few giant airlines, no different than a few giant telecommunication providers…there will be rapacious pricing.

  Every part of the hemp plant is usable.

  Hemp was instrumental in America’s galvanization for WWII.

  It is right and just that marijuana be as legal, as regulated and as taxed as alcohol. Get over it. Or get ready for a class action discrimination action. All we need is coupla generous maverick attorney…who will, in turn, gain fame and fortune. Attorneys are big on fame and fortune.

It is right and just to decriminalize marijuana, or it is right and just to reinstate Prohibition of Alcohol.

Prohibition of Alcohol will address a number of societal ills. Let the Drug Lords have alcohol too. They are better businessmen than businessmen…a ROBUST Black Market will constitute a tremendous economic stimulus, with money ending up in hands that are more contributory to more economic stimulus.

  The fantastic sums of money that are thrown by Alcohol Pushers at advertisers and lobbyists will never be the influx to generalized economic health as those fantastic sums of money trading hands on the street. Them’s the people that still have to buy all the Stuff. Pay large sums to fancy-pants Advertisers is Big Money paying Big Money to Big Money…what’re they gonna do, buy a twentieth big-screen TV, a tenth car, a third house?

Well, yeah, actually they ARE snapping up foreclosures. Speaking of which, I am hearing ads on the radio that gush excitedly, “The foreclosure market has never been hotter.” The ad is urging the Moneyed Class to add real estate to their investment portfolios by capitalizing on the opportunities afforded by record foreclosures.

Right now, this minute, is the time to cross-reference the predatory lenders with the investment-in-foreclosures people. Any match-ups should be the focus of most rigorous investigation, with intent to prosecute to absolute fullest extent of the law.

Me, I believe that Seizing The Assets is a reasonable and effective punishment for crimes attributable to Greed. Take it ALL, except one million dollars…nothin’ cruel and inhuman about having a million bucks waiting for you when you get out of prison. Ask all the pot smokers who are languishing in federal penitentiaries.

Whatever percent of the corn crop, poof, gone. Swoosh, really. Homeowners know the nightmare of traveling water. Even apartment-dwellers…and Street People, obviously…know ALL about water damage. Not for the faint of heart, Trouble With Water. As of last March when I drove through New Orleans, I can attest that the full force of the federal government does not have a handle on water damage. Is not trying to get a handle on that water damage either, as far as I could see. Except in the financial and tourist sections, those are spiffed up.

The farmers are fucked…theoretically. But the farmers are not as fucked as the Taxpayers, who underwrite the SEVERAL programs that are mitigating the farmers’ losses. For sure though, those corn crops are not toast, but mud.

This season, for corn, is lost. The ground is too wet to plant corn, even if it weren’t too late which it pretty much is. It’s getting close to Harvest Time…when Drifters oughtta be drifting toward the farming communities that need cheap day labor.

But they could plant hemp right now. They could plant hemp in a swamp. It is called Weed because it grows like a weed. Given resolve and the swift stroke of a pen…such as Congress is CLEARLY able to muster when they give a shit about something important, like Terri Schaivo…farmers can plant hemp the day after they secure seed. This year, while those acres are unusable for corn, hemp will yield one full harvest.

If you grow it, the infrastructure will come.

There are myriad uses for hemp, from fiber to resin…recall that our Constitution
 is written on hemp paper. Innovation is inevitable. It perhaps represents an opportunity to incorporate, so to speak, more of our Native Indian population by means other than gambling. It is my understanding that hemp was a mainstay for their ancestors.

For that matter, we could invite a few Drug Lords in from the cold. They’re better businessmen than farmers, too. And, really, what’s the difference between Drug Lords or Drug Lords when it comes to working the land at a profit?

As things stand, Monsanto is buying up the arable land. Monsanto = Big Farming. I guaran-fucking-tee all those people who NOT being allowed to earn money/pursue happiness by farming and trading marijuana and hemp that marijuana and hemp will be just as legal as you please once Big Money owns the lion’s share of the arable land.

I am told that Monsanto has developed a hybrid corn seed, tres expensive, that farmers are obliged to buy in order to yield a competitive harvest. Then, whereas farmers have historically “held back” seed from each harvest, for planting the following year, they are forbidden to hold back Monsanto’s Wonder Seed. They must buy new seed.

The price of corn has tripled. Food prices are skyrocketing. We are clear that corn is not merely consumed as corn on the cob and popcorn, yes? Just like crude oil is not consumed only as gas in our cars. 

Corn feeds animals…note the price of meat and milk.

Monsanto is in Big Farming with an expensive hybrid corn seed, at the same time that Mysterious Powers are driving the use of corn in ethanol…at the same time that Americans are suffering and people elsewhere are starving to death.

Corn is not efficient in production of ethanol. The alcohol part of ethanol comes from sugar. Corn, being a starch, must be converted to sugar. That constitutes an extra step, compared to use of sugar beets or sugar cane.

Whereas stubbornly perpetuating the capricious criminalization of marijuana and hemp has always been hysteria-based and hypocritical to boot, I submit that given revised “conditions on the ground,” it constitutes gross, willful fiscal malfeasance.

copyright 2008 Implausible Endeavors LLC

I called a RELATIVE to solicit input…how pathetic is THAT? Like a gangly 13-year-old asking his MOM whether he looks alright.

“Excellent ideas…try to stay focused.”

Excellent idea…there’s the rub.

If anyone IS following along (for one thing, I ought to mention that I mean eventually to hit you up for money…think publicly funded internet to complement publicly funded radio), between Planes, Trains & Automobiles, I am writing my way toward an argument in favor of larger numbers of smaller competitors, also a profound reallocation of American Labor.

Do NOT mistake that for drooling over the quote-unquote Small Business Owner that the Republican party tromps out for special legislative consideration just as predictably as the Democratic party tromps out the Needy and Underprivileged. I contend that, all the clucking of concern notwithstanding, both classes are purposefully maintained near the unnerving precipice of insolvency.

Scrimping by from paycheck to paycheck is bondage. We have among us those who would subject the broad masses to exactly that, for the whole of bleak and thankless lives, while they themselves live like Saudi Princes. It ain’t right, and I think we should do somethin’ about it.

Previously, I posited that we are experiencing not so much a Credit Crisis as a Confidence Crisis. I was horrified to learn how many American companies don’t have their next payroll banked. Horrified. Does not a few months sound like reasonable prudence? What if there is another Katrina, what if there is another Northridge earthquake, what if there is another 9/11, what if there are two Incidents at once?

What kind of security do even the Employed have if, God forbid anything unusual happens, their bosses might not be able to cover their very next paychecks? Imagine the pandemonium if multiple companies suddenly couldn’t make payroll.  Gambling with a man’s wages has got to be a benchmark for recklessness.

WE CAN’T LET THEM FA-A-AIL is the cry-baby wail. To quote Cher in Moonstruck, SNAP OUT OF IT. To quote another Super Star, YES WE CAN.

I suspect that a lot of the protectionist crapola comes from the shoulder strap/air bag/helmet crowd. Tuckers. Once the training wheels come off, there is a point at which you either take your hand off the bicycle seat, and allow the spills from which skills are born, or you buffer/coddle/protect/insulate/orchestrate/manipulate the “rider” forever.

I hasten to add that I am ALL for generalized advancement in Health, Education, Safety, Welfare and Security. Without those things, what exactly does Civilization have? Cars? I do NOT take displacement of Labor lightly. I do not address Unemployment last because it is least important. On the contrary. Without people, what does any of it mean?

But my preference for failure of untenable enterprises, my opposition to mega mergers and my advocacy of redistribution of Labor are all steeped in the concept of Optimal Size.

I have been at this not-making-money and not-saving-the-world thing for so long, I can dust off “old” pieces rather than reinvent the wheel. I’m not sure whether to be grateful, or weep.

 
SIZE MATTERS
3 August 2008

I can’t remember what was the right number of times to read The Right Number of Elephants to my son when he was little, but it was a big number. Counting down, the Right Number of Elephants was X if you were doing Y, and Z if you were doing something else…two, for example, was the right number of elephants if you needed tireless jump rope twirlers…until, finally, one was the right number if you needed a friend. Sweet.

In Alcoholics Anonymous literature and throughout the recovery circuit, there features the concept of being right sized…a worker among workers, a family member among family members…rather than requiring disproportionate care or commandeering disproportionate attention.

American Politicos, and consequently a parade of legislation heralding a festival of advantages, continually address Small Businesses. Constantly, we are chided to think of Children, Families, and Small Businesses.

Why is that?

Why would a single, childless person climbing the corporate ladder want to think of children, families and small businesses? Why SHOULD a single, childless person who is securely ensconced in a long career with a big company be obliged to specially consider children, families and small businesses?

Children are defenseless, you say? That is why children have parents to look out for them. And THAT is why it is not only ridiculous but dangerous to pressure people to have kids they don’t want and won’t cherish. People don’t take care of things they don’t want, including things that are not things.

Families are sacred, you say? Some are, some aren’t. Same deal with single people. If government will safeguard only families, shall single people team up on paper, to reap the many benefits that fall to Marrieds, while simply going on about their lives as Singles?

But then what of gender lopsidedness? I heard it reported on radio that there are now 53 MILLION single women in America who, if history bears out, rather exceed the number of single men. If government will safeguard only families, do we mean to legalize polygamy, or do we mean to export single women to China or do we mean to add single men to our Chinese imports?

Small business is the stuff of the American Dream, you say? As American as baseball and apple pie? There is a time for every season under Heaven, including baseball season…and man does not live by apple pie alone.

Heretical as it may seem, I submit that the days of the quintessential Mom & Pop small business are largely over. However efficient a particularly well-run small business is, it is inefficient given the scope of the market. The “normal” course of commerce will routinely oblige a small business to charge higher prices, and will just as routinely prevent a small business from carrying wide selection or deep inventory. A small business has no economies of scale.

But gigantic retailers and service providers, as surely as Big Government, are bedeviled by bureaucratic bullshit. When an enterprise gets big enough, without fail, the left hand will cease to know what the right hand is doing…at a certain size, the left hand can’t even GLIMPSE the right hand in order to GUESS what it’s doing. Whereas a small operation has no economies of scale, behemoths have diminishing marginal returns. Further, and worse, at a certain size…notably the monopoly/oligopoly size…there is an absence of competition that simultaneously exacerbates inefficiency and eliminates moderation of price.

Just as soundest governance plays to the middle rather than the fringes, I submit that soundest business practice is found neither in small businesses nor in gigantic corporations but, rather, in mid-sized companies. TODAY. One night’s dream is another morning’s oversleeping.

Today, I sense that the lip service paid to the Small Businessman is to keep alive the fantasy that Ordinary Americans can bust into the glamorous high-flying Elite, when “conditions on the ground” say that the overwhelming majority of us will toil thanklessly, longer than ever, then die in relative poverty and total obscurity.

There was an expression that I suspect has become Politically Incorrect…too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Very well…too many chefs and not enough diners, too many owners and not enough customers, too many people being their own boss and not enough taxpayers to give them the relief they need to continue being their own boss.

Speaking of the agility, adaptability, flexibility, efficiency and price competitiveness of mid-sized companies, look to the oil, automotive and telecommunication industries for assurance that the proposed airline merger will well line the pockets of the few while it ill serves the needs of the many.