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I'd like to talk about capitalism and competition this week.  I primarily bring this up because I suggest many things at many times and I want to go on the record as stating that I see value in the capitalist system.  It is easy in the United States to devalue someone's position by simply labeling them a communist or socialist, but (as I've said in the past) these labels are confusing and internally inconsistent within the United States.

The way we run our public schools, police force, fire departments and military closely resemble forms of communism or socialism; especially our military.  Join the military and then tell me how that is different than a socialist society.  The government owns the stores on the base.  The government sets the pay structures very firmly for everyone employed in the military.  The government provides housing.  The government provides clothing.  Businesses are allowed on the base but they must first deal with the government and gain acceptance.  You can get Burger King on a military base, but you can't go onto a military base and open up a McDonald's without first dealing with the government bureaucracy.

My point is this: capitalism isn't bad but it isn't the answer to all of our problems in this country and we admit it in our actions if we still can't bring ourselves to admit it in our speech.

I had an incident occur recently that illustrates the benefits of capitalism.  It was an incident with which many people in this country are familiar.  Whether you rely on a heater in the winter to keep from freezing or an air conditioner in the summer to keep from suffering heat stroke, moderating your home's temperature is a serious matter.  When that prime unit decides to stop working at the worst time, you need to get it fixed and the individuals that can fix it have you over a barrel.

For me, it was hot.  Dead of summer and my AC dies.  The unit turns on because I can hear it, but no air is sucking in or blowing out.  I don't know enough about the air conditioner to go up and fix it, even though I'm a fairly technical guy.  I've got to start making phone calls, so I call the company that just serviced my unit a month ago.  They come out at five pm to tell me my internal fan motor is shot.  They can't get the part tonight because the distributor is closed. 

They're not even sure if they can get the part tomorrow, but the technician tells me he'll call me at seven am the next morning to let me know.

He leaves and my house heats up to approximately 90 degrees over night.  We sleep (or rather we really don't sleep) in this 90 degree house overnight.  My house wasn't built for inhabitants with no AC.  We have no east/west windows for circulation so we're just sweating all night long even though we've got five fans in one room.  The fans are only circulating hot air and I wonder, 'how did people deal with this before electricity?'

For one, they probably built their houses with east/west and north/south windows to maximize air circulation.  They also, probably spent a lot of time outside.  I found that even though it was 108 degrees outside the next day and only 97 degrees in my house.  The brief breezes outside made it more enjoyable to sit in the shade outdoors.

The technician doesn't call me back at seven am.  He doesn't call at eight am.  I finally call the switchboard operators for the company at nine am.  They say they'll research the issue and call me back.  I ask when and they say a half hour to 45 minutes.

Fine.

At this point, I'm already sweating.  My pets are laying around dying and the house is on its way to climbing up to 97 degrees.  I wait until eleven am and still have no call back from the AC company.

Capitalism kicks in as I sweat.  I go down the Better Business Bureau's website and start calling AC service companies.  My question is simple.  "Can you obtain this part and have my air conditioner fixed today?"  I got a hold of five companies in an hour and a half.  Most took down my information and call back number.  They'll get back to me.  One tells me they will not accept another company's diagnosis, so they'd have to send their technician out to tell me what was wrong and then proceed from there.

To hell with that.  I'm hot and I want cold air blowing in my house.  I hung up on them.

Finally, at 12:30 I get a lady who says she'll put me on hold and see if they can get the part today.  She was like an angel from heaven.  She was the only person I spoke with that day who offered to actually find out quickly.  Needless to say, the original AC technician still hasn't called me back yet.  After ten minutes of being on hold, she comes back and says they can get the part.  She also has a technician nearby.  They can have it fixed today.  The technician will be out in about an hour with the part in tow.  It'll cost me $1,800 though.

I stop for a moment.  I had really hoped it would be less, but I'm sweating and the house is only getting hotter.  I can't go through another night without sleeping. 

I'll pay it.

Now that I've got someone on the way, of course, I start getting calls back from my initial inquiry.  The first call back was from the technician from the night before.  He calls me back ten minutes after I've found someone to fix my AC.  He says the distributor shows they have the part in inventory but they can't find it.  They'll need to go into the warehouse to see if they can find it.  It'll cost $1,200 for the part and install, but this technician wants to know what I want to do before they go into the warehouse to find the part.

I have to hold myself back from asking this guy if he's fucking serious.  What do I want to do? 

It's 108 degrees outside.  My air conditioner is not working.  I want to fix it.  Why call me and tell me we might have the part.  We might be able to fix it today.  He said he was going to call me five hours ago.

The price is significantly cheaper, but there's so much uncertainty.  I could've called back the $1800 AC company and said cancel the request, but they're certain they can fix it (as long as douche bags assessment of the problem is correct- there's also that nagging worry in the back of my mind.)  I'm done with this first company, so I tell him he should've called me earlier and hang up.  Then I get another call back from one of the AC service companies on the Better Business Bureau's website.  He can do it for $1,100, but by this time the $1,800 company is up on my roof fixing my air conditioner.

They are in the process of getting cold air blowing into my house again.  Too little, too late. 

Thanks but I wish you would've called me back earlier.  My air conditioner is fixed and my bank account is just under two grand lighter after taxes.  I'm not pissed that I paid more, because I paid for a customer service ethic that wasn't exhibited by any of the other companies.  They had me over a barrell.  I knew it.  They knew it, but they did the work.

I might assume (because of my own ignorance) that only in a capitalist society would I have all of these options.  I only got my problem taken care of, expediently because of the number of choices available to me.  I'm grateful for that. 

Capitalism works in that regard; however, let's not take this example to mean that capitalism works in every sense.  Our duty to ourselves and our future generations is to try and perfect what we have today.  We will probably never be able to make anything perfect (100% no need for any more changes,) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

So balance the benefits of capitalism with the negatives of capitalism.  There is a constant competition touted as the nature of capitalism.  This notion of competition seems to include a rugged individualism (sometimes also paired with a 'survival of the fittest' attitude.)  The competition inherent in capitalism means that we might all start with what we need, but then we begin to compete for what others have.  So if we assume 100% of us have something in the beginning, then after the competition drive kicks in at best 50% of us will have less than we need over time.  Over more time that 50% will probably be reduced again by 50% and so on and so forth.

The notion that the market will take care of us is bullshit.  The market doesn't care because "the market" is a concept and not an actor upon worldly affairs.  "The market" is people.  People who say, "that's mine."  That's mine and I don't have to share.  This is inherent in the conservative argument against paying taxes.  The money is mine and I don't want my money redistributed to people who don't get their own money.  A child will simply express this urge as not wanting to share.  Adults convolute their intentions so that the message doesn't seem quite so simple. 

Ultimately, though, some of these questions simply come down to a question of individualism versus community needs.  Are we entitled to keep privately everything that we have or do the needs of the community supercede the needs of the individual.  Nobody makes anything in this world by themselves.  Everything in this world is the result of other people or other entities.  Nothing springs forth directly from the work of one person. 

It would take some time to draw that argument out further, so for now I will stop and simply ask- "where is the constant moral outrage from my followers of Christ regarding individualist ideals?"

Senator Jim Bunning in action:

Current Affairs

The price of oil went down early last week.  Iran then set off a couple of missiles.  Investors generally don't like missiles being set off, so the price of oil went back up.  You see, investors are you and me.  Investors are people with money (they are people after all.)  Missiles start going off and then things get fucked up.

People can't leave their house.
When people can't leave they can't work.
You can hardly blame a guy for not coming to work in the middle of a warzone. 
You'd have to be a pretty big dick to say, "You have to come to work, even though improvised explosive devices are going off around you."

Going to work is pretty basic.  If you can't go to work- what can you do?  I'm not saying you have to go to work.  There's lots of people who don't like to go to work.  So back to the price of oil.  It's not like we don't know who's making the money.

We just don't know who's making the money!

So you go back to work.  Unless you can't.  Many of us don't have to worry about the hazards of getting to work.  We just have to worry about the hazards at work!  So and so's department is getting ready to expand.  Didn't you hear?  They're making the most money in the company.  They're carrying the business.

What they say goes!  You don't like it, get off the roller coaster.  Get off the roller coaster and see what is better out there.  It's like the Army, or even worse Retail- what else are you going to do?  Who are you?  What are you doing?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

So you've got a warzone going on around you and you're not scared of getting to work; you're scared of what you'll find at work.  Like your job.  Your life.  What you are going to be when you grow up?

The bombs went down in Iran last week, but this week oil prices are still going down.  We proved that we are alive.  Eventually, everyone is held to the game.  When oil supplies increase to full capacity and gasoline is as whored-out as its ever been: people (yes, they are people) will have more oil and gas than they can hold. 

This phenomenon is a two-parter:

1) People (you and me) stopped purchasing what we couldn't afford.  Atleast we stopped purchasing like we had before.

2) Greedy whores in industry and capital made things happen.  They were effective and efficient.  Their investments were well timed and masterfully played.  (They are people, but some of these people are complaining about oil decreasing in price too fast.)

They made oil such an oversought commodity that soon it will have to reach a state where the makers and distributors of oil products have more than they can sell.  The good news?  Americans are not stupid. 

We just seem to lack people of passion not dedicated to a Sun/Son god.  Snarky, cutesy-poo commentators look expensive defining the world for the majority of the population that can only dream one day to look as expensive as they, but Americans brought down the need for oil.

Without a cheerleader.  Without a leader.  The United States of America is making it through this gas crisis.  In fact, I would not be surprised to find that this gas crisis becomes a gas fiasco; however, the primary problem for the American people regarding the high price of gas is war time politics.

We are the ones causing instability in the Middle East.  That's where the oil comes from.  Oil gets made into gas (among other things.)  Instability creates panic in the market.  Panic means life gets dicked up for everybody, but gas prices are coming down.

Don't get crazy.  $2.00 a gallon is still too much for the stuff.  It would be nice to get gas back down to below $1.00 a gallon, but that's just dreaming.  It seems to me that maintaining the current level of driving activity is probably just enough. 

If you want to take a trip- go for it.  Just don't get out of control, leaving your car idling in your driveway while you watch TV.  Things are beginning to turn.  There is a positive energy underway, but that is way too hippy-dippy.

It is clear, to me, that people need to believe in one another.  I don't think there is enough of that around.  Ultimately, we can currently take solace that the market does exist in some form and prices may at times relate to what is actually taking place on the ground.  Keep in mind at all times, the people making money on our current oil situations are individuals (in the form of paper corporations) with enough resources (that would be money or credit) to guarantee a delivery.

The business isn't about today's delivery though; the business is about tomorrow's delivery.  And then the day after tomorrow.  It's all a game. 

A game that can fall apart just like the game with home prices.  When prices in Boise begin climbing in conjunction with Las Vegas, we've got a problem.  Nothing against Boise, but I'm not moving there if I can't at least expect a cheaper home than Las Vegas.

You've got to ask yourself.  Why move from Vegas baby.  It's got to be something special.  In closing, keep your chin up.  We're winning the oil fight.  You might not have realized it, but you are in battle.  Will you continue to pay the going rate?  The price for a drum of oil is going down.  That's a chink in the armor.

Pay attention. 

Act accordingly.



Ron Paul vs. Ben Bernanke:

Tip of the week

Check out this new website called snag films.  The people at this site are trying to keep the documentary alive by providing an outlet for films that are less likely to receive Hollywood endorsement.

That gets my vote.  Keep up the good work.



Belly Laugh

In a continued memorial to George Carlin, this is one of my favorite bits.  It's very insightful regarding human nature.