A l b a t r o s s Dreams

prescient

2011-11-30T20:28:00.001-05:00

If you look at my first post here, I guess I was rather prescient about the coming collapse in 2008.

Sort of.

Indirectly.

I dare you to read this

2011-08-15T22:28:00.002-04:00

I dare every Member of Congress to read this and challenge any zealot to refute its FACTS:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html

Come on.

Refute this data, supplied by a billionaire.

I'm waiting.

compromise

2011-07-26T16:42:00.001-04:00

It is worth noting that House Speaker Boehner did not use the word "compromise" once in his debt-ceiling speech last night.

the GOP Taliban

2011-07-25T22:59:00.001-04:00

The Taliban wing of the GOP is hell-bent on ruination over the debt-ceiling impasse, wearing financial suicide vests, sure of their purity, confident of their paradise of possession.

Albatross of Possession

2011-07-04T14:54:00.002-04:00

Just finished "House of Sand and Fog," by Andre Dubus III.

Though it came out more than 10 years ago, ahead of its time on the burdens of having and acquiring.

The American Dream turned tragically upside down and inside out.

Have yet to see the movie.

media feeding frenzy

2011-03-02T11:03:00.002-05:00

question 1:

What are we to make of a society whose media (so-called news [entertainment] organizations) make more fuss (show more investigative zeal and curiosity) over Charlie Sheen and his mental illness than they did concerning preparations and rationale (irrationale) for war (see Iraq, 2003)?

question 2:

Also, do you remember what the New York City tabloids were obsessed with just before 9/11? Shark attacks.

Yep.

You can look it up -- for both questions.

crosshairs

2011-01-10T22:58:00.002-05:00

Sarah Palin's mouthpiece is now saying those crosshairs targeting Democrats were never, of course, never intended to call up images of gunsights, not at all, what would ever make you think of that, you incendiary liberals, you media-controlled by libs?

They could have been, ahem, surveyor's sights.

Yeah.

Right.

Sure.

Except, why did Mama Grizzly herself use the term RELOAD?

Surveyors like to reload, ur, data. Yeah. Reload data, that's it.

Fight arguments with data, not bullets.

Does the Second Amendment allow that?

the heritage of violence

2011-01-09T22:16:00.003-05:00

When H. Rap Brown in 1967 famously declared: "I say violence is necessary. It's as American as cherry pie," it stirred controversy and contempt, although our history is replete with violence, from the words of The Star-Spangled Banner to the assassinations or would-be assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, JFK, MLK, Medgar Evans, Malcolm X, RFK, Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, and too many others, now including Judge John Roll and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords yesterday in Tucson.

You can't deny one thread: guns.

They weren't attacked by knives or bows and arrows or slingshots.

Speaking of which, according to the Census Bureau, as reported in yesterday's Times,

"In 2007, airport screeners confiscated 1.1 million knives, 11,908 boxcutters and 1,416 guns."

And those are the ones who got caught!

Stunning.

Sad.

Violence.

Part of our culture (and, yes, part of other cultures, too; some, more so.)

But still sad.

And worth reflecting on.

Jevons, food for thought

2010-12-26T15:45:00.000-05:00

Ponder the Jevons Paradox. As David Owen (if you like smart contrarians, always look for him in The New Yorker) put it in "The Efficiency Dilemma," in the December 20, 2010, issue of The New Yorker magazine:

In 1865, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman named William Stanley Jevons published a book, “The Coal Question,” in which he argued that the bonanza couldn’t last. Britain’s affluence and global hegemony, he wrote, depended on its endowment of coal, which the country was rapidly depleting. He added that such an outcome could not be delayed through increased “economy” in the use of coal—what we refer to today as energy efficiency. He concluded, in italics, “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

Some, if not most, economists and environmentalists assert that the Jevons Paradox has little effect in the modern world. But, as Owen notes, no one has ever really studied all the variables that go into a macro-study. And it would be impossible to calculate. Owen says the Jevons effect is essentially the history of civilization. It happens all the time, in many ways.

It's only common sense, isn't it? Cheap gas? Hummers galore. Expensive gas? Less driving, smaller cars.

Eh?

still here

2010-07-02T18:39:00.001-04:00

still dreaming of albatrosses

or pondering the dead weight of shallow abundance

abundance, empty

2010-03-29T20:24:00.000-04:00

Tiffany & Co. has a large ad in The New York Times (page A3, March 20, 2010) for a "butterfly brooch of diamonds and sapphires set in platinum."

"Spring Is In The Air," reads the ad's headline, accompanied by an image of the beautiful piece of jewelry.

Price?

$56,000.

Who buys this?

The same people who complain about taxes they cannot afford?

The same people who lament excess [excess!] on the part of government trying to serve its constituents?

I do not dispute the right of anyone to sell this, nor of anyone to buy this. Free market. Laissez-faire. All that. I am not disputing that right legally or morally. After all, I don't know: perhaps the person who buys this also writes, moments later, a check to Doctors Without Borders, for Haiti relief.

Perhaps.

I make no further comment.

Pause for reflection.

Reflection.

That's all.

why the rage why the fear

2010-03-25T23:45:00.001-04:00

The recent healthcare vote was revealing.

One side enraged; the other defensive. One side spiteful; the other tentative. One side stiff; the other bending.

These perspectives were recently revealed in recent Gospels heard in church.

The Prodigal Son. The jilted brother.

Mary washing Jesus' hair with perfume; Judas counting cost.

Fear and rage.

Tears of rage.

Fear of what? Losing privilege? Fear of finding out the basic truth that life ain't fair? Fear of losing comfort. Fear of reality?

Fear breeds anger.

Fear comes from change. Some people fear it.

It is the law of nature.

Rage against it if you will; it is inevitable.

Fear not.

Healthcare?

Just a metaphor.

The Tea Party Republican House of Fear and Anger.

A house with a narrow door, a chilly hallway, a dark vestibule.

Come on in; there's always room for more fear.

Fear not, we are told.

Fear not, he proclaimed.

Seems the evangelical crowd forgot.

Fear.

Not.

Twenty Subjunctives

2010-01-11T22:42:00.002-05:00

1. We might have. 2. I could if 3. You never would have 4. He should 5. She should not 6. If it were 7. Would that we were 8. You may if 9. It's have time you stated 10. If they had only said 11. Would that I could 12. If I were a rich man 13. They might be dwarfs 14. If only we acted 15. Might I inquire 16. come what may 17. May God bless you 18. Woe betide 19. May the best man or woman or woman or man win 20. Come Monday, until death do us part

vindication

2010-01-11T22:38:00.002-05:00

It is not stretching the elasticity of truth to say that AlbatrossDreams was on to something from the outset, from its very first post. In the broadest sense, we detected the early fissures that led to the financial nuclear fission explosion (or is that fusion?). Not saying we were unique in doing so.

Well, have not posted here in a while.

How I have.

I'm still kicking.

20 verbs

2009-11-29T20:55:00.000-05:00

Twenty Verbs to describe my day:

awoke
ate
drove
talked
prayed
thanked
listened
watched
heard
walked
touched
washed
brushed
communed
sang
napped
meditated
saw
learned
read

You?

litteroti: a sentence

2009-11-13T19:04:00.003-05:00

Walking from near the tip of Tipperary Hill, I wended my way walking down Whittier, onto leaf-laden Lowell, onto sunny South Wilbur in front of Saint John's and its onion domes and on through West Genesee Street, its largest former car dealers shuttered, showing us the lonely signs of the Great Recession, ending my pedestrian promenade at Freedom of Espresso on Solar Street, but not before seeing the detritus of American consumption, the litteroti of careless consumerism: cigarette cartons (why so many boxes of Newport?), a cereal box, a can of Arizona ice tea, lottery tickets, a squashed plastic water bottle, and so much more lessening the landscape, aching for trash cans either missing or brimming over.

the landscape of wealth

2009-10-26T15:04:00.002-04:00

". . . all those expensive citadels which simply to see triggered wonder at the immense wealth in America, at the vast depth on its bench. Who were these people? How could they have gotten so much money? How could there be so many of them? Their homes made his mouth water. They looked like fraternity houses, country clubs, embassies. Tudorial, stately, with high green hedges and curving driveways like painterly exercises in perspective. Blue Lake Michigan sucking up to their backyards. Attached to their carriage houses and wide garages were basketball hoops, gleaming cat's cradles of white net, taut and tapered as hourglasses. He imagined lean, expert girls in blue jeans, home from Radcliffe, Holyoke, Smith, setting them up, pushing them in, playing Horse and 21, with their tan, continent boyfriends who had once been pages in the Senate. The cropped lawns, green as felt on gaming tables, made him gulp, and an occasional sound from the swimming pool of splashing water like polite applause made his heart turn over. Lake Michigan and a pool. . . . "

-- from "The Condominium" in Searches & Seizures Three Novellas by Stanley Elkin, copyright 1973

Alas, what would Stanley Elkin write today if he were alive to describe our landscape of wealth or poverty or anything in-between?

One-Stop Folderol?

2009-08-24T20:04:00.003-04:00

"I have never, ever heard a customer expressing the faintest wish for having everything delivered out of one hand." -- Léo Apotheker, chief executive of the German software giant SAP, as quoted in The New York Times, August 10, 2009

I love reading this counterintuitive declaration.

It provocatively questions a standard marketing and selling point: one-stop shopping, all services under one roof.

I mean, he has a great point.

Wasn't it actually intuitively obvious to us all, all along?

Deep down, we know that the firms who promise such sweeping excellence typically excel -- truly excel -- in niche areas.

Message in a Bottle

2009-08-18T18:17:00.003-04:00

Sales of bottled water are declining, barely.

Bottled water. I remember having a Perrier or Poland Spring or S. Pellegrino now and then years ago, as a treat.

Now phobic consumers buy bottled water under the illusion they are drinking better water than tap water.

What a fraud! It's totally amazing that people buy bottled water, thinking they are acting healthier and being environmentally friendly.

Consider all the oil used to make the plastic. Consider where all those plastic bottles end up.

What a travesty.

Plus, tap water is exceedingly less expensive.

Truthiness

2009-06-12T21:16:00.002-04:00

"It is not important why a man tells the truth. It is important that he is telling it. Even if he has one foot over the abyss."

 -- Matvei Gonopolsky, Russian journalist, as quoted in The New York Times, June 10, 2009

Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?

2009-06-03T22:32:00.002-04:00

It's a mystery. No one seems to know for certain the whereabouts of the wildly brave, bold, human, patriotic Tank Man of Tienanmen Square.

Will we ever learn?

Take This Bread. Steal This Book.

2009-04-21T16:13:00.002-04:00

Take This Bread by Sara Miles (Ballantine Books, 2008) serves up a nourishing and enthralling spiritual memoir. The book tells the true-life story of a lesbian atheist whose life is totally changed through one experience of Radical Hospitality. (Radical Hospitality is one of the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations; see www.five practices.org). The story begins simply but dramatically:

“One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for millions of Americans—except that up until that moment I’d led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent to religion, more often appalled by its fundamentalist crusades. This was my first communion. It changed everything.”

Through partaking of communion at a table where she felt unconditionally accepted, Sara Miles found herself transformed in ways she never expected. And in being transformed, she transformed her own church and the community around her. But it all started with the Radical Hospitality lived out at Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco (www.saintgregorys.org). The parish’s unconventional liturgy is rooted in the sharing of the Eucharistic Bread, taking very literally Jesus’ command to “feed my sheep.”

Miles felt instantly and fully welcome at Saint Gregory’s. She was a stranger; she was welcome. She did not first believe; but she was welcome. She did not understand; she was welcome. She was not a regular; but she was welcome. She did not dress for the occasion; she was welcome. She was an unprepared outsider; yet she was welcome. Saint Gregory’s parishioners did not treat her as someone crashing a private party; they did not react to her visit as if she were an interloper, a rude uninvited guest. The parish practiced Radical Hospitality. The parish practiced Christ’s message.

Of course, Miles took the parish and its message of Radical Hospitality seriously. In doing so, she challenged old assumptions. She challenged how committed the parish really was to its core message of feeding Christ’s sheep. Her church membership and communion had consequences: she was baptized, she was confirmed, she got involved. More important, she saw food as a literal metaphor for spirituality. She started a successful food pantry that was built around the Eucharistic Table. Hungry people (mostly working families) got food with no questions asked, no complicated forms, no test for neediness. Unconditional acceptance. This unruly and unsettling step challenged the comfortable life of the congregation and had far-reaching consequences beyond the church, ultimately spawning grace upon grace with the creation of food pantries well beyond the parish’s neighborhood.

Here is a sampling of some provocative passages from Take This Bread:

• “What happened once I started distributing communion was the truly disturbing, dreadful realization about Christianity: You can’t be a Christian by yourself.”
• “My first, questioning year at church ended with a question whose urgency would propel me into work I’d never imagined: Now that you’ve taken the bread, what are you going to do?”
• “ ‘At St. Gregory’s we have great community dinners—everyone brings, you know, pasta with truffle oil—but we don’t feed people who aren’t like us. We’re all arty and overeducated and terrified of people who are different.’ “
• “My suspicion was that committees in churches served the same purpose as committees in other institutions: They were holding tanks for people who professed interest in an issue but didn’t always want to act.”
• “ ‘Churchly legitimacy get its hand in rather than crazy hospitality, the open extravagance of the Last Supper. And you get further and further from the power and genius of that meal.’ ”

Food for thought, indeed.

In the early Seventies, Abbie Hoffman wrote a book with the provocative title Steal This Book. It caused a stir with its title and its contents. While I cannot be so reckless as to recommend that you steal this book, I am tempted.

May you likewise be tempted.

p.s. I rather doubt that the author of Take This Bread would be strongly opposed to your theft of this book if it were to lead you to faith in action, although I'm sure she has bills to pay, too.

The Albatross of Retronovation

2009-04-04T19:35:00.002-04:00

And then we wonder why the Detroilt automakers are failing.

Just remember we were warned as early as now and sooner.

Headlines in The New York Times of Thursday, April 2, 2009:

China Vies To Be World's Leader In Electric Cars

New Threat To Detroit

Plan Built on Research, Recharging Stations and Incentives

Yes, we'll be driving around in Chinese electric cars next year and the year after that and wondering why.

Just like in the early and mid-1960s with Japanese cars.

We've been warned.

The Albatross of Repo Reality

2009-03-29T21:28:00.003-04:00

People are destroying their own vehicles in order to collect insurance rather than have the vehicle repossessed.

The Wall Street Journal of March 25, 2009, had an enlightening story on this.

It is also enlightening that the article, with large photo, on page A3 of the WSJ was surrounded by the following:

A large ad, without image, from Tiffany & Co.
A large ad for Only NetJets, the "fractional jet ownership" folks.
A large ad for David Yurman jewelry (in this case, for an item ranging in price from $950 to $1,950).
A large ad for Ulysse Nardin watches (prices not shown)
A news story headlined "Spector Won't Support Union-Backed Bill"

The Albatross of Context.

Form your own conclusions.

The Albatross of Anonymity

2009-03-19T16:29:00.003-04:00

We fight wars by joystick now.

I can see how War by Joystick (good name for a band) saves lives of the joystickers, protects troops on the ground, acquires video intelligence, et cetera ad infinitum. I get that. Surely, if such a tool were adding a vital layer of protection to my own son or daughter, how could I not add an homage to the joystick in my never-ending litany of gratitude? How could I not? The virtues of Predator drones are well documented.

But.

But.

But. A word of infinite consequence.

Starting from B-52 bombers lobbing bombs down below, miles below, to atomic weapons being detonated in the sky at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humans (I say "humans" because all wartime opponents engage in the most advanced warfare technology they can) have found ways to distance themselves from the consequences of their combat actions. The emotional detachment of launching armaments by video screen surely must differ from, say, hand-to-hand combat.

What's my point? Change the Geneva Conventions to forbid all but the most primitive forms of battle engagement? Of course not.

But.

One wonders what it does to us, all of us, when we are so removed from the visceral consequences of our actions, when death becomes as realistic, or as fanciful and fantastic, as a video game?

Still. Still it must give us pause.

And stillness is what we need more of.

The Albatross of Sin

2009-03-01T21:44:00.001-05:00

Today I heard a great definition of sin.

Incurvatus in se.

To be turned solely inward on one's self, solipsistically.

the albatross of desperation

2008-12-21T20:54:00.002-05:00

Saw "Slumdog Millionaire."

Tough to take, perhaps a bit contrived, but powerful, powerful, powerful. With heart.

Reminds one that our systemic comfort can often be at the harrowing expense of others, thousands of miles away.

The Albatross of Deflation

2008-12-04T22:29:00.002-05:00

Deflation.

It's a downer, in't?

It weighs one down like an albatross around one's neck, especially if one is an economy.

Deflation.

Who'd have thought?

The price of gas goes below US$2 per gallon, and it scares me.

Oh, I've heard some people exalt over this development, but after all is said and done it's hardly cause for rejoicing. Come to think of it, just ask yourself: Are we better off now than a mere four months ago (when gas was over US$4)?

I think we know the answer.

Who'd have thought?

The Albatross of Semantics

2008-10-27T21:16:00.002-04:00

Commonweal (a three-sentence drama)

[manservant] "Would you like some socialism with your tea, sir?"

[man in smoking jacket, sitting in leather chair, sipping claret] "No, thanks; I like my capitalism straight up, even if it kills me -- as well as the body politic."

"Good night, sir."

The Albatross of Risk

2008-09-30T23:15:00.002-04:00

Is it possible it takes just one man to crash the party?

Is it possible one individual can send the financial system tumbling like a heavy albatross around a dove's neck while in flight? Like a bowling ball on your wrist whle you try to drive your car? (How many bad analogies does it take to ruin a Street?)

Google "Joseph J. Cassano" and get back to me on that, will you?

(I know. One person would need help, would need complicit partners and those in denial and naysayers and factotums and toadies and accomplices and yes men and yes women and obsequious superiors and ambitious underlings and all of us to look the other way now and then -- just as history's notorious ones always have had, yes?)

What Comes Around . . .

2008-09-18T23:06:00.002-04:00

In a subterranean sense, a pulsing undercurrent sense, this blog anticipated the financial upheaval in its inaugural post.

Abundance and greed and unsatiated want for more and more were but symptoms of a malaise gurgling underneath us like the rumblings of an apocalyptic volcano.

Eh?

S&L, Anyone?

2008-09-17T14:03:00.002-04:00

This financial crisis reminds me of the S&L (savings and loan) crisis of the 1980s and '90s.

We hear talk of greed, greed, greed from the McCain camp.

But the traditional champions of the free market (unfetered free market) have traditionally clamored for a policy of government hands off.

Starting with their hero, Ronald Reagan, the conservatves ushered in an era of deregulation.

Hands off.

Certainly, as a small-business owner myself (the preceding hyphen is needed; otherwise, you are speaking about my physical height) I see the value of cutting through red tape.

This isn't about red tape, though.

It's about the proper role of government and its need to protect us from the worst among us.

It's a classic case of the need for prudent regulation.

The Democrats should be saying "I told you so," but I have a sneaky suspicion they abandoned their calling and their "liberal" (it ain't a bad word now) principles long ago and went along for the Deregulatory Ride.

FW: FW: FW: 2U2

2008-09-11T12:25:00.001-04:00

I hate getting forwarded emails. Loathe them. Especially the chain-letter type.

Oh well. Extreme times demand extreme measures. So, read on.

If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire."
If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."

Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America.
White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."

If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic."
Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."

Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're "unpatriotic."
Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."

If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless."
A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African Amerian voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.

If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an "arrogant celebrity".
If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are "energizing the base".

If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions you are "presumptuous".
If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute decisions you refuse to explain, you are a "shoot from the hip" maverick.

If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are "an elitist-out of touch" with the real America.
if you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Anapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions you are a hero.

If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an "empty suit".
If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an "experienced executive".

If you go to a south side Chicago church, your beliefs are "extremist".
If you believe in creationism and don't believe global warming is man made, you are "strongly principled".

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
If you have been married to the same woman with whom you've been wed to for 19 years and raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you're "risky".

If you're a black single mother of 4 who waits for 22 hours after her water breaks to seek medical attention, you're an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.

But if you're a white married mother who waits 22 hours, you're spunky.

If you're a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you "First dog."

If you're a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the right-wing press calls you "beautiful" and "courageous."

If you kill an endangered species, you're an excellent hunter.

If you have an abortion your not a christian, you're a murderer ( forget about if it happen while being date raped.)

If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.

If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

If you're a Republican senator who solicits gay sex in an airport bathroom, you get to return to your job in the Senate and are encouraged to run for re-election.
If you're a Democratic Senator who is out of public office and have an affair, your political career is over and your wife who has terminal cancer is to blame.

And finally:

Quiz question for the RNC, specifically those on the Religious Right.

Who is one of the most revered, and famous community organizers in history?

......
.........
............

JESUS CHRIST

The Albatross of Reengineering Semantics

2008-09-05T20:27:00.003-04:00

Michael Hammer, who engineered the term reengineering and popularized it in the 1993 book he coauthored, Reengineering the Corporation, has died at 60.

According to his obit in The New York Times, Hammer regretted how his concepts were exploited as an excuse to fire workers.

"It is astonishing to me the extent to which the term re-engineering has been hijacked, misappropriated and misunderstood," he is quoted to have told Time.

"I'm saddened and offended by the idea that companies exist to enrich their owners. That is the very least of their roles; they are far more worthy, more honorable, and more important than that. "

Amen.

The Albatross of Wealth, contd.

2008-09-05T12:18:00.002-04:00

This item from Reuters, posted yesterday.

Hardly surprising.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The old saying holds true: The rich do get richer.

Even as world financial markets broke down last year, personal wealth around the world grew 5 percent to $109.5 trillion, according to a global wealth report released on Thursday by Boston Consulting Group.

It was the sixth consecutive year of expanding wealth. The fastest growth was among households in developing regions, such as China and the Gulf States and among families who were already rich.

That wealth also is increasingly concentrated among the richest.

The top 1 percent of all households owned 35 percent of the world's wealth last year. Meanwhile, the top 0.001 percent, ultra-rich households holding at least $5 million in assets, commanded $21 trillion -- a fifth of the world's wealth.

The planet also continues to mint new millionaires rapidly. The biggest jumps in 2007 came from emerging countries in Asia and Latin America. Overall, the number of millionaire households grew 11 percent to 10.7 million last year.

BCG notes that, while the rich are still rich, they have been making some adjustments as a result of the financial crisis.

This year, assets are being shifted to more conservative investments, more money is being kept onshore in home markets and some individuals have curtailed new investment.

Yet BCG cautioned the outlook for wealth markets and the banks who serve them, is dimmed by the current financial crisis.

North American personal wealth growth slowed to 3.8 percent last year, compared with 9 percent in 2006, reflecting the the mortgage crisis and the onset of the credit crunch last summer.

"The financial crisis continue to cast a pall over established wealth markets," said Victor Aerni, a Zurich based partner who coauthored the report.

BCG, which advises banks and wealth managers, forecasts personal wealth will continue growing, but at a slower pace. This year, with Wall Street suffering through one of its worst slumps in decades, growth in assets is expected to rise less than 1 percent.

Things will improve over the next five years, BCG said, with personal wealth growing more than 3 percent annually -- well off the 8.5 percent set between 2002 and 2007.

Wealth is growing at much faster rates among the rest of the world. Households in Asia, the Pacific Rim excluding Japan and Latin America saw the greatest growth, with wealth rising 14 percent. That growth was fueled by manufacturing in Asia and commodities in Latin America and the Middle East, as well as more currency and political stability.

BCG observed that banks, brokerages and money managers will have little choice, but to expand their presence in these fast growing centers. Dubai and Singapore, the firm said, are becoming regional private banking centers offering greater competition to traditional havens such as Switzerland.

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

The Albatross of Social Proof

2008-09-04T10:54:00.002-04:00

Social proof (think of the so-called bandwagon effect) is a strong influence factor.

That's why Sarah Palin resonates with legions of "hockey mom" types, people struggling to make ends meet, and professional working moms.

It's a strong factor and not to be discounted.

But having such "I can identify" with her feelings does not mean I should vote for her.

According to the same line of reasoning, of course, if I am a person of color and can identify with Barack Obama's candidacy, that's not reason enough to vote for him.

But we know people routinely make all kinds of decisions every day based on social proof.

And we don't even know it!

Now I'm really worried.

That is not meant to mock any candidate's gender or race.

I'm worried on the issues.

We cannot afford four more years of the same: not morally, economically, strategically, internationally, ethically, philosophically, practically.

We need a change.

Top to bottom.

The Albatross of Miscommunication

2008-07-25T22:18:00.003-04:00

File this under the topic parallelogrammar, because clear and elegantly balanced writing calls for what is termed parallel construction, wherein you stay consistent with grammatical structures.

So, if you start one part of a sentence with the present tense of a verb, don't shift tenses -- just to cite one pretty freaking vague example.

Well, maybe this is best illustrated by the practice of not observing parallel construction.

On the front page of The Post-Standard of Syracuse, New York, on July 24, 2008, we find this sentence:

"Corn was flattened by wind and soybeans shredded by hail in the Cato-Meridian area of Cayuga County."

I did a little extra chewing on my Special K Protein Plus cornflakes when I read that.

The wind and the soybeans shredded by hail conspired to flatten corn? Some soybeans!

This former copyeditor of that journal would have insisted on:

"Corn was flattened by wind and soybeans were shredded by hail . . . "

That's just me.

Also, alarmingly, the same newspaper has taken to using ME in headlines, for Medical Examiner. Poor. Poor. Poor.

The Albatross of Statistics and Vocabulary

2008-07-12T11:07:00.003-04:00

You may be shocked to hear this:

According to the latest data from The New York Times, via the Bureau of Economic Analysis, via Haver Analytics, fuel is a smaller part of personal budgets (4.2 percent) than it was in 1980 (6 percent).

Incidentally, speaking of the psychology of recession and depression, which Phil Gramm just got crushed for, can't newsreaders and writers find any alternative than soar or soaring to describe fuel prices?

RFK, Remembered

2008-06-04T21:44:00.002-04:00

Speaking of wealth, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had it but chose not to sit along the Riviera drinking highballs, as Pete Hamill put it today on NRP's Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Bobby Kennedy was shot 40 years ago today.

I was a college student. And as I reflect back, I think I experienced violence fatigue, some kind of withdrawal, some kind of escapism.

Months before, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assaasinated; nearly five years before it was JFK.

I didn't follow the RFK funeral much or the eulogies or the media coverage, any of that.

Enough already.

Maybe it was sophomoric escapism or solipsistic narrowness, but looking back I think it was depressing, defeating, a killer of idealism, a dreary enterprise. I couldn't take it.

Somewhere around this time Malcolm Muggeridge wrote in Esquire magazine that Americans had entered into a kind of collective psychosis. We couldn't tell the difference between ketchup or blood, from a TV program's fictional violence and reality. (Forty years later, I remember that essay in Esquire.)

Maybe so.

And we have not been yet lifted from that psychosis.

What is the medication you would prescribe for us?

I pray a dose of Obama does some wonders.

But alas it may be irrational to pin so much hope on one flawed human.

The Albatross of Entitlement

2008-06-03T20:58:00.002-04:00

According to the Wall Street Journal of May 28, 2008, here's the price of gas of a gallon of gasoline in May in select countries, and the percentage of increase from a year ago:

U.S. -- $3.72 -- 20%

U.K. -- $8.42 -- 17%

Austria -- $7.66 -- 15%

Ireland -- $7.43 -- 13%

Greece -- $7.01 -- 13%

France -- $8.44 -- 8%

Germany -- $8.38 -- 4%

What can one conclude?

I'll let the numbers speak for themselves.

They say a lot.

A wealth of policy is behind those numbers.

Labor's Love Lost

2008-04-01T21:33:00.003-04:00

just finished reading Joshua Ferris's

Then We Came to the End,

a fine debut novel -- and hugely entertaining website, linked above.

I albatrossingly doubt many novels have captured the flavor, angst, tragedy, and insane humor of today's office workplace

with humanity too

read it and weep

and laugh

Berlin

2008-03-12T22:00:00.001-04:00

Speaking of metaphors of reinvention, to Berlin.

Land there on Saint Patrick's Day, casting out the snakes in me pants.

Will be searching for runes amidst the ruin of ruins rebuilt.

The Mothers of (Re)invention

2008-03-12T21:52:00.002-04:00

The grace is this: I am forced to reinvent myself. All those Gaulloise-smoking existentialists merely talk of creating themselves; this is life. Life.

This "joblessnessness" makes me:

define "work"
label myself with new tags
surrender
accept
ferret out possibility
expect surprise
welcome change
create opportunity
insert verbs
shake hands with gerunds
dangle participles
delight in expletives
pronounce ejaculations
foment accord in tune with discord
denounce resentment
nurture gratitude

Such is The Proletarian Litany of Lost and Found Dreams.

The Albatross of Unemployment

2008-02-19T20:34:00.003-05:00

I will view joblessness as a mere pause, a station, a bahnhof, along the way to a more gleaming opportunity, a more fulfilling role, a diverse-destination portfolio of skills delivered but -- this time -- received with more appreciation, as opposed to the view of joblessness that many hold: an albatross of despair and loss and grief; a view I will not ignore, taking the opportunity to feel such anguish but not be vanquished by it, affording myself the chance to practice compassion and understanding, such as understanding Can Man, who wheels his shopping cart around Tipperary Hill, ferreting out discarded bottles and cans for their return value, and who shines with wonder when someone stops, gets out of the car, and surprises him with a crumpled dollar bill proffered in the icy wind.

Albatross Airways

2008-01-17T22:52:00.000-05:00

This tops 'em all:

An airline to evacuate just you

and yours beyond the fray:

A community of the few

the proud

the elect.

The Ultimate Albatross.

The Albatross of Solipsism,

transporting you out of the hurricane of commonality.

Commonweal? An archaic word long ago expunged from the flight manual.

The Lap of Luxury

2008-01-14T20:33:00.000-05:00

The problem with the looming recession will be that haves will figure they have less to dispense with, and the have-nots will have even less, in the process having more of have-not-ness.

And I comfortably sit typing on a computer keyboard, the biggest hypocrite of all.

I tap away while sitting in the lap of relative luxury (compared to many), but not at a laptop.

Peace

2007-12-31T21:30:00.000-05:00

So simple.

So elusive.

Peace.

The pulse of prayer

the current of flesh

circuiting

Uber-Wealthy Word Economy

2007-12-15T21:34:00.000-05:00

Arianna Huffington and others have aptly remarked on the fact that our growing cadre of billionaires face rising challenges when it comes to gifts. Well, let's clarify that. There's no end to the possibilities of their giving (and I seriously and sincerely laud the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).

What to get you favorite billionaire?

Hmmm. As noted in The Wall Street Journal: A Triton submarine? Jewels? flashy cars?

How about a commissioned biography for $30,000?

Presumably, said bio would praise its subject lavishly.

There's a more economical yet spiritually enhancing (as well as more capitalistic, for me at least) alternative:

I hereby present this special billionaire's offer:

Haiku for You.

A bargain at $1,700 apiece.

A hundred bucks per syllable.

(But think of all the free enlightement!)

Gluttony

2007-11-22T10:53:00.000-05:00

True, I haven't been

at this space

in a while.

May today's surfeit

of gravy and turkey (in U.S.A.) not

drown us from finding

gratitude in the smallest

morsel, a graciousness that leads

to sharing our abundance.

Unjust Desserts

2007-11-08T23:02:00.000-05:00

I imagine you heard about someone coming up with a $25,000 dessert in New York? The day after someone concocted a $1,000 bagel?

Sounds like one of those zany things in the 1920s, before the . . . well, we won't get into that.

The heavy weight of adundant shallowness.

WWKS? *

* What would Kierkegaard say?

Camera Obscura

2007-10-29T19:59:00.000-04:00

As you may know, I am a fan of the Saturday edition of The New York Times. Saturday's read is so much more manageable than Sunday's mammoth wordspray.

Picture this.

On page A3, a thoroughly wrenching story of holocaust, Khmer Rouge edition.

It tells the story of Mr. Nhem En, who was forced to photograh the inmates of Tuol Sleng prison.

Just before they died (at least 14,000 were murdered). Only six or so are known to have survived.

The story is almost impossible to fathom, to assimilate, to process.

Try, if you can.

What can we say about the context of evil, its placement, its milieu, its backdrop?

The story is surrounded by these sizable advertisements:

Tiffany & Co.: diamond engagement rings in patinum. $4,220 to $1,000,000.

Saks Fifth Avenue: Ermenegildo Zegna shoes. No price.

The Balvenie scotch whisky. No price.

Tourneau watches: Bedat & Co., $2,950.

Rothmans Union Square clothier: no prices.

Incidentally, some of Mr. Nhem En's portraits have found their way to art galleries in the United States.

Why do we hear so little about this?

Is it not palatable enough for the palaver of television news?

In the eyes of news executives (remember, news is typically entertainment these days, even if macabre entertainment), does this horror involve the "wrong" people? Is the story, from the 1970s too "old"? It doesn't have "legs"?

Subprime Beyond the Pale

2007-10-23T17:52:00.000-04:00

I look at all these hundreds of homes burning out in California, and wonder, along with pondering the subprime crisis:

Do all things ultimately just balance out -- however painfully and tragically it appears to us?

(I myself am subpar, below prime, beyond the pale.)

The Dreams

2007-10-17T21:09:00.000-04:00

The

unbearable

lightness

of dusk.

Albatross as Anchor -- Or Not

2007-10-15T16:49:00.000-04:00

The following is from today's San Francisco Chronicle, quoting the manager of the red-hot Colorado Rockies:

Perspective: [Rockies Manager Clint] Hurdle has a rough and gruff exterior that shrouds a more thoughtful side. He showed it when discussing a reporter's description of a late-season loss to Arizona as 'crushing.'

'It was just kind of funny at the time because that day I had gotten a call from a mother at Children's Hospital (who) wanted me to come by and see her son before he was going to pass that night,' Hurdle said. 'That was debilitating. Crushing was when a doctor told me my little girl was born with a birth defect. Baseball is a game, and I've learned that, and I've embraced that, and I've tried to share that with my players.

'Let's keep it a game, and let's not wear it like an anchor around our necks afterward.'

Apologia Pro Vita Sua

2007-10-08T21:19:00.000-04:00

The masthead of this weblog reads:

"The dead weight

of shallow

abundance."

Sometimes I feel

like I'm sleepwalking with the dead

weight of the abundance

of my solipsistic shallowness.

The Albatross of Grief

2007-10-03T21:36:00.000-04:00

Today I saw, and briefly wore around my neck, the albatross of grief. However, it is feathered and lifted by comradeship, camaraderie, and caritas.

A Sporting Chance

2007-10-01T22:41:00.000-04:00

If "the love of money is the root of all evil"

(cited in one of the readings in our Episcopal church yesterday, from Paul's Letter to Timothy)

(incidentally, ever notice how it's usually misquoted as "money is the root of all evil"?),

then expectation is the root of all albatross dreams.

And sports is one of the most egregious generators of expectation.

With my team (San Francisco Giants) safely eliminated from major league baseball postseason play, I am delightfully free from the multiple albatrosses of tension, hope, expectation, success, failure, winning, and losing.

But who am I kidding?

I'd wear those albatrosses in a heartbeat, given the chance.

Crazy, huh?

Not Craig's List

2007-09-20T23:27:00.000-04:00

If you have $1.3 billion in your pocket, join the club,

The Forbes 400.

Square-jawed speech not needed anymore. Just cash, not class.

The Albatross of Commuting

2007-09-17T20:49:00.000-04:00

You have probably read of the extreme commutes that are commonplace for many; how millions are on the road by 5 a.m. and after 7 p.m.

It's hard for me to sympathize with these people.

At all.

Scaredy cats.

They want to live in their parochial, gated, seemingly safe and seemingly secure suburbs. They want to be vampires of our cities, sucking out what they can, only to run away at night, or to dabble back in the evening if there's enough safety in numbers, otherwise scared by the phantoms of fear.

The Culture of the Cul-de-Sac.

It's just a dead end, now, isn't it?

Prepositions

2007-09-13T23:19:00.000-04:00

Prepositions or pre-positions? Either way, the choice of prepositions makes a world of difference when one speaks of the albatross of war or power or freedom or tyranny or terror or dreams.

A local Congressman, Rep. James Walsh, R-Onondaga, a former supporter of the war to and in and for and at Iraq, now calls for a change, saying,

"We've done enough. No country has done more than we have for Iraq. . . . I think we have given enough."

For?

For Iraq?

Does not an ocean of tears shed by Iraqis cry:

To !

To Iraq !

Pax vobiscum.

Line Item

2007-09-10T23:25:00.000-04:00

Waiting in line can be a test of one's patience.

My patience, that is.

Impatience, though, can be its own albatross.

And sometimes the albatross surprisingly falls off the neck and into the sea.

Albatross of Addiction

2007-09-06T23:12:00.000-04:00

I tend to be all or none. Addictive. Yesterday I bought a Take 5 New York State Lottery ticket, quick pick (QP), two games, each with two chances to win, two bucks. Then a QP for Wednesday's lotto. Then even another two Take 5 QPs. (Someone once told me Take 5 has the best odds, so . . . .) This morning, driving to work, not even having checked the numbers, I'm thinking and saying to myself but not out loud while driving, "This is usually a bad sign for me. I'm no philosopher, but Pawlie, you are literally attempting to buy happiness. To purchase it. Cheaply. You literally believe that your happiness can be purchased, for, what, four dollars? Five? Five million? Just ask Britney Spears. Or Paris Hilton. Or Donald Trump. Or Leona Helmsley's dog [I just threw that last one as a bone to my readers, hahahahahahahaha]." It wasn't until evening I checked the tickets. Whew. No dice. Losers, all. In case you are wondering, my numbers for tonight are: 05, 19, 20, 28, 39 and 01, 30, 32, 33, 38. "A dollar and a dream," as the slogan of the New York State Lottery goes. A dollar and an albatross dream.

Feathered Fetishes

2007-09-05T22:12:00.000-04:00

I guess materialistic dreams aren't the only things that can weigh you down like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's albatross around your neck.

I find even sex can be an albatross.

(Well, instead of "even sex," make that "odd sex." Hahahaha)

Especially with feathered flying creatures.

(A bit of humour, that.)

Mayday! Mayday! Labor Day!

2007-09-04T22:22:00.000-04:00

Labor Day. Or in this case the day after.

Long forgotten amidst the barbecues and telethons and swimfests and political campaign kickoffs:

-- the eight-hour day (becoming long-forgotten again before our very cyber-eyes)

-- paid holidays

-- paid vacations

-- paid sick time

-- et cetera

-- you can add to the list

... all because of the blood, sweat, and tears of unions (before they were run by their own politically connected fat cats) and the workers who needed them.

Albatrossian Weights & Measures

2007-08-30T22:44:00.000-04:00

. . . which is not to say dreams or ideals or goals or possessions or passions themselves are inherently an albatross around one's neck. Not necessarily.

But . . .

"So much depends. . . " to quote Dr. William Carlos Williams.

Witness the Vietnam-Iraq-Antiterror-So-Called Democracy-Consumerist-Syndrome Albatross.

How much does that one weigh?

Eh?

Anatomy of 'Albatross'

2007-08-27T13:40:00.000-04:00

Of course, the title of this blog borrows from a metaphor popularized by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his mysterious Rime of the Ancient Mariner poem (1798). Several authors have played with the notion of the albatross's power, its curse, its burden.

The origin of the word is diver.

We dive for diverse riches, for the pearl of our dreams.

It can weigh us down, but oftentimes not like an anchor. More like a millstone.

In writing about the acquisitiveness of others, I do not imply that I am exempt from this attachment and reaching. I am not exempt. At all.

Coleridge wrote:

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink

to describe the sailors adrift at sea, starving and parched amid a sea of water.

I suppose our society could readily substitute the word money for water in the passage above.

Or a myriad of other words symbolizing the shiny bauble of Glamour or Greed.

Paper Chase

2007-08-25T09:19:00.000-04:00

"There's so much

money going places

only money knows."

Bob Hicok

in

This Clumsy Living

I usually keep my money crumpled up or folded, with notes to myself, unlike Walt Whitman's songs to himself. I can't remember when I last put money in my wallet. Too bulky. The weight of wealth. The color of money: faded.

No doubt about it. Money goes to money, sticks with it, rubs elbows, holds pinkies out, makes conscience-salving donations, runs from poverty. Just watch the suits and the minks at the latest symphony fund raiser for the downtrodden.

Top of the Heap

2007-08-23T21:51:00.000-04:00

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Fisher Island, off Miami Beach and once owned by the Vanderbilts, has the highest per capital income in the U.S., at:

$236,238

For places with a population of 50,000 or more, the ranking goes to:

Greenwich, Connecticut, at $74,346 per capita income (that means per person, right?).

I grew up in nearby Stamford. Let's put it this way: I caddied for these people (in Darien).

However, not everyone in Greenwich was fabulously wealthy in those days. My uncle lived near the railroad tracks in a flat above a liquor store.

The Well of Wealth

2007-08-22T23:16:00.000-04:00

"Wealth has never been a sufficient source of honor in itself. It must be advertised, and the normal medium is obtrusively expensive goods."

John Kenneth Galbraith

Top 10 money drains

Abundance

2007-08-21T21:42:00.000-04:00

"Those who have enough

have

abundance;

those who have abundance

never have enough."

-- Raymond Davidson, Santa Cruz, California

Anxiety's Seeking

2007-08-20T17:24:00.000-04:00

In his Christian Discourses, Etc., the Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard has a chapter entitled "The Anxieties of Self-Torment." It's a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. He leads off the chapter with the verse from Matthew: "Be not therefore anxious for the morrow-- after all such things do the heathen seek." The kicker is this: In essence, Kierkegaard says you're greedy if you worry beyond the day. (Okay, okay, covetous is a shade different.) He declares that one who trusts in the care of a Higher Power [no, no, you're absolutely correct; he says "the Christian"] does not have this anxiety.

Kierkegaard writes:

"Every day shall have its worry, that is to say, take care to be free from the next day's worry, accept tranquilly and gratefully the worry of today....for every day has enough of its worries. In this respect also God provides: He measures out the amount of worry which is enough for every day, so take no more than what is measured out, which is exactly enough; to be anxious for the next day is covetousness." [Walter Lowrie translation]

This profoundly touched me when I first read it, around 1979 or 1980. It struck me how radically useless it is not to live in the day, "this very day," as Kierkegaard terms it. For me, personally [forgive the tautology], I used to go with "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die!" But it was a cry of desperation and despair. Today I say the same words out of gratitude and celebration, somehow infinitely different--which I am explaining very poorly.

Consequently, I have an "I Leap for Kierkegaard" sticker on my car, albeit a faded one.

Mansione d'Albatrosso

2007-08-19T11:37:00.000-04:00

As noted in The New York Times:

"Umberto Milletti has fantasized about downsizing his life to ease the pressures he feels despite a net worth around $5 million. In 2000, when his stake in DigitalThink, the online learning company he co-founded in 1996, was worth around $50 million, he bought his family of four a five-bedroom house in Hillsborough, an upscale suburb south of San Francisco. After his net worth fell 90 percent, though, he found the house more of an albatross than a dream. 'We could move,' Mr. Milletti said. 'But if you do that, then you're admitting defeat. No one wants to go backwards.' So he works 60 to 70 hours a week at InsideView, an online sales intelligence company he co-founded in 2005, in part to prove that his first success was not a fluke -- but also to meet his monthly nut, which includes payments on a seven-figure mortgage."

The federal minimum wage is $5.85 per hour. Let's see. If you put in 70 hours, that gives you a gross (not take-home) total of $409.50. For 70 hours. Not enough for that seven-figure mortgage.

As Bob Dylan said, "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothing to lose."

Mansion photo courtesy of Gordon Gekko, Esq.

Excess Baggage

2007-08-18T19:05:00.000-04:00

According to an article by Judy Bachrach in Vanity Fair, Judith "Don't Call Me Judi" Giuliani, wife of Rudy of the same name:

demands an entire plane seat for "Baby Louis," her Louis Vuitton handbag
has been known to spend $40,000 in one week
gets to fly away on a private Gulfstream IV jet
shares a $4 million house in the Hamptons with the ex-mayor of New York
shares a $5 million Upper East Side nine-room apartment with the presidential candidate

Power to the People!

(or at least to two of the people)

Killer Time Swallows

2007-08-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

Gary Kremen, 43, founder of Match.com, reportedly puts in 60- to 80-hour work-weeks "because, he said, he does not think he has nearly enough money to ease up."

Some people I know (they shall remain anonymous so the Proletariat Politburo Police don't pounce on them and because their initials may, just may, resemble your humble narrator's) barely clock 40 hours per workweek; maybe 45 hours max.

Mr. K (Kremen, not Kokonuts) is "worth" an estimated 10 million smackers.

Go figure.

(Photo is from eyemage at flickr.com.)

Golden Treadmill Parachutes

2007-08-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

It used to be called the rat race. Now, for these millionaires, the term is the golden treadmill.

The Golden Calf Treadmill.

The Golden Calf Treadmill of Leaden Albatrosses on Mount Suburbia.

The Golden Calf Treadmill Rat Race of Leaden Albatross Anxious Dreams on Mount Suburbia.

Parachutes for Sale.

For Richer, For Poorer. . .

2007-08-15T22:16:00.000-04:00

The genesis of this newly minted blog is a recent article in The New York Times entitled "The Millionaires Who Don't Feel Rich."

Right there, on the upper-left corner of the Sunday NY Times of August 5, 2007, is a photo of one Hal Steger, 51, a marketing executive with an estimated net worth of $3.5 million.

His words form part of The Times's Quotation of the Day:

"But a few million doesn't go as far as it used to."

He is part of a new class, dubbed "working-class millionaires" by the piece's author, Gary Rivlin.

I grew up in a working-class housing project.

I am not a millionaire.

And if I were, would it be enough?

What constitutes "enough"?