A way of increasing profits that’s just fine is by charging well beyond your . . . → Read More: T-Mobile’s on the Menu, and AT&T Wants to Eat Our Lunch]]> The goal of every business is to maximize profits. Nothing wrong with that. But of course, there are a lot of wrong ways of accomplishing this goal. For example, decreasing expenses by illegally dumping pollutants or exploiting workers is wrong.

A way of increasing profits that’s just fine is by charging well beyond your costs. Of course, you can’t get away with that if there are others willing to charge less. But what if you buy up most or all of the other guys? Then folks will have to pay your inflated prices or do without.

In the late 1800s, companies were not allowed to buy other companies so they got around this by forming “trusts.” That’s why the laws empowering government to break up monopolies are called antitrust laws.

Antitrust laws were used in the 1980s to break up AT&T. But a lot has happened since then. Most of the pieces were reassembled as the Southwest Bell (which bought the old AT&T and renamed itself AT&T), and Verizon. So here we are, less than thirty years later where two giants (AT&T and Verizon) and two dwarfs (Sprint and T-Mobile) are the only national competitors in the cell phone business. And guess what? AT&T wants to buy T-Mobile.

In “Not So Fast, Ma Bell,” an editorial this week’s Economist speaks against the proposed merger. Why? Reducing the number of competitors will allow the companies to deliver poor service and inflate prices. It’s that simple.

My guess is that the American public is going to sit silent as the disengaged majority and allow the “experts” to decide whether AT&T should be allowed to buy T-Mobile. That’s what we did while the financial industry consolidated. See how that turned out?

At some point we need to discover that issues like antitrust are not so difficult that we need to leave them to experts whose smaller self-interests eclipse their active ones.

Personally, I think the world is overpopulated. This isn’t true. It’s only my opinion. I just don’t think it’s a great idea to see how many of us we can pack on the planet. To me, it’s about quality of . . . → Read More: The Truth About Overpopulation]]> What do you think about population? Is it a subject you’d rather not discuss?

Personally, I think the world is overpopulated. This isn’t true. It’s only my opinion. I just don’t think it’s a great idea to see how many of us we can pack on the planet. To me, it’s about quality of life and sustainability.

But even discussing population as an issue implies that we can control it. Can we?

Some people are afraid that we can’t control our population without draconian measures. I disagree. There are many aspects of our cultures that can be modified toward slowing our birth rates. We don’t need to overuse the law. We don’t need forced euthanasia, abortions and sterilizations. But fear of these measures leads us to deny the issue, and denying the issue has historically lead to famine, war and genocide.

I got a friendly spam the other day with a link to a video called “The Truth About Overpopulation.” The “truth” to which they’re leading is that overpopulation is a myth. The video shows that birthrates in many countries aren’t high enough to replace their populations. It cites the economic problems of an aging population, and even suggests that low birthrates will lead to extinction of certain societies.

Why so strident? Why work so hard to have us deny an issue that most of us are happily in denial about already?

As we close in on seven billion (world population increased by 14 thousand as I wrote this), how many is too many? Ten billion? One-hundred billion? A trillion people? Our population may naturally level off, and perhaps decrease. But do we want to leave it to chance? What would our quality of life look like with one-hundred billion people on Earth? What might happen on our way to getting there?

It kind of triggered me. Of course, being me, I thought it was about population, and I thought it was sort of a heavy-handed, poor/welfare-bashing, lower-middle-class view that everything would be fine if it weren’t for lazy, free-loading welfare queens. But when I stopped the . . . → Read More: Can’t Feed ‘Em?]]> Saw this bumper sticker in Alhambra, California today:

It kind of triggered me. Of course, being me, I thought it was about population, and I thought it was sort of a heavy-handed, poor/welfare-bashing, lower-middle-class view that everything would be fine if it weren’t for lazy, free-loading welfare queens. But when I stopped the lady on whose vehicle this was attached, and asked to photograph it, she didn’t fit the stereotype I anticipated. She said that she guessed the sticker applied equally to humans as it does to pets. Oh…

When I googled the slogan, along with the company (Bad Habits), I found an assortment of raunchy stickers focusing primarily on sex in the context of dysfunctional relationships. My sense is maybe their target market is the folks I’d anticipated.

So much for talking about population. As we approach 7 billion (population clock) it’s still a non-issue.

I really like it because I think it points to a source of the emotional intensity many Americans feel about their guns. It also implicitly acknowledges that even after almost two-hundred-and-thirty-five years of freedom, we still can see ourselves as . . . → Read More: Guns]]> I saw this bumper sticker in Tehachapi, California yesterday:

I really like it because I think it points to a source of the emotional intensity many Americans feel about their guns. It also implicitly acknowledges that even after almost two-hundred-and-thirty-five years of freedom, we still can see ourselves as subjects.

For ten-thousand years a foundation of autocratic power was forbidding subjects from possessing weapons (see “The Dark Side” p. 5). That may be why the organization that printed this sticker calls itself the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA). So perhaps my friend is resisting subjugation, though someone might argue that unless my he’s packing surface-to-air missiles and has an Apache helicopter or two in the pole barn, that he’s still pretty much unarmed.

Of course, politicians come in all stripes, and some of them are opportunist/vassals. The fellow with this bumper sticker may feel that packing a little heat may even things up with those who’d take advantage. But of course that’s not true. Politicians never come in with guns blazing to rob the bank, but rather receive lucrative business opportunities from those on whom they keep a less than vigilant eye.

My friend would be better armed against politicians with a notepad and a pen at a local zoning meeting, than with a garage full of bigger guns than the law allows. There’s no substitute for being part of an engaged majority.

Maybe . . . → Read More: Being Rich]]> Graeme Wood in April’s Atlantic writes that the rich might not be so different as we suspect. In “The Fortunate Ones” he describes results of a study at Boston College’s Center on Wealth and Philanthropy focusing the experiences of the 115,000 families in the United States with fortunes of $25 million or more.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at these folks’ concerns. Some have trouble “keeping up with the Gateses.” Others feel they won’t be financially secure with less than $1 billion. Many worry about giving their children too much. Others that their kids will resent their philanthropy. Many bemoan the absence of career. Some are berated for taking jobs needed by others. Some feel they can’t complain without appearing or being ungrateful. Others lament that their wealth poisons their relationships.

The Boston College survey received just 165 responses of which only 120 actually had wealth in excess of $25 million. It’s not exactly a random sample. From my view, they’re unrepresentative in that they responded. My experience has been that the more money somebody has, the more tight-lipped they are about it with us unwashed masses. But it’s not as though the other 114,880 families don’t have issues. Their reticence likely indicates that they have more.

These 115 thousand families are real people. Though they have nicer things, and more beautiful settings, ultimately they’re no more secure. Tight-fisted fear of loss in our high-stakes economy is exacerbated by having further to fall. Autocratic theater (see Hypocrisy on page four in The Dark Side) is imposed by the social imperative. When showing emotion is tantamount to showing weakness, dysfunction festers. Being rich is not being happy. As Wood says:

The respondents turn out to be a generally dissatisfied lot, whose money has contributed to deep anxieties involving love work and family. Most of them still do not consider themselves financially secure; for that, they say, would require on average one-quarter more wealth than they currently possess.

We all would be happier in a low-stakes economy that eschews standard of living in favor of quality of life. Even the rich.

“How Wall Street’s Crooks Evaded Jail” in . . . → Read More: Who’s to Blame?]]> “A Few Bad Apples” points out our tendency when things go wrong to ask, “Who’s to blame?” rather than, “What’s to blame?” This tendency causes us to punish, but leave systems that enable or encourage misbehavior unreformed. But what if we don’t even ask, “Who’s to blame?”

“How Wall Street’s Crooks Evaded Jail” in Rolling Stone (3/3/2011) chronicles a large sampling of the companies, misdeeds, costs, and consequences to perpetrators of our most recent financial meltdown. Though trillions were destroyed, billions stolen, and millions paid in fines (by the companies), no one went to jail. No one was even censured. That is with the exception of Bernie Maddoff, who comparatively, was a petty thief. We forgot to ask who’s to blame.

How could we forget? Author, Matt Taibbi, points to collusion between revolving-door regulators and regulated. He even points out that Barrack Obama’s largest private contributor was Goldman Sachs, and his new chief of staff, Bill Daley, is an ex-JP Morgan Chase executive who still holds $7.7 million in Chase shares. But this is old news. Nobody needs an explanation of “revolving door.”

We all know crimes were committed. Okay, maybe it’s just that “mistakes were made.” But we all lost money–lots of it. Crimes or mistakes, the amount of our losses begs explanation. But who’s asking? For some reason, not us.

I’d say we’re not asking because the vast majority of us still come to public affairs as artisans and serfs (see Roles). Without some hero to stand up on our behalf, we let some vassals run off with the store. No protests. No outrage. Just silent acquiescence. We’re the disengaged majority.

But we don’t need a hero. As Global Citizens we can be public representatives, doing better than putting the crooks in jail. We can reform the systems that have been manufacturing crooks in the first place.

It’s an auspicious day to add this piece to the site. Yesterday we celebrated the NCI’s 32nd anniversary. Yup, it started in 1979. My . . . → Read More: Thirty Two]]> It’s opening day for the New Culture Initiative Digest. Though I like blogs, I never liked the word. I’ll probably change the name a few times in the coming weeks.

It’s an auspicious day to add this piece to the site. Yesterday we celebrated the NCI’s 32nd anniversary. Yup, it started in 1979. My wife, kids and I enthusiastically raised our glasses to mark a moment. The whole celebration was over in about ten minutes, if you include the time it takes to drink half a beer.

When I started the Solutions Project in 1979 we were embroiled in our second energy crisis. A strike by 37,000 oil workers in Iran brought their oil production from 6 million barrels to 1.5 million per day. In January the American-supported Shah fled the country leaving a vacuum that was later filled by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Having been raised in Detroit, I was committed to finding oil solutions. The first oil crisis in 1973, and the American auto industry’s head-in-the-sand response weighed heavily, so déjà vu in 1979 put me over the top. Well, the sky didn’t fall quite as quickly as I thought it would, but issues like hunger and global warming keep the task of introducing better ways to make social change relevant.

I hope to use this blog, er digest, to draw your attention to things I’m reading, friendly spam, bumper stickers, and current events, including those of the NCI. Of course, like the title, this is subject to change.

Thanks for engaging. Your comments make all the difference.