brainiac conspiracy

Totally Unacceptable

This.

More to the point, if we are ever to have a truly healthy and productive society that works for everyone and not only the wealthy, a job should be a right, not a privilege. If there aren't enough jobs to accommodate everyone who wants one---which is gonna be a long-term problem---we will need to earnestly discuss one day a guaranteed annual income. Sure, we'll never eliminate poverty and unemployment entirely, but the people who govern us today aren't even pretending to care about the misery and suffering of their constituents that could be alleviated tomorrow if they chose to.

---Baron V

Vo-Tech Education

I'm old enough to remember when the public-school curriculum here in the Marxist dystopia included vocational training: Drafting, wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, agriculture, etc. It started in middle school (where it was mandatory for boys), and continued through high school, where you could take the courses as electives. My own favorite of these was print shop, where we used to print the school newspaper, and it probably helps to explain---a little---how I ended up working the dead-tree business. I realize that public-school students can never have nice things anymore because Michelle Rhee and her band of privatizing grifters, but it might not be bad idea if policymakers would reconsider. Shop class-related program activities have proven effective elsewhere---they might work here again, too.

---Baron V

General Strikes

I've been lobbying for them for years. Guess the idea's catching on!

To the point, if we can't repatriate all of the wealth the kleptocrats have stolen from us, we can at least refuse to participate in their economy and to withhold what's left of our money from them for as long as humanly possible. This won't be easy but it can be done. Need groceries? Find a local co-op or farmer's market, and fuck Wal-Mart. Need clothes? Hit the thrift store, not the department store. Need to travel? Take the bus or carpool, and leave your car in the garage. Like I said, it can be done, but several millions of wage-earners will need to agree as one that they're going to take, oh I dunno, let's say a month off of work. Again, not easy---and even a bit scary, given high unemployment---but it can be accomplished via strike funds, food banks, etc. This will need to be accompanied by nonviolent mass demonstrations that disrupt the plutocrats' ability to conduct commerce by blocking access to ports and railways, to name only two examples. The oligarchs need us a lot more than they or their benefactors in our government realize, and I suspect we won't see any significant movement toward greater economic equality in this country until we see some socially convulsive mass mobilization that hits them squarely in their most sensitive spot---their wallets. They've taken the power of the ballot from us---what other choice do we have absent violence?

---Baron V

Unpaid Internships Are Also Frequently Illegal

If only there was an agency of government that could curb the most rampant abuses.

---Baron V

Friday Night Music Blogging

Because posting has been light today because laziness, basically. Will probably be lazy tomorrow, too!

---Baron V

Today's Worst Persons

Time-Warner Cable. Are they the most hated company in America, or what?

---Baron V

Monday Night Music Blogging

Because if we're too late to avert catastrophe, we can at least poeticize it. Disaster porn, y'know.

---Baron V

Tips For Twitter

I'm not real active on that site---mostly because it's been my experience that the people who tweet the most frequently, generally, have the least interesting things to say---but I do post there from time to time, I've had some pleasant exchanges with some people, and I've developed some fairly simple rules for keeping your sanity there:

1. Only follow people whose work you admire.
2. Only engage people when you have a question that they might know the answer to, or to correct them if you think they may be in error.
3. Engage respectfully (see Rule #1). Life is too short for flame wars and trolling, and you'll see enough hateful bilge being retweeted by others in your your timeline.
4. Be generous in your endorsements. The people you call out for praise will appreciate it, even when it comes from a minor-leaguer like me.

That's about it. I know this will strike most of you as plain-old common sense, but it's amazing how little there often is of it at Twitter. It reminds me in many ways of high school inasmuch as people tend to form these tribe-like "cliques" that all claim to be the most righteous and perceptive on the Interwebs. I prefer, by contrast, to remain a lone wolf.

---Baron V

Pay 'Em to Play 'Em

Good on them. And good on the labor board, too. A little more activism like this would be nice to see.

Granted, the horrible persons at the NCAA can, and likely will, litigate this for years, and given the political orientation of the federal judiciary, there's a chance that a player's union won't happen, if ever, for years. But it is good to stand on principle all the same. Team Democrat should try it more often.

---Baron V

Tuesday Night Music Blogging

Because grifters gonna grift, and hipsters gonna hip. There goes the neighborhood!

---Baron V

Nattering Nabobs of Nate-Hate

I don't see what's got Kthugzulu's goat, but otherwise it's not at all surprising to see Silver on the receiving end of so much hostility from mainstream-media types. It was the same way in baseball back in the 1980s, when Bill James started using statistical analysis to prove that a lot of the conventional wisdom shared amongst the career "baseball men" was flat-out bullshit, and I think we are seeing the same dynamic at play here. You spend a couple of decades kissing ass in Washington to get five-star access to treasured sources, and along comes some 20-something kid with an iPad and a spreadsheet, and he can predict policy outcomes better than you. As with Bill James and sabermetrics, Nate's statistical/business model will eventually be embraced by the powers that be, but they'll take some undeserved lumps along the way. It's what happens when you ruffle the feathers of people who are generally wrong about everything.

---Baron V

The High Cost of Higher Education

If only we knew why it's so expensive. If only we knew indeed.

---Baron V

Path of Least Resistance

Sure, so-called "pay it forward" college tuition initiatives, where people pay off their tuition over 20 years after they've earned their degree, are decidedly better than the existing status quo since students aren't crippled with an oppressive debt burden. But what happens when wealthy students don't participate, and only poorer students are part of the pool? More to the point, how do you pay back your obligation to the university if there are no jobs for you to graduate into beyond a barista at the local java hut?

The simple solution: Make public higher education free to everyone who qualifies for admission, period. No loans, no debt to pay forward, just free. We can afford this---we just need to stop paying administrators and football coaches so damn much money, and maybe cancel a defense contract or two. But when you sit down and do the math, the cost of free college is really not prohibitive.

---Baron V

Not Rocket Surgery

It's no mystery why so many young people are eschewing cars in favor of public transit, bicycling, etc. Cars and gas cost money, and when you have no money because there are no jobs for you, well, that's when you take the bus. Of course, demographic trends play a part---we're becoming more urban/suburban and less exurban/rural as a nation---and more major cities beyond the Northeastern U.S. have invested heavily in public-transit systems over the last generation. But as with most decisions people make, economics trumps all. At least that's my semi-educated guess.

---Baron V

Saturday Night Music Blogging

Because hope and change do not mean protecting war criminals and banks. Funding for the presidential library may be secure, but for the people who voted for him, fuck us. Lesson learned!

---Baron V

Light Blogging Day

Been out on a nice day, doing stuff. Man does not live by blogs alone!

---Baron V

Can't Blame People For Giving Up

Once they realize they have been utterly failed by the people who govern us:

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that job openings increased by 60,000 in January, bringing the total number of job openings to 4.0 million. In January, the number of job seekers was 10.2 million (unemployment data are from the Current Population Survey). Thus, there were 10.2 million job seekers and only 4.0 million job openings, meaning that more than 60 percent of job seekers were not going to find a job in January no matter what they did.

Sure, the Recovery Act was a great first act, but five years later, it's still amazing that the people who pride themselves on being the smartest guys in the room all agreed that it was sufficient in itself and that the economy didn't need any more stimulus. They must still feel the same way because they're not calling for more stimulus now---even though, you know, we need it as badly as we did five years ago.

On the other hand, stimulus.

---Baron V

Still More Tales From The Recovery

If you are a teenager, the jobs market has been awesome for a very long time!

Now, some of this could be due to more 18- and 19-year-olds enrolling in college as full-time students. The number of teenagers who enlisted in the military after 9/11 might have impacted this downward trend as well. But I am guessing it is also an indicator that many older workers have been forced to take lower-paying/entry-level jobs over the last several years, and they are crowding out younger workers. Either way, it's not a harbinger of upward mobility.

---Baron V

Light Blogging Day

More business-related program activities beckon, so later.

---Baron V

Saturday Night Music Blogging

Because more rain, and more on the way, which makes us very happy.

---Baron V