Podcast 516

Summer Starts The Year. Most of this year has been like living on an ice floe, or behind glass, or encased in cotton. Now that summer has started, it feels like things are speeding up. It feels like the year is just starting. If that assessment resonates with you, there are three stories to watch in the next few weeks that may bear fruit as major game changers. Or not. First, Britain votes on June 23rd on whether to exit the European Union. If you read the analysts it’s all gloom and doom. Such an exit will trigger an economic collapse, or worse, plunge Europe into a collection of disagreeable states that triggered two world wars in the 20th century. Yet, if you think about it, there are many states that aren’t in the EU, both in Europe and in the rest of the world and we all seem to get along just fine. The world isn’t going to stop trading with Britain whether it stays in the EU, or not. Second, Movements such as the British Exit movement are characterized by the worldwide media as “Populist” or “Nationalist”, or worse “Xenophobic”. Explanations are offered to suggest this is the effect worldwide of the Trump candidacy. What if that isn’t it at all? What if people are struggling to come to grips politically with overbearing and increasingly incompetent governments, and central banks who seem to be doing more harm than good. The west seems to have a disturbing faith in government as a solution to all that ails. What if governments, politicians, technocrats and elitist ‘leaders’ are the problem? Is it possible we have lost the language to be able to define the problem, since almost every story about the economy leaves one with the impression that there’s only one way to address economic stagnation in the US and the rest of the world and that is to stimulate demand. What if stimulating demand isn’t the issue at all. Since we’re all so steeped in one way of thinking regardless of what ‘side’ of the political divide we’re on, we seem to be struggling with the issue of how to describe the tyranny of government. Our political system doesn’t seem to have the capacity to address it, mainly because we don’t seem to have the language to name the problem. Thus, people get described as ‘populist’, or ‘xenophobic’, and non governmental solutions get described the same way. If we talked about government in terms of Monarchy, perhaps Americans would better understand the increasingly unlimited power of government over our lives, and the unlimited ability of government to fail. Maybe that’s what the British in favor of an exit are saying. Third, republican candidate for the nomination for president Donald Trump may suffer death by a thousand cuts, politically speaking in the next few weeks as more and more issues come to the forefront concerning his campaign effort. Vulnerable Republican Senators are so concerned about losing the Senate they managed to get Marco Rubio to announce he is running for Senate in Florida after all. Moreover, Romney supporters are getting appointed to powerful posts on the rules committee, a ‘conscience clause’ rule change is in the offing, former Bush Administration officials are endorsing Hillary Clinton and it was revealed this week Trump’s campaign only has 1.3 million dollars on hand for a national campaign, and isn’t fully staffed. Get ready, a major challenge to Trump is in the works, with all the usual suspects working behind the scenes. Did someone say Jeb Bush? Romney? Ryan? Rubio? Time will tell. Sponsored by Karow Contracting and Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park.

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Podcast 436

Death and Tyranny. How’s that for click bait? Another protest, more glimpses of the French Revolution as an assistant professor throws ‘the media’ out of a protest on public property at a University in Missouri. Meanwhile a new study says white americans 30 to 64 are dying from alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide at alarmingly higher rates than in the past. Frustration. Anger. Despair. Name calling. Blaming. The first few years of the 21st century seem to be calling out for a new defense of ‘Freedom’. What is Freedom? Are we free? Are we free when we can’t express feelings without checking first to see if they will ‘offend’ some group with ‘special’ protections? Are we free when we have to make sure what we express is in line with paradigms determined by social acceptance? Not according to most definitions. So, are we free? What holds the United States together? A common enemy? An idea? A leader? A culture? A religion? A government? How can we hold together as a country if we aren’t allowed to express ourselves, to be ourselves? Over 60 percent of working age people are out of the work force. People are getting tired of being nudged, pushed, shoved, forced, shamed and cudgeled into behaviors the government wants, or behaviors deemed ‘acceptable’ by unelected culture czars, crowned by their exposure in media. We don’t trust our government. We don’t trust our leaders. We don’t trust the media. We don’t trust each other. If studies that show people descending into alcoholism and drugs and depression are true, one could conclude, we don’t trust ourselves either. When you travel the country, it doesn’t look like its falling apart, but any examination of the day’s news suggests something different. Political candidates slinging mud, name calling, finger pointing and the ever present blaming and subsequent atonement. Our entertainment is blood and gore, and sex. In short, our entertainment is coarse to say the least. What future is our art seeing? What kind of frontier are we pioneering today? Where is our toughness and virtue, and grit? Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Hydrus. 

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Podcast 407

Killing The Golden Goose. We’ve all heard the parable; The greedy farmer and his wife with the goose that lays the golden egg. As ‘back to school’ looms, the beginning of reengaging in the political process begins with a look at what the real issue might be in our economy and by extension, our politics in the United States. The question is, which is the goose and greedy farmer? Think of the economy – the sum total of all we consume and produce —  as a force of nature, like a hurricane rather than as some kind of Rube Goldberg device with dials and switches and levers. Or, as a golden goose. If the government takes more and more to sustain its operations and debt, where does that money come from? It comes from the individual. Can the government spend too much, and so require too much from the proverbial golden goose? You don’t hear this question discussed too much in the political arena these days. What you hear is a lot of nonsense about individual tax plans for the middle class, or taxing the so called ‘rich’. The fact is, the government takes your income — your wealth if you will — and uses it for its own aims. We’re supposed to have a conversation with our politicians regarding what those aims are, but we usually don’t. If government spending now, without calculating perpetual obligations like social security and other entitlements including medicaid, medicare and the so called Affordable Care Act is almost 40 percent of the country’s total economy, maybe this is the reason why our economy isn’t growing fast enough. Is it possible the greedy farmer is in the process of killing the golden goose? And if so, what do the perfumed princes on the campaign trail intend to do about it? The grey area between what is a public good, and greedy government is the crossroads where we are stuck. If we don’t figure out how to talk about it and to solve the problem, our goose is cooked. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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