nice, nice, very nice

so many people in the same device ...

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    fool's gold

    20090830_077_1

    Image © 2009, Paul Pomeroy.
     
    One of the fallacies regarding free market capitalism is that it is, over time, universally productive. However, with enough historical perspective one sees that while it is indeed productive it is driven by consumption and the rate of that consumption will eventually and inevitably turn the whole system into one of large scale destruction. Another flaw in what has been the conventional thinking is the idea that what free market capitalism does for technology and manufactured goods it can do for human services. Human welfare, though, is not a "for profit" service in a way that free market capitalism is able to work with. The problem is that free market capitalism has no regard for morals or ethics -- it is ambivalent in these areas -- so it has no practical means with which to value human life and well being.

    One might argue that this is untrue, that it at least values these things as they relate to labor and consumerism, but in practice this isn't the case. There is a more fundamental problem at play here, one that needs to be balanced by morals and ethics but isn't. The valuation cycles that are used to steer the free market capitalism juggernaut happen too quickly to focus on the long term (future) benefits of, for example, health care. Instead, they exaggerate the value of short-term profits which, in turn, creates the current irony we live with: a health care industry that is, for the sake of profit, partly driven by a need to not provide health care.

    Fools.mp3

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    • 5 September 2009
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  • Paul Pomeroy's Space

    Oh a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park / Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

    Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen / They all fit together In the same machine

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device

    Oh a whirling dervish and a dancing bear / Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire

    Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France / Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device
    _________________
    From "Cat's Cradle" (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)

  • About Paul Pomeroy

    Oh a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park / Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark

    Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen / They all fit together In the same machine

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device

    Oh a whirling dervish and a dancing bear / Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire

    Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France / Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance

    Nice, nice, very nice
    Nice, nice, very nice
    So many people in the same device
    _________________
    From "Cat's Cradle" (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.)

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