Whitcomb: Half Outside; Slow It Down; Their Standard Policies; Farm More Shellfish

Whitcomb: Half Outside; Slow It Down; Their Standard Policies; Farm More Shellfish

 

Happy the man, whose wish and care

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   A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

                            In his own ground.

 

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

   Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

                            In winter fire.

 

Blest, who can unconcernedly find

   Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

                            Quiet by day,

 

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,

   Together mixed; sweet recreation;

And innocence, which most does please,

                            With meditation.

 

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

   Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

                            Tell where I lie.

“Ode on Solitude,’’ by English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

 

 

 

And some poetry put to music, or the other way around, by a genius - WATCH BELOW

 

 

 

“Climate change in Australia has cost several prime ministers their job. We won the argument when we turned the debate around and didn’t accept the premise that action on climate change can come at an economic cost, but in fact was an economic opportunity for Australia.”

--  Chris Bowen, Australian climate-change and energy minister, in a Politico article:

 

 

 

“Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.’’

-- Albert Camus (1913-1960), French writer and philosopher. He served in the French resistance to the Nazis in World War II.

 

 

Seasonal Stuff

Memorial Day is my favorite patriotic holiday because it’s reflective and quiet, or at least is supposed to be. July Fourth is too loud, and Veterans Day comes in dreary November.

 

My annual tribute: We’d have a happier (or at least less unhappy) country if many more people had the use of porches – those nifty transitional spaces, part in, part out. They save on air-conditioning and encourage folks to put down their cell phones, get closer, in comfort, to nature and watch the world go by. Porches seem custom-made for ruminating and slow chatting with family and neighbors and even with strangers passing by. And dogs like the show.

 

There’s a growing number of neighborhood events called Porchfests, including in New England, in which live music is played from porches. I suppose that’s a sweet project to try to bring people together, though some of us prefer things a bit quieter.

 

Why do so many people poison their lawns to get rid of dandelions? Is it that they prefer their yards to look like mini-golf courses? I like the splotches of color that dandelions provide. And they’re nutritious.

 

 

The Same Old Approach

On Capitol Hill, House and Senate bills will have to be reconciled, but the core of the Republican tax-and-spending plans is this: Extending the 2017 tax cuts and adding a whole bunch more in ways that mostly benefit the rich while slashing programs that mostly benefit the poor and middle class and, indeed, the general public. The GOP solons will also add yet more levels of complexity and confusion to the tax-code swamp. Happy news for accountants and tax lawyers! And it will be great for tax evaders as IRS staffing is cut. Reminder: Complexity is a tax.

 

MAGA’s vast tax cuts will accelerate America’s trip into bankruptcy, as folks in the bond market well know.

 

(Still, one “conservative’’ tax change that I’d like, though it would be over the rainbow, is eliminating corporate taxes because their existence encourages corruption.)

 

Perhaps the most illustrative of those who are most favored in the current mess is the reduction in the estate tax. For individuals, the “big, beautiful bill’’ in the House exempts $15 million from that levy;  couples filing jointly would get a $30 million exemption.

 

By the way, most of the ballyhooed “waste, fraud and abuse” in Medicaid, which will be slashed, and in Medicare, which will apparently eventually end up being slashed, too, are on the provider side, not the recipients’. The Food Stamp program will also get slammed.

 

So be it.

 

And so be the Carnival of Corruption at the White House, where everything is for sale. The mobster-like enterprise now ensconced there is finding ways to make billions from assorted deals and  outright scams. Crypto might turn out to be the most lucrative – and it’s  a paradise for money laundering -- though bribery in return for influence is bringing lots of bucks too. And about that 747….

 

 

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Speaking of wealth, a Bloomberg article discusses the embrace of selfishness and rejection of charity by some billionaires in the tech/venture-capital sector. They say, in effect, that they shouldn’t be expected to give away a lot of their money because their enterprises’ inventions give so much to society. Well, leaving aside the question of the relative social benefits and dangers of such things as artificial intelligence, we ought to bear in mind that these moguls didn’t do it alone: There were teams working on these projects, in a country whose legal protections and tax-supported infrastructure and services were crucial in their success.

 

The proudly selfish tycoons also must like the idea that their wealth gives themselves great political power, which their relatives, current and future, can take advantage of in Washington and state capitals to protect and expand their vast fortunes, yea unto generations, in an increasing feudal country, with among the least socio-economic mobility in the Developed World.

 

Hit this link:

 

 

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It will be amusing to watch how companies afraid of incurring Trump’s wrath deal with the challenge of his tariffs. They don’t want to make our psychotic prince angry by raising prices to cover their new tariff costs and, especially, by announcing that they’re raising their prices because of the tariffs in order to maintain their profit margins. (Supposed to be a secret?)

 

But many stockholders will start selling their shares at a good clip if the tariffed companies don’t raise prices. Since the senior executives of publicly owned companies are heavily judged and compensated by their companies’ stock prices, this puts them in quite a quandary.

 

 

Time for  an Era of Absorption

America and other countries are, of course, cracking down on immigration, especially illegal immigrants.

 

And this is probably a good thing if it’s done in a humane and gradualist way, though that’s not happening in America.

 

As I have written, the flood of immigrants has brought us millions with high energy, a strong work ethic and ingenuity. But it has also brought anxieties and confusion as native-born Americans have found themselves face to face with people whose customs and behaviors, and, sad to say, appearance, they may find unsettling.

 

At the same time, poor immigrants have tended to lower inflation-adjusted wages for jobs not requiring a high level of education. Of course, many Americans, including low-income ones, have long eschewed these jobs, many of which are boring, repetitive and require much physical labor.

 

So it will be interesting to see whether these jobs can be filled as more and more immigrants are kicked out. How many small businesses will be killed by the crackdown? We’ll get a stronger sense of this over the next few months, among other reasons because seasonally based enterprises, such as resorts and some agriculture – e.g., in New England, blueberries and cranberries -- tend to use a lot of immigrants.

 

But beware, the Trump regime will try to distort and/or hide government economic data on any changes that cast it in a bad light.

 

Immigrants add much to the rich variety of American life.  But they need to be integrated more smoothly into the country, economically, sociologically and psychologically. That means reducing  the numbers admitted over the next few years.

 

I thought of all this last week, while walking around that great immigrant center of New York City and nearly getting hit several times by speeding hard-working folks on bikes delivering packages while ignoring basic traffic rules.

 

The ability of energetic and/or desperate people to flee poor and/or tyrannical nations to the Western World has acted as a relief valve in those poor countries. With escape becoming tougher, will there be more public violence there – including revolutions --  demanding economic and political change?

 

But Trump’s attempt to ban foreign students here legally from attending Harvard is illegal, immoral, and cruel, and will hurt the U.S. economy. As the phrase making the rounds  goes, this criminal’s regime can be summarized as “chaos, corruption and cruelty.’’

 

 

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Too bad that there’s no jail time in Rhode Island, Attorney. Gen. Peter Neronha’s deal in which he dropped the criminal charges against Barletta Heavy Division in a case that involved its dumping contaminated materials in Providence’s Olneyville neighborhood.

 

GoLocal broke this story and has followed this case intensely from the start.

 

Instead, the company will pay a civil settlement of $11 million. Seems mighty weak.

 

 

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The fire that destroyed much of the Matunuck Oyster Bar, in Wakefield, came just as we headed into prime season for the sale there of these delicious bivalves. But oysters aren’t wonderful just as a source of high-quality protein and other nutrients. Oysters, whether farmed ones such as those sold at the Matunuck Oyster Bar, or wild ones, filter and clean the water, making for healthier coastal ecosystems. Other shellfish, such as clams, mussels and scallops, do the same thing. We need more shellfish farms! New England should be a world center of aquaculture.

 

Here's hoping that Perry Raso, the owner, and his associates can speedily rebuild the restaurant.

 

And let’s farm a lot of kelp, too.

 

 

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Those huge and ugly data centers being put up to power artificial intelligence and other computer-based operations generate vast amounts of heat. But that heat can be used to warm buildings in nearby communities, which is what’s happening in some often chilly places, such as Scandinavia.

 

Indeed, colder and wetter places are the best sites to put data centers.  The facilities consume lots of water, primarily for cooling servers and maintaining humidity.  This might be an economic boon for places like northern New England.

 

But given the vast quantities of electricity  needed to be generated for data centers, you could say that using the heat from them can simply make  them “less bad.’’

 

Hit this link:

 

It’s unsettling to consider how much juice is needed to power a pathology like Facebook!