The new LBJ?

 Certainly there are many differences between Spring 2022, and the late 1960’s.  Sometimes, however, it is useful to find commonalities.  

In both eras, America was funding war in a foreign country.  In both there was raging inflation.  Both times there continued to be significant poverty in America.  

The Vietnam War did not turn out well. Speaking honestly, how do we think the Russo-Ukrainian war is working out?  Sometimes it is also useful to simplify.  Such a time is now.

N.B.  LBJ was Lyndon Baines Johnson, President of the United States during the Vietnam War.  

The Problem with the Profit System

 Here, then, is my latest book: Capital by Thomas Piketty.  In this tome I am expecting to find both history and analysis of the profit system, often called simply capitalism.  Now, I am against neither capital (money), nor a simple profit made by an entrepreneur allowing him to feed, shelter, and clothe his (or her) family, as well as obtain some of the finer things of life.  

 The difficulty arises when there is an imbalance -- one person to another, or one group to another.  One group gets too much money, the other gets too little.  In one sense the matter is as simple as this.  As Piketty writes:  The problem is that the price system knows neither limits nor morality.   Is this the kind of system we really want?  And can it even survive?  

 

 

Warning: System Error

 

The book shown above blazes new trails in its description of the problems facing Big Tech, and as a result, our society.  And in this sense, "society" is suddenly what could be considered the world society.  The book is almost dizzying in its return to an ethical framework for both individual lives and Big Tech.  

Well-chronicled here are the early savants and young billionaires who used the new computer/Internet technologies for both good and ill.  

The book is stunning in scope and depth.  Highly recommended. 

Thinking Twice Before Starting Cold War II

Quick link — 

Thinking twice before reprising cold war/