Transmat World: money

Showing posts with label money. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Real Wealth Inequality Is at It’s Worst Since the Beginning of Civilization, Not the Roaring Twenties

Articles on wealth inequality written in 2019 say it is the worst since before the Great Depression—the Roaring Twenties, The Jazz Age. These same articles say it’s getting worse.

Here is a statistic to better describe the situation. The top 1% possess 40% of the nation’s wealth, the bottom 80% own 7%.

I say it is much worse than anybody lets on. In fact, it is worse than it's ever been. Let me explain why.

First, let’s have a short discussion about what defines wealth. Some of the poorest citizens in the United Sates possess things that no ancient king or ruler, even Mansa Musa the King of Timbuktu with his estimated $400 billion dollars, could ever have.

This lower economic class citizen might have at their beck and call a carriage with the power of 200 galloping horses beneath its hood, an air conditioned and heated dwelling that maintains a reasonable temperature no matter the outdoor temp, a fridge to preserve food, a TV for entertainment, a phone to call anyone in the world anywhere, a device to surf the internet or access most of the knowledge of mankind, a pill to make pain or infection go away. The list is long.

Realistically speaking, this person has a lot of lifestyle advantages over Mansa Musa, or King Solomon, or any number of historic billionaires right up to the twentieth century. Because of technology, one’s quality of life may be equal or better than the wealthy of yesteryear.

As a side note: Keep in mind the 2010 census describes half the population of the United States as “poor or low income”. Extreme poverty afflicts 1.5 million households which live on less than $2 a day before government assistance. Some of these people don’t have cars, clean running water, indoor toilets, refrigerators, or any health care.

Technology is also the reason a current billionaire’s life has changed by an order of magnitude over those of the past, leapfrogging even an upper middle class person’s lifestyle, choices, and power.

It turns out that a billion dollars now is not the same as a billion dollars back then, and it all revolves around what a billion dollars can currently buy. Once again we turn to the last century as a time when things began to get weird in a science fiction kind of way.

World War II spawned a slew of technologies that forced the expansion and advancement of knowledge resulting in today’s panoply of technological marvels and cleverness.

For instance, propaganda is a very old practice, but the war forced changes. Film and radio were the added dimensions that made propaganda so effective for both sides during the war. Since that time, it has been an axiom that any new technology that can be used will be used for propaganda.

Social media has allowed propaganda to take on a sinister disguise to sway the unwary. Propaganda campaigns on social media and in other venues is something the wealthy can now buy that was not available in the past. Back then, the rich could possess the bodies of a population but not their hearts and minds. Things are different now.

Propaganda has been honed, tweaked, and optimized by Madison Avenue and corporate America to power the advertising technologies that create so much angst in American society by having people desire things they can’t afford. We are a society inundated by constant, unrelenting waves of commercial propaganda. They don't just tell us what to buy. They tell us how we should think and act. I hate to break this to you, although you may have suspected, we are not a normal society.

The overt and subliminal pressure is so much for some they have turned to drugs for relief. The wealthy, for the most part, are sheltered from this constant pressure. Even if they succumb and buy that Lamborghini, what does it matter? They can afford it.

About the same time as the Second World War, wealthy individuals started taking advantage of a quirk in the American political structure. They were allowed to give Senators and Congressmen money in exchange for favorable business environments through legislation in a process benignly labeled “lobbying”. In other parts of the world it is called bribery. While bribery has been around for a long time, past billionaires still had to worry about getting caught, unlike their modern American counterparts.

In 2010, the Supreme Court case of Citizens United vs FEC allowed corporations the First Amendment political right to buy ads in any and all American elections. Since that time the floodgates have opened for money to flow into the coffers of political campaigns and super pacs to be used for ... you guessed it, propaganda.

Having legislators sponsor bills in exchange for campaign money is one way wealthy people and large corporations control enactment of laws to favor themselves, including purchasing monopolies and lowering taxes. This process perverts the idea held by ordinary citizens that our elected officials are working for the good of the general populace instead of certain individuals.

Another area where the current crop of wealthy have an advantage over their predecessors is medical technology. The fact is that the ultra-wealthy don’t really need health insurance, although they probably have the best money can buy.

There are many hospitals that now practice what is commonly called “wealthcare” where the wealthy are ushered to the heads of lines for procedures that may very well save their lives. This is in exchange for large donations to go to expansion or equipment. All well and good you say until the realization occurs that someone back in that line was nearing their expiration date and might not make it now.

The technical advance of weaponry and the art of war has been prodigious. Body armor, fully automatic 12 gauge shotguns, sniper rifles accurate up to a mile away, spy drones—these are just a few examples. Some of the best stuff we’re probably not even aware of.

A small, well-trained, and properly outfitted army would be unstoppable in most areas of the world. They could be used for security or for much more nefarious reasons. Imagine Seal Team 6 times ten and you have some idea of the sheer physicality of force affordable to some now.

Don’t get me wrong. Billionaires should be highly compensated for their innovation and job creation. But please don’t buy into the myth that their money is a huge source of innovation and job creation. It’s just money. They may or may not put it to good use.

For every Elon Musk there are probably a hundred billionaires who are using these absurdly effective tools and technologies I’ve been describing to hang on to or increase their existing fortunes instead of spending money on building new companies and new technologies that create jobs.

What is so very wrong about the current situation is that the tools, the privilege, and the technology available to this elite group of people allow them to keep increasing this disparity of wealth between the one tenth of one percent and everybody else. It is an unfair advantage that the wealthy of generations past did not have.

We may nearing a tipping point beyond which there is no way to regulate this historical anomaly.

And these are the “good” billionaires. There is another group of billionaires that are the bad actors of the wealthy set. These are people like the heads of Mexican cartels. Once these people fully realize what is possible with their money, this world will become a much more dangerous place.

The marginal tax rate for the poor is approaching 90% in many cases while that of a lot of corporations and wealthy individuals is at or getting close to zero. It used to be the other way around. Even some billionaires, notably Warren Buffet, are embarrassed by the low taxation on the wealthy and want it changed.

It is time for the United States of America to just say “no” to the continuing trend of lowering taxes for the rich and corporations and penalizing the poor for being poor. We can only do it at the ballot box. Vote for those who want to increase the tax on the wealthy and change the lobbying and campaign finance laws. No matter what our economic status is, we can still wield that small amount of power left to us to send a message to the ultra wealthy, “We’re on to you! Pay your fair share!”

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

The Wonderful, Unsung World of Traveling Museum Exhibitions

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash - cropped

Big museums, in general, have a lot of money. They use it to acquire more stuff, not to keep down the price of admissions, which has soared over the past few years so that many major museums charge between $15 and $30 for adult admissions. And yet, people still come. Why? Much of it has to do with the traveling exhibitions that camp out at museums for three months or more and entice you with something different. After you’ve seen the Tyrannosaurus Rex or whale skeleton for the fourth or fifth time, you and (more importantly) the kiddos are ready for something new.

It just so happens there is a whole industry that hardly anyone thinks, writes, or talks about that provides traveling exhibitions to museums. It runs the gamut from a nicely done set of placards with art and text dealing with a number of subjects that rent for modest sums up to $3000 for three months to an extravaganza taking up 8,000 square feet or more and costing upwards of $400,000. It can be an individual with a focus on one thing, like Christopher Marley’s Biophilia, or Da Vinci: the Exhibition, one of twenty-some-odd large exhibits dealing with space, dinosaurs, art, and the human body from Imagine Exhibitions. At the stratospheric range of traveling exhibitions is Harry Potter: the Exhibition using 12 semi truck trailers to deliver 15,000 square feet of show for an estimated two million dollars.

The inspiration for this article was, in fact, Christopher Marley’s Biophilia which I saw in Houston. Christoper collects his specimens “…in an environmentally sensitive manner from a world wide network of people and institutions that share his passion for nature.” Basically, they are deceased birds, bugs, and snakes. What he does with those specimens will blow your mind. His sense of design to accentuate the qualities of his subject is superb. The beauty he portrays of things we might ordinarily think squeamishly of is an unexpected and very welcome gift to the soul. His show got me to thinking about how one gets their work into a museum. He doesn’t work for the Houston Museum of Natural Science so how did his exhibition get there.

It sounds trite, but first you have to have a museum quality product and display. Also, there are publications and organizations you can join and advertise in that are devoted to nothing but supporting the traveling museum exhibit and exhibition industry. Yes, many exhibitions are of some thing or collection of things; but many more are gems of the mind—beautiful coherent thoughts and knowledge brought to existence for other people to examine.

This is an industry that has a bright future. Museum revenues are down despite the rise in ticket prices, and traveling exhibitions are one way museums can reverse that trend as far as ticket sales go. About half of European museums and 80 percent of North American museums use traveling exhibitions developed by others.

This is one of those industries limited only by imagination. In general, however, it is not a solo endeavor. I don't want to denigrate genius solo polymaths; but teachers, designers, artists, technicians, and code writers are also needed to weave their skills together for an effective communication interface that also happens to be a traveling exhibition.

There is competition. Many major museums have used their most valuable assets as the basis for traveling exhibitions. King Tut, Terracotta Warriors, and the like are things you can’t compete with. There are, however, at least four big exhibition companies with their own version of Leonardo da Vinci’s invention sketchbook come to life, and they are all doing well. Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple of different versions based on Da Vinci and his drawings.

Here are a few examples of what's out there:

Grande Exhibitions has developed a system "that combines multichannel motion graphics, cinema quality surround sound and up to forty high-definition projectors to provide one of the most exciting multiscreen environments in the world." Grande has produced several amazing traveling exhibitions including Van Gogh Alive, Planet Shark: Predator or Prey, 101 Inventions That Changed the World, The French Impressionists - Monet to Cezanne, and Alice - A Wonderland Adventure.

Fulldome.pro provides prefabricated domes 1.5 to 35 meters in diameter with projectors and a library of 90 shows to go with them.

Flexhibit makes modules that demonstrate various STEM oriented subjects.

A couple of great things about this niche industry is that the surface has only been scratched for both subject matter and the use of modern digital tools to display and interact with databases on science, art, health, and history. It would be nice to have artifacts to base a show on—I just saw the Art of the Gunsmith Exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science—but not everyone has a collection of fifty or so rifles and pistols in nearly perfect condition from the three centuries spanning Columbus to Napoleon. You don’t have to. You can create your own like Luke Jerram's Moon, a 23 foot diameter replica of the Moon lit from inside. If you have a niche knowledge to teach, a secret curiosity itch to scratch, a different take on things, an artistic view, inquisitive intelligence, or a dogged determination to find out about things, you have what it takes to make a splash in traveling museum exhibitions.

Coral inlaid pistol. Photo by Glen Hendrix.

Even if you don’t know people with the right skills, some of these exhibition companies are willing partners to help you get started. EDG, with dozens of large exhibitions already developed, is willing to listen to your ideas. ExhibitsUSA specializes in photo exhibitions and wants to hear your take on the next great one. You can even find recommendations for producing small, interactive exhibitions for children online.

That is really where the heart of the matter lies. There is so much room out there for exhibitions that teach our kids, as well as most adults, what they need to know to navigate this strange new world we live in. They need to know about the nitty gritty stuff like climate change and racism as well as the cool stuff like dinosaurs and butterflies. We don’t know what will trigger an idea in the brains of our next Einsteins or Newtons so we have to strive to give them the basic thinking tools and knowledge they need as well as something extra. It is up to us to teach them, and what better way than an inspiring personal experience at the museum.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Climate Change Should Make Planned Obsolescence Obsolete

Photo by Alessandro Bianchi on Unsplash

Once upon a time, things were made to last. Then corporations had a light bulb moment - literally. The companies that made light bulbs back in the 1920s got together and artificially limited the lifespan of the incandescent bulb to 1000 hours. Although it wasn’t known at the time, the records of such a collusion (the Phoebus Cartel) were discovered decades after Osram, General Electric, and Associated Electrical Industries did the deal.

The genie was out of the bottle. This was such a successful strategy, planned obsolescence is now the go-to business plan for phones, ink cartridges, college textbooks, cars, software, office equipment, light bulbs (Still for incandescent! Buy LEDs.), clothes … the list goes on and on.

We must figure out how to rectify this insidious practice. Not only does this border on fraud and immorality, it is a contributor to global warming and a general inefficiency in the use of energy and natural resources.

It can be controlled by regulation. Corporations will not willingly change practices that make them so much money. To enact such regulation will require electing politicians that recognize the dangers of climate change, how planned obsolescence adds to the problem, and are willing to change how business is done. As it stands, the majority of the U.S. Congress, House and Senate, Republican and Democrat, takes too much money from corporations to impartially decide how to regulate this wasteful practice. Corporations purchasing laws is a bigger problem I won’t go into here. As a voter, it is up to you to bring this problem of planned obsolescence up to politicians and ask for solutions.

The practice is not just inefficient and wasteful, producing much more pollution than necessary, it costs you money: Having to go out and buy more light bulbs. Replacing that perfectly good laptop because it won’t support the latest and greatest software. Buying new software because it is the latest and greatest only to find out it is just more complicated, slower, and buggier.

We must learn to vote with our pocketbooks. We want products that are good and good for a very long time. We should not shy from giving praise to products that are sturdy, vital, and long lasting. Take time to give reviews for such products. Shakespeare said this about clothing four hundred years ago and it is just as true today. "Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy--rich, not gaudy." It means buy the best quality clothes you can afford and avoid fads which quickly fade. Your clothes will last longer, remain fashionable, and save you money.

With all the big problems such as the continued use of fossil fuels and lack of cooperation between governments on climate change, we sometimes forget about some of the other problems that have crept into our society. Planned obsolescence has had its moment in the sun, or shadows, and should now be considered obsolete. It is time for transparency in quality to be the norm, informing us what is best for individuals and our planet.