Only Size Matters in the Economy of Scales

In my past life I was an executive at a great entertainment retail company. The people at the top of the company never viewed themselves as executives, really. The company ran with records guys and gals, books guys and gals, videos guys and gals, advertising guys and gals, warehouse people, accountants, supervisors, and clerks of all stripes who all shared a passion for music, reading, art and film. Most in-house conversations were about selling more of what we had experienced, either very recently, or at some juncture of our peculiar life's time-line. Shared diverse experiences in the stores and head offices were shared with an eager and intelligent growing vendor and consumer base, which made it a perfect fit for two decades of commercial and personal success.

Those days are gone. Not only within the former industry where I worked, but in so many other industries throughout the world of commerce. At the end, the company, like so many others in a few short years time, had become overwhelmed by global forces too powerful to withstand. Size, and the subsequent scales of efficiency,became all that mattered in the business world. Small companies went bye-bye.

For years, I spent useless hours wondering what actions I might have taken to save my little business world and those that inhabited it, but finally realized immutable forces at such a high level were busy transforming business into something not seen since the the end of the 19th Century. Globalism, under the benign term, free market, had reduced the multitude to the handful, and had brought about the same horrific factory working conditions to the labor force that existed a century ago.

Globalism is simply a new word for Colonialism. The only difference is that conglomerate corporations now dominate the world markets instead of the imperial dynasties that ruled governments in the past. However, many of the same families who ruled nations as sovereigns in that age now simply rule through corporate boards of directors within a labyrinth of shell organizations, trusts, foundations, banks and businesses. I must say one has to really tip one's hat to the remarkable change of guise that the ruling class has made for itself these last sixty years, and particularly these last three decades.

In my former life, I used to watch every movie I could lay my hands on. It was my job, and I was up to the challenge. I have seen the same plots reworked, the same explosions filmed, and the same obligatory music interlude to promote the latest soundtrack entrant more times than I have made keystrokes on all the keyboards I have ever pounded on in my lifetime. I don't watch that many commercial movies these days, and those that I do view need to be pretty special in there own quirky or spectacular way. I do, however, watch as many documentaries from small independent or publicly funded film-makers as I can get my hands on.

Recently, I watched a tremendously informative PBS documentary called Commanding Heights: The Battle For The World Economy. This documentary is based on a book by Pulitzer Prize winning authors Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. This film gives the viewer great background information on the struggles of economic ideas, movements and history while providing startling detailed accounts of our current financial crisis and the warning signs of how this collapse came to happen. It is a very pro-capitalist pro-globalist look with a late 1990s view, although the film does include a brief 9/11 account and the potential financial impact this would have on the markets.

The title for the book and this filmed translation and update comes from a famous line Vladimir Lenin delivered on his "New Economic Policy" for post war Russia. Commanding heights refer to those segments of the economy that dominate the field, much like any good commander will utilize the high ground for advantage on the battlefield.

This documentary is truly must see TV for our age. If people want to understand how this dreadful economic circumstance came to be this decade, people need to understand who and what is behind this reality. This is a great first step in finding clarity. It's good for the soul.

400 Years of the Telescope, finally

June 1, 2009 finds cause for celebration. I just received a special DVD from PBS this past week. I could not put the program on because of a mind boggling busy schedule I got myself into the last ten days. 400 Years of the Telescope had to wait.

I already described my trip to Northern California on my last post. When I left for my first trip out of town in two years, I did not anticipate such a tremendous amount of drama from my father over the few days I was out of town. I won't bore you with the details, but he and my wife had several conversations over the weekend of my absence. I am not sure when, exactly, older people suddenly find their mind set to be very much the same as young children, but the change is not all that pleasant. Old people do not look like young kids.

The wait for the adult to come into the body of your aged parent reminds me of Godot. While I wait for the adult, I take the child to the ER over a small bout of gastritis. Death surely sits on the doorstep this time. A battery of tests and blood panels reveal the patient will live. This marks the third ER experience over a very minor bodily inconvenience in the last couple of years. It took me awhile to get over the all night stay at the emergency room for the small bloody nose, which culminated in an MRI for the afflicted parent. Tests negative, of course. And so it goes.

I probably could have watched the DVD, if Pops was the only thing making up my week, but on a journey out to water my starving summer lawn I happened to notice a blister in the paint on the porch support beam. Using my trusty pistol popping index finger to explore the bubble on the beam I discovered the wood was shot full of termite tunnels and subterranean dirt residue. Well, that will cost some money and suck up some more good thoughts on the state of my economy. It did, but the peace of mind knowing the ultimate chew-masters of civilization would be eradicated for a decent amount of time put me in a tolerable space. Also, my cross-country truck-driving sis would be in town on the days the work would be done.

Today I've checked out this wonderful PBS documentary fully, and can truthfully say the opening two-minute sequence my youngest son, Winston, put together with his team of student artists is really quality stuff. At the end of the program he has a credit line all to himself, in bold type. Oh sure, the astrophysicists, astronomers and the cinematography are all excellent, but wow! that opening sequence.

Doctor Day

Shower and shave before throwing down a fruit bar with the usual java gulps to get the day off to a proper start. I've got some old Genesis on the Beamer's audio system. When did progressive rock go bad? Your Own Special Way still sounds good through the trimmed forest in the ear canal. {Too little on top, but plenty where you never want to see it. Hair. Might just shower in Nair one day.}

Dad's got another doctor's appointment with the professional system he loves to hate, that offers no cure, but remains the only source of the lung candy he requires to gasp along in the sedentary stasis of his twilight years. Dad realizes he finds himself as one lucky guy having a chauffeur when the need mandates, and possessing insurance as well as Medicare to cover all the incidentals. My sister, former agricultural specialist for the US government, finds herself driving a truck cross country everyday without any health insurance as she approaches 55 years of age.

{"Got your chips cashed in.... Truckin'......"}

The doctor goes through dad's brief check up. He's lost a few pounds. Too much effort trying to breathe burns through the calories. Eat before bedtime is the suggestion. See you in three months. Bye. Another appointment made and disease management triumphs again with a suitcase of pills as your ticket for the long slow decline. Those pills cost a lot, but he is covered and one of the very lucky ones

My in-laws are in much worse shape. I won't bore you with the details, but I will say they too are both with terminal ailments, take lots of expensive drugs and get managed by the system to pay as high a tab as possible for these drugs while having been denied some more expensive up-front solutions a few years back that might have mitigated both the drug intake and the disease. The proposed solutions could also have failed, but having an HMO rather than a doctor make the final decision just seems wrong.

America finds itself as a really sick nation, and the reason we are so sick has to do with our health care system. Frontline just put together an exceptional program looking at this issue. The report is call Sick in America, and it follows another exceptional program done last year, Sick Around The World, in exploring the growing health care crisis and the now urgent need to fix the system here in America.

We cannot afford to pass the buck on universal health care any longer. For those who stop by this blog to check on the musings of this Thrasher, I recommend strongly that you check out the links provided in the posting and view these informative programs. Some of the stories will bring a tear to your eyes, or remind you of some of the people you know struggling to survive in a market that cares more about profit than people.

Lisa Girion from the Los Angeles Times, one of the several featured people in the Sick in America story, has an article in February of this year on California health insurers exceeding the state issued rates for last resort health coverage. This type of coverage is designed for people who cannot get coverage on the open market due to a previous condition or when they have lost their job. Vulnerable people in the worst circumstance are the ones the insurance companies prey on for maximizing premiums and when they get the chance to drop you do so out of hand.