Unseasonable Warm (50 degrees), Rainy, and Gray

On Long Point Pier

Up early, 5:30 for some reason, to a pitch black sky though now, about 7:30 it's beginning to lightened up but its a heavy gray over towards Bemus, with lots of threatening fast moving rain clouds, some fog obscuring the coast line. It is windy, with a southerly keeping my Welsh flag flapping. The forecast is more rain, getting colder tonight, with a chance of snow flurries.

Long Point

I have just finished a long article on inequality, mostly material, in societies over time, by a Turkish economist at MIT.  He goes through five books, all offering reasons for this inequality, mostly in the US and UK, and his main theme is that it's political, that our institutions are failing us, favoring the rich, depending on big money, and the only solutions are also political, so we must all be involved in the process.  He quotes Gore Vidal:  “The United States has only one party – the property party. It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican.” 


He's certainly not against capitalism, just its abuses, the concentration now of both money and ppolitical power.  And, of course, the reasons for this inequality is not simple.  Not only is it political, but educational (when education fails to keep up with technology), and a result of globalization.  It's worth reading for anyone who is worried about this problem.  One statistic stood out though he questions its accuracy:  CEO's salaries versus worker salaries:  in Japan, 12-1, in the US: 425-1.  Unbelievably gross and vulgar: the website address: http://thebrowser.com/interviews/daron-acemoglu-on-inequality.

Woodlawn South

I am off to breakfast at Bemus with my buddies, keeping up on the local news, the gossip at the CI, things like that.  Today, we have no agenda other than a 'honey do' list for me, hanging and fixing mostly.  I can handle it (I think).