WHAT WE NEED IS TRUE CAPITALISM

UNFORTUNATELY MEXICO IS HIGHLY DEPENDENT ON THE US ECONOMY.
THEREFORE EVERY KEY MACROECONOMIC INDICATOR HAS PLUNGED IN THE COURSE OF THE LAST YEAR. THE PESO IS LOOSING GROUND AGAINST THE DOLLAR AND INVESTMENTS ARE FLYING OUT OF THE COUNTRY.
ON TOP OF THAT MEXICO IS A COUNTRY WHERE PRETENTIOUS POLITICIANS AND CORRUPT CORPORATE POWER MAKE THE MATTERS FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON.

I BELIEVE THAT THE RISE OF EASY CREDIT IN THE US WAS FOR THE MOST PART THE MAIN REASON OF THE DEBACLE OF THE US ECONOMY. MEXICO IS IMITATING THAT KIND OF BEHAVIOR, BUT THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT PEOPLE DON'T EARN ANY WHERE CLOSE TO OUR NORTH AMERICAN COUNTERPARTS.
SO PEOPLE TAKE LOANS AND END UP PAYING INTEREST THAT COULD BE TAKING OVER A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF THEIR PAYCHECK.

I DIGRESS, THE PROBLEM WE ARE EXPERIENCING IN MEXICO AND GLOBALLY IS THAT WE HAVE USED ONLY PART OF THE BASIC FUNDAMENTS THAT CAPITALISM WAS BUILT ON. AS KEN WILBER POINTS OUT WE HAVE CONCENTRATED IN THE IT ASPECT OF GROWTH WHICH IS MATERIAL AND TANGIBLE. WHAT WE NEED IS TO RESUSCITATE THE NOTION OF MUTUAL BENEVOLENCE.

THE ECONOMY IS PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR THAT MOVES THIS WORLD, BUT LETS NOT FORGET THAT ECONOMIC ACTIVITY SHOULD BE WITH PURPOSE. SO FAR NO ONE HAS YET DELIVER A PURPOSE OF GROWING FASTER AND MORE EVERY YEAR. I AM AFRAID THAT IS LIKE THE OLD TALE OF THE BABYLON TOWER. IF WE KEEP ON GROWING WITH OUT OUTLINING THE PURPOSE OF SUCH GROWTH, IT COMES TO MY MIND THAT WE WILL COLLAPSE ON OUR OWN JUST AS THE BABYLONIANS DID.

If You Open Your Mind Too Much Your Brain Will Fall Out

TOE

Last night I watched two episodes of a documentary about Stephen Hawkins struggle to find a theory of everything. I was really blown away by some of the content, nevertheless I think he is mistaken in naming it theory of everything because it is really about something in particular, namely the creation of the universe.

Einstein also tried to come up with a TOE and he died trying to come up with it. Again he was also focusing on a mathematical way to explain everything which is nonsense.

Ken Wilber is pushing for a more integral theory of everything, but in the end any given theory of "everything" is indeed about everything dealing with certain aspects, but it would never cover everything. For that reason I believe that more than a theory of everything we need solid "general" fundamentals that would allow us the privilege to be fallible in order to make the necessary adaptations to the available knowledge.

In any case, I also believe that since our nature is temporal in essence it would be impossible to uncover things that go far beyond our time line development.
That despite the common say that some intellectuals are ahead of their times, yes is true, but they are ahead of something that they are exposed to. That is we cannot solve problems that we are not aware of... something big coming... Soon?

The latests news!

1. I burn myself with the iron machine.
2. i came to a sudden halt while ridding my skateboard and I hit the ground pretty hard.
3. It hurts!!!

long long long long lolololololololong gone...

...And for the millionth time. I am back! I am back and I am an upgraded version. I am proud to say that now I am Mismo 2.0 beta (if you have a Mac then you'll never get me to work ha haha).
What am I up to?
Well now I am trying hard to get a job... maybe hardly trying.
I also managed to conquer my chief editor and now I live with her in downtown.
That in itself is pretty kick ass. Specially this summer because all the construction work around here makes me feel like I am in a bigger city. I only need to see the rats running around to feel like the ultimate cosmopolitan. I swear I had come with the most amazing gags to write about but they have vanished because I did not materialize them... so I have got nothing to deliver for now only words and more words. At this point if you keep reading you can tell that I am getting nowhere...
Let's now take some time to do an introspective exercise:
1. pick a word
2. repeat the word until it makes no sense
3. think about the word so much that you awareness makes you escape the material world
4. welcome to you radical nothingness through which you create and stablish meaning to everything!

I told you! I am coming back hard and more confusing than ever!

Beers, Tests, Swine Flu, and Graduation

I guess those are the topics that mostly roam my brain... I guess my girlfriend would sat that I spend 99% of the time thinking about being on a boat 9 if you know what I am saying). I am not sure how the finals week is at other Colleges, but here it seems to be inconsistent across disciplines. For example Science students are crazy busy and so are the people taking keystone classes. Business students are pretty calm, unless you are taking accounting. Music and Art majors are for the most part resting out from their senior shows. Me? This year I decided to push my limits to the extreme. I wanted to attend as many social events as possible. I figured it was doable since I have been keeping up with my classes... except finance. In any case I did partied it up on the weekend and I paid the high price of a terrible hungover. So know I am crunching in some precalc and tomorrow I'll have to dominate the art of osmosis to learn everything I know for my test on Thursday.
This picture demonstrates how someone can learn by osmosis. I hope it works!

Legacy

Tonight current and future members of the homemade crew gathered to chat about next year's ambitions. I stepped in the meeting with the usual irreverence, and I feel bad now ha haha. So as a part of the goodbye to the team I want to spell out my legacy.
When I joined the team I was not so sure how to manage myself to write thingies on a wall for the school. Soon I realized that the site gave me power to raise my concerns and to point out to the bad. YES I COMPLAIN A LOT, AND YES I MANY TIMES DON'T CARE TO REVISE FOR SPELLING OR PERFECT GRAMMAR... believe me I know! In any case the only reason I brought anything to light in this wall was because I love Augsburg. My intentions we purely in the best interest of the College because I want to make of it a better place for the people that are yet to come to this wonderful lab of amazing individuals. In any case this little space only caused so much controversy mainly in selected circles of the school and never broadly and that's cool. I hope someone picks up on that after 05/01/2009

Thanks Homemade and thanks Augsburg.

Ben Folds - Myspace Gig - Learn To Live With What You Are

Monday

Today is Monday, April 20, 2009. Unlike any other Monday this is the last Monday I'll ever have undergraduate classes at Augsburg (hopefully). Since I woke up it was a weird feeling to know that I would be living the last week of the 4 year journey I started 3.some years ago.
The past weeks I have been in and out from events to celebrate a number of things. I had to deliver a few word in a couple of them, but I never got to thank everyone that has impacted me in any way during this time. The reason for that is that I did not want to come looking like a movie star thanking my peeps for taking me to the academy awards podium.
In any way here is the list of people and organizations I want to thank from the bottom of my heart. My time at Augsburg and my life would not be the same without everything you have done for me:

The WEC house
CCHP
CSWL
Campus Ministry
Office of the President
Institutional Advancement
Grounds Crew
Facilities Management
Reslife
Library staff
Homemade
Day Admissions
The Enrollement Center
Academic Advising
Administrative Accounting
Business Department
Economics Department
Custodial Services All Over Campus
CGE
Marketing and Communications

SPECIAL THANKS TO
Dianne Detloff
Debra Winsor
Lynn Ellingson
Nate Gorr
Mike Perry
Brian Emerick
Bruce and Cindi Rowe
Fatimah and Sisavanh Panemalaythong
Bruce and Sharon Reichenbach
Orv and Cleta Gingerich
James and Rachel Trelstad-Porter
Marissa Machado
Beth Carlson
Jon Vaughan-Fier
Nancy Guilbeault
Paul and Abigail Pribbenow
Kathleen Tuckner
Jeanne Boeh
Kevin Bowman
John Stein
Boyd Koehler
Elizabeth R Joyce
Martha Truax

Thanks so much Augsburg!

Play it!

Justice - Planisphere
Uploaded by Noel_anonymouse

Graph O' Day

see more Funny Graphs

Friday!

It has been a wild week! I have never imagined I would be required to attend so many events in a short frame of time. It is really nice to get to know some more people at these events. It is also really nice when they feed me well. Last night I had two main dish plates, and I loved it. I will say that Augsburg Seniors really capitalize on food on the last few weeks of school. I am not on a meal plan because I am cool like that, ha haha. My fridge has been empty for a while and it seems that next week will be empty still. Well well maybe this entry is completely nonsense, but that is the consequence of the senior party... which deserves its own post so see you there...

Please someone interview me

Ha ha ha. I have been imaging myself over and over again saying my last thoughts about Augsburg. Of course being accompanied by music that I like on the background.

Brutal honesty!

You might be aware that I have raised questions about the green movement here on campus.Well I have to speak up again. It just really bugs me that it is receiving so much marketing. The most recent Augsburg Now issue is almost entirely devoted to the green initiatives on campus. I think it is bs to give such a weight to it. Why? Because this campus wastes so much energy and water. Furthermore, there are a ton of dorm rooms where there are water leakages. Who is doing anything about that? I mean it is extremely easy to get everyone on the hook to subsidize the wind energy and the hybrid security car. I believe that this hole green gag it is just a hippie trend to try to be avant garde. There are no efforts to address old issues like the ones I mentioned above. I don't want to be mean but you could do more than just do the trendy cool things. Why doesn't someone works on having the school fix some of the heating and colling systems that waste so much energy year to year?
Mismo why don't you do it?
Easy, I am not bragging about how coll the college is because its green initiatives.

Rcap

I guess I hung my hat for a while. I really wish I could come hard during these few weeks that remain in my Augsburg experience. Reality is that creativity only illuminates who wishes to be illuminated, and I have not been to the task to seek for such brightness. In fact, I guess I been blinded by the light, which lately has made me very passive in ALL of my activities. I can still feel a little Kierkegaardian about life... Oh shit I am late for tabling....

Try to run, try to hide

Papers, taxes, tests, lab reports, recitals, applications, phone interviews, job interviews, financial aid, all star chandelier royale, drunk karaoke, senior party, organization transition, court citations, spring dinner, budgets, economic forecasts, market rallies, obnoxious bonuses. THE REAL WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN CLOSER TO YOU...

2009 Commencement Coming Soon

College Major: BeerPONG

Extreme Beer Pong

Check this out!

Motivation Breakdown

Fuck! Fuck! and triple Fuck!.
Tonight I feel like being profane. Why? I am fed up with all the shit I have to do. Lately, I feel as if everything I have done during my college time is not going to have an immediate impact on my life after graduation. Maybe I just did not tried hard enough to be placed in a job. BUT seriously how is a person supposed to do well at many different activities at the same time as trying to make a living and enjoying being young. I think that society has progressed too much towards the service sector, which I think it sort of implies that a bubble has been created in the realms of human capital. Every year many more people will be graduating with business majors and given the current situation there won't be enough jobs offered. The problem this time can not be solved to ameliorate the great depression unemployment rate. Back then a "man" could be used to do physical labor or manufacture. What are we going to do now with all the people sitting home with degrees in business? I don;t think many of us are up to the challenge of becoming a construction worker. Even then the pure fact that it is becoming ever harder to get a job suggest that the value of a college education should be waited against the odds of living during times of recession, global recession, or depression. Let me tell you what. If you don't have a solid plan or a good network, college is merely an expensive paper. What about knowledge? Well that is also deemed by the growing general consensus that dictates that in order to help the development of any field one needs credentials...

I am not pessimistic, rather I am pretty fucking realistic.

Stairway to Heaven!!!

Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven live
Uploaded by quististrepe

Only a few weeks left of school

it is crunching time for all students at Augsburg. However, there is a distinction among classes. These distinctions can be noted as follows:

You might be a freshman if you find yourself slaking until the very end.
You might be a freshman if your papers have not gone through at least one peer review session
You might be a freshman if all you think about is to meet with your high school friends over the summer

You might be a sophomore if all you do is to complain about how life is hard and insufferable
You might be a sophomore if you are sick and tired of applying for summer jobs

You might be a junior if you are starting to worry about getting closer and closer to experiencing real life.
You might be a junior if all you think about is of getting that internship.

You might be a senior if all you talk about is how tough is to get a job, but still go out and party to celebrate the soon coming graduation
You might be a senior if you have googled "entry level positions in Minneapolis"
You might be a senior if you just realized that real life is all you have been exposed to, now you know that you needed to be more Realistic in post graduation assumptions....

Back to School

A radical view on income inequality

Heated debates about the righteousness of the positions of liberal and conservative groups have been obvious in the arena of free markets, taxes and government spending. As we have seen in class, the liberal arguments tend to highlight the positive side of the lower right quadrant while conservatives highlight the negative side of it. It would be common sense to find the equilibrium where these arguments are in harmony. Nevertheless, in the real world this is very hard because several issues with conflict of interest among the people in power.
In this paper we argue for the radical side in regards to the ongoing issue of income inequality.
Our main purpose is to point out that neither liberals nor conservatives have addressed the issue appropriately. The argument we make is that income inequality cannot be treated as a disease that can be cured with government spending nor believing in free markets.
After analyzing the liberal and conservative agendas on the issue we decided to comment on something that at first seems to be out of context but that quickly becomes a solid argument for solving the inequality problem. First of all, with the aid of Ken Wilber’s integral model we briefly analyze some empirical evidence on labor evolution and the relative wage. Secondly we provide with some insights made by the greatest radical political analyst of our times, MIT professor Noam Chomsky. Finally we provide a conclusion and the possible results of our radical agenda.
Empirical evidence supports the idea that as there is more technological progress; there will also be higher wage inequality between people with high school education and higher and those without. One can see this theory in light of the four quadrants developed by Ken Wilber. In addition it is also helpful to look at the relationship between wages of those with high school education and those without education (WH/WL) for the time period from 1960 until 2000.
First, Ken Wilber describes the four stages of mankind going from a foraging economy to informational global economy. Moving from one stage to another, all the quadrants must operate efficiently and be in balance for the economy to operate well. Looking the last centuries, the move from an agrarian early state/empire to the industrial nation states can help us to understand this better. As the industrial revolution evolved in the late 18th century, there was also a move from in the in the lower right quadrant from agrarian to an industrial nation state. However, this imbalance will lead to what Ken Wilber refers to as flatland. This is because it was perceived that these new inventions to produce clothing and other goods cheaply were good for the country. Now, this was a state of flatland as the upper left quadrant was in great imbalance; human being’s hopes and desires were not balanced. One can also include the outer needs of the individual which states that one has to have food and clothing as well as the inner needs of the society which needs shared beliefs and goals. London, England is a great example as it was one of the cities where the industrial revolution first emerged and by 1951 half the population of England lived in London. This is in great contrast to the agrarian economy of England, when most of the people made a living by working on farms.
This is also close related to Maslow’s hierarchy of an individual needs which at the bottom of its pyramid has physiological; the next stage is safety. As referred to previously in this paper, the transition to industrial economy brought a lot of hardship for people identified as low skill workers as there was an imbalance in the adoption of new innovations. As the society gradually developed, diffusion allowed industrialization the economy was allowed to operate more efficiently.
One can now compare the move from an agrarian to industrial society with the move from an industrial to an informational society. The economist Kevin Bowman has done some research on the relative wage of high skilled workers to that of low skilled workers. Bowman’s focuses on the context of economical development from 1960 to 2000, and points out the effects of technological slowdowns on fluctuations of the relative wage. This evidence supports the theory that a move from one stage to another will cause an inequality to increase. The research shows that as there is more technological progress such as in the 1990’s; there will be a greater wage inequality. One can also refer to this as skill biased technological change where the high skilled with high school or more education will benefit in times of more invention and innovation. On the other hand, as average labor productivity increases and as there is greater adoption, the low skilled will benefit because there is a little invention and innovation, or little adoption. Thus, as machines takes over more and more jobs; people will have to be able to operate machines and adjust to new work tasks. In order to this; people need education, this is main reason for the large wage inequality. There are more demand for educated workers which then will drive the wages and creating inequality. In terms of the four quadrants one will have to move in all quadrants; in the lower left to become more centauric, in the upper left to apply vision logic and in the upper right to reach the stage of SF3.
As more education and skills is required to obtain a job, there are more layers of knowledge and skills a person has to cut through in order to learn what is required for a job. Another interesting fact is that college tuition tends to follow the wages of the high skilled workers in an economy. As there is more invention and the high skilled workers wages go up relatively more than those of low skilled workers, so will also the cost of education go up. Thus, in this paper we argue for measures which will make the move from one stage to another more balances as it allows the society to operate more efficiently by taking into account all the needs of the society as described in the four quadrants.
Now, we would like to turn our attention to the underlying issue of this paper. According to Professor Noam Chomsky it is very revealing to analyze the nature of the democratic deficit in the US. Polls have revealed an astonishing 95% of the population whose opinion is that the government does not take into account the general public opinion when legislating new policies. Chomsky goes further by providing the example of the disastrous national healthcare system which has been a widely known concern of the general public for several years. The response to this issue by both republicans and democrats has been poor. Neither of them has addressed the public demands, which clearly illustrates that power first serves the interests of people with vast amounts of wealth. In any case the main point we are trying to raise is that the vast majority of the time both liberal and conservative executive decisions are in favor of few people which does not represent the general public in the US. Thus in order to solve any problems, the imbalance in the realms of political decision making cost benefit analysis must be radically changed.
Another great point that Noam Chomsky is famous to stand for is his analysis on the abuse of double standards. Chomsky has a long career in depicting the innumerable cases where politicians have made use of double standards. The clearest example of the abuse of double standards by politicians is the typical conservative who argues for free markets. Just to come back in the future arguing that the government should subsidize certain industry practices in which the politician or its superiors hold stakes. Similar cases could be made for liberals.
Taking into account Chomsky’s arguments, we can move forward to analyze the issue of income inequality. The basic problem that we argue to be the principal driver of income inequality is the insatiable thirst for economic growth of the wealthy. This unsustainable growth requires the global economy to by pass several negative externalities, which in term make the economy more fragile and susceptible to bubble creations. Furthermore, this phenomenon creates a vicious cycle where the wealthy arbitrarily control the labor market by increasing or decreasing the demand for low skill workers. Let us take our current economic environment, because of the aggressive de regulation of financial market derivatives the entire financial system fell apart. The consequences of this collapse can be summarized as follows:
• People on the top of the income distribution took substantial losses
• People in the “middle class” saw their retirement accounts shrink
• People at the bottom of the income distribution may not have seen any loses comparable to the ones above mentioned
However, the loss of the people at the bottom of the income distribution will be a result of an iteration of the collapse –namely many of these people will be or already have lost their job. In retrospect, the wealthy profited from an exploited financial system and propitiated a collapse of which they took the biggest hit, and now they are passing on the consequences to the general public. Of course we know that the problem is more complicated than what we described above, but we think that the fact that the problem was originated by greed is way undermined.
Reflecting on Chomsky’s ideas, what we have learned in class, and personal experience we have arrived to an agenda that would ameliorate the issue of income inequality. As we have portrayed income inequality is not a surface problem that was solely originated by the discrepancy in the relative wage. It is also a result of an uncontrollable desire to get more, because more is better. Moving away from capitalistic practices has been seen as either communism or socialism thus creating a sort of taboo in people’s minds because those ideologies are almost believed to be evil. Political debates are often destroyed by ad hominem attacks as the words socialism and communism carries negative connotations such as sharing and spreading wealth. These attacks do not allow for a debate to be reasonable and the aim is to put the our argument in bad light.
For that reason we want to make clear that we do not stand up for any of those alternatives, because they have already proven to be ineffective. We believe our agenda to be radical because it transcends the ever ongoing debate between liberals and conservatives. It strikes the root of the problem and it provides an honest forecast of the possible evolution of the economy if applied.
As argued by other radicals we believe that it is essential to create an income ceiling. Secondly we stand for a minimum wage that does a better job at trailing the standards of living. Thirdly, we advocate the implementation of more effective welfare programs.
The imposition of an income ceiling will attack the root of the problem which is the bottom-line greed. A positive externality results from this because if people are not tempted to cheat the system to make more and more profits, we will see a more stable business cycle. We do understand that there are implications about coming up with newer stuff and development. Our response to that is that we already have so many advances to digest, that it would bring a greater payoff to have most of the population to catch up with the current stock of knowledge.
The second point in our agenda is to really push for a minimum wage that effectively trails the changes in standards of living. This will allow for people in the lower sections of the income distribution to build up real assets. It is also true that having a higher wage the transitioning away from welfare will be more plausible.
Finally, we turn our attention to the last point of the Ragli-Monterrubio agenda. Our argument is that welfare is necessary to help people move away from poverty. In doing so, it is crucial to avoid creating dependency. It is here were our radicalism differs from others because we believe that a true change can only be achieved if everyone works towards it. In this case people receiving welfare will be progressively being asked to do something in exchange for the monetary aid. Mostly, we would like to pay this people to learn. Maybe in a more detailed plan there could be a pool of needed professions or tasks that are in scarce demand which the government then could offer to this pool of people. The objective is that gradually this people will be able to get positioned in the labor market thus reaching economic freedom from the government.
We now that the points we offered in our agenda to combat income inequality make people uncomfortable and some other just laugh at them. The truth is that, we guarantee that if these were undergoing changes we will experience a tough time while the markets adapt to the new rules. However, after that we are positive that we experience much balanced business cycles.
In summary, the global economy is always undergoing invention, innovation and diffusion which depending of their individual magnitudes will impact the general productivity and more specifically the economic growth. Tools such as the four quadrants developed by Ken Wilber and more recent research by Kevin Bowman are essential not only to analyze these changes in history, but also to give us an idea of how the future will be. In addition, it is also fundamental to add to the integral view of Wilber the need to address the democratic deficit that is devastating the US. That along with truly radical reforms to the economic system could well send this country to be truly the first potency in the world. Not only militaristic, but also in its standards of living and economic equality. It is all about overcoming the chasm between our current state and a more sustainable one.

THE IMF

The International Monetary Fund (IMF)

The IMF is an international organization which has over 185 member countries. The IMF was funded by John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter in 1944, and its basic objective is to stabilize exchange rates and oversee the reconstruction of the international payment system. In addition the IMF promotes international monetary cooperation, and orderly exchange arrangements in order to develop economic growth and high levels of employment. One of the biggest missions of the IMF is to provide temporary financial assistance to countries to help them ease their external debt. The basic purposes for what the IMF was created remain the same, however, the IMF has adjust the way it carries out it operations to meet the changing needs of the member countries. The three main operations of the IMF are: surveillance, lending, and technical assistance. The first one deals with the monitoring of economic and financial developments. Furthermore, it provides policy advice aimed especially to prevent crisis. The second major task of the IMF is lending to countries with problems paying their external debt. Finally the IFM provides technical assistance to countries in its areas of expertise. The IMF is able to do such things Supporting all three of these activities is IMF work in statistical and economic research. Ever since the IMF has been around world trade has tripled from 1960 to 2005. There are people who have negative criticism against organizations such as the IFM and the World Bank. People like John Perkins author of the book “confessions of an economic hit man” claims from experience that “the U.S. [and allies] use globalization to cheat poor countries out of Trillions.” His main point is that the so mentioned and worshiped economic growth of the past decades has just helped the upper level classes, and made the poor even poorer. Moreover EHM’s through out the world have manipulated such economic data to encourage poor countries to borrow and then have IFM bailed them out once they can meet their payments. In My opinion is really hard to tell whether organizations like the IMF really help poor countries or it just helps the world’s top corpocracy to keep them down.

Oh Yeah!

see more Funny Graphs

Today

see more Funny Graphs

Today

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Ha haha Spring Break in MSP

see more Funny Graphs

Graph Jam of the hour

see more

My general theory of everything

Again looking back in to the history of this world... I am going to make a rather outrageous comment despite the fact that I have trained myself to reject any generalization... This is MY GENERAL THEORY:

Men and Women kind will never reach harmony. The fundamental reason for this is the innate human nature which pushes the vast majority of us to want to be better, to stand out, to want more.
You might ask yourself: Innit that what makes this civilization to progress?

And you are right, it is! However, the survival of the fittest has gotten so out of hand that the very goal of the evolutionary process has been compromised by humanity's irrational and impulsive behavior. If we could for instance remember that a point in time we were seconds away from nuclear disaster, then it comes clear that the battle of humans to become better than others, or the simply the best can only end up in disaster. I firmly believe that if an effort is not made to truly become globalized in the humanitarian sense, then we are doomed.

I hate to even think about the idea that another war can result from the shaky economic environment...

This is Interesting!

For anyone who would like to inquire more about history and economics!

Keep up!

< href="http://blog.mises.org/blog/">

< href="http://therealnews.com/t/">

Keep up!

Another way to put the bailout

The economy

I have been thinking that in general people show a rather insufferable fake concern about the state of the economy. Why do I say that? Well just be honest with yourself. You can be worried about the market but to a large extend you'll keep to do as you please (if you got fired as a result of the crisis THIS IS NOT FOR YOU). You'll complain "blah this, blah that, Obama is going to save us." Then you will go back to your normal and also insufferable systematic way of living. What happens next? Well everything is being put on the shoulders of a few that before addressing the critical situation have to get over the long debate between CONS and DEMS... So in the end they do whatever they want and YOU take it because the president uses words and phrases like Hope and The American Families... If the only reason the Gov is intervening in Wall Street is to avoid further catastrophe in the economy, then I don't have any other alternative. The truth is that the problem is that economy is inflated by everyone who thinks that more is better.

Free style

I just wanted to write something, but I really don't know what. My ideas seem to escape me lately. It is like nothing I have came up with has materialized on the wall of this blog. My days as a college student are counted and I can help but to be in a very Kierkegaardian state of thought. "...Summa summarum, I do not care[I want to graduate]"
It is beautiful! It fucking rhymes!

A little Philosophical

Yesterday in a casual talk the the follow question came up: where the time goes? We all know that time ain't tangible, but if it was... Where would it be? I guess that question just pushes the limits of the human understanding. The truth is that time is a perceptual experience to the human body. That is time actually goes by slow, but our memories can not recreate the feeling of time because our perceptions move through time itself...

Going through old files

I was just making a cybertrip through time and I saw some new comments on past posts. One that caught my attention in specific was some anonymous person complaining about artist like Dan Perjovski because they make (abu)use of current jokes to make simple and according to the him/her unskilled art. I disagree with this view because as I pointed out back then, it is not the ultimately technique or skill of the piece that matters. It is its idea and the concept is delivering. Many times being overly complex and abundant is not the answer. Sometime keeping it simple is far more effective.
On top of that Artist criticize and analyze the contemporaneous society which is a fundamental part of the way intelligentsia is capturing any given point in time.

People are inherently stupid

I could not avoid to comment about a post that I saw in Ali's blog, which points out the inconsistent view that some people have about economic policy. I think that time and time again this problem keeps pointing back at the fact that double standards are widely use to keep down and sabotage any type of progress directed to the general public. The fact that we call it bail out when is about corporations and socialism when is about normal day to day people, only adds to the long lasting fight to keep capitalism alive in a way that benefits certain people and NOT ALL THE SOCIETY! Yeah all the technological benefits of capitalism are great, but who is there to ask if it is worth it to come up with all this new goods every year at the expense of inflating the pace of economic growth and thus accelerating human decay by damaging the natural resources in irreversible ways?(maybe that last sentence is the biggest run on ever)... as Ron White would joke about "you can't fix stupid" and I think we all are for believing that capitalism and free markets would always be better than having some sort of control.

A good fit

Well I think that it is evident that many people are not happy to see what happened to Mary Olson. It is also true, that no one really knows why it happened. The phrase "she was not a good fit" seems to be the only information available to asses the issue. I did not personally knew Mary, but every time I saw her, she was really nice to me. So I am not really sure what the problem was. However, I also think that comparing the administration with Hussein's or Bush's is kinda absurd. I had the chance to work in the president's office for a year and I did notice some tension among the executive committee, and I have to say that Mary was way more relax than the person who preceded her. In any case, I think that people should give the president's office time to offer a legitimate answer before we want to burn them down.

Continuation of what has not been finished

It took me a long time to come back. I have to say that the main reason I have not been writing is because lack of motivation. I think I am being subject to that pre-graduation syndrome. In any case, today I direct myself to my beloved public (namely Joe Finstrom who is posted as fan #1) to give an explanation to the long expected continuation of the metaphysical view of the world I was elaborating on. In short, I have not formulated the continuation because I have been reviewing as much information of the development of economic schools and how that impacted the behavioral trends in society. As you might know, it took Adam Smith ten years to come up with the wealth of the nations. It took Ayn Rand several years to develop her philosophy of objectivism. Therefore, we can conclude that is going to take me 20 years to develop my treatise on the history of economics... that's if I ever overcome the commercialization of the world and actually get to write it... ha haha
So that's all I have to say about that. I would like to discuss the topic face to face with anyone interested, just drop a note on my wall.

Change

For all this time!

Last Game

Auggie United tonight we dine in hell!
... well maybe not, but definitely try to get this one!
It is the last game of regular season soccer intramurals. I know... I know I get to excited about a simple game... but it is really the only place i get to play... and it is the last year I play at Augsburg. So come support us @ 9:30we are the maroon team!

...and it keeps going down

What if you don't have what it takes to keep on going anymore? You used to be quite good or decent but now you try and try and try harder, but is not working. So what now? I guess I'll fight until the end and then move on.

Spanish Lesson #1

Everything that goes up...

I was analyzing the historical line of my college Experience, and I found out that there are always some imbalances. Perhaps this is because the way things evolved in my particular case. I guess... that I really miss my glorious days of Sophomore year. I wish that (almost) everything was the way it was back then.

Il Meme: Shhhhh... Mismo.... Back to reality go get a job

Mismo: Porco Dio, Dio Santo... just a minute...

Types of liars

I was just remembering a conversation that I had with my friend while we were on the streets of Paris. We talked about liars and the different kinds of them.
The first one is the myth kind of liar. They usually make everything extraordinarily exaggerated. They paint themselves as the ultimate hero. Those ones are not bas, actually is entertaining to hear what they have say.
Then we have the liars that lie not to hurt. Those ones are I guess ok. But we also have the liars that lie to hurt people and that to tap their lies keep on lying. Now those ones are the ones that you have to be aware of. Now, it is also true that we all lie. To our partner, our friends, our family, our co workers, our classmates, and specially to ourselves. That last one is the one we should be concerned about. Lying to yourself might you to actually believe your lies. And that shit is whacked! It can destroy any kind of relationship you have.
Remember, KEEP IT REAL!!!

A metaphysical view of the world

In the midst of what seems to be a long lasting global recession, I cannot help to wonder why and how we got to be in such situation?
At the beginning I tried to tackle the issue in question, by thinking what everyone thinks. Some of those repeated words could be:
1. Greed
2. Bad decisions by management
3. Complex engineered financial instruments who no one seemed to understand
4. Disproportionate bonuses to top people
5. you name it!

After a while I realized that all these problems are really concerning. It also became evident the root of all of them when I analyzed the human civilization historic purpose.

If we go back all the way to the Homo Habilis(HH), is easy to see that the way the lived was precarious, but still one of the main concerns was to look for efficiency and effectiveness in performing basic daily basis activities.It took several years for tools to become developed and improved but they eventually did. These people learned how to create fire, etc. Then the ancient civilizations came and started to develop and inquire new knowledge. The "standard of living of the ancient Greeks was way better than the one of the HH population... And so is ours compared to the ancient Greeks. The fundamental purpose of the human civilization has been to improve its standard of living. All that is great, BUT I think that the current events are suggesting something so simple that is being overlooked...

more soon.

Obama

I just wanted to comment on Obama's inauguration. All I really have to say is: people you really have to listen up to Obama's word and follow it. Avoid putting the load on his shoulders only. Just remember that he said YES WE CAN not YES I CAN.
Otherwise there's nothing he can really do to ameliorate the depressing situation we are in.

Comfortable

I am sitting at the CCHP front desk and some one that was stepping out and made a pretty thoughtful comment. This enigmatic person pointed out to how comfortable this winter has been, because of the constant beyond low temperatures. That made me think that maybe life in MN or anywhere cold does not suck. Rather, nature might be telling us to slow down by making it harder to go out... maybe maybe not...

Global Influence

After coming back from my trip I discovered that we can discover some aspects of others cultures from the comfort of our homes. For example, while I was in France, I suddenly became curious of getting some music from the country. I wanted to hear what people In Paris are listening to. However, it was ind of hard to figure that out over there since my French is less than basic. So when I came home I googled for French music. SO the moral of the story is that we can discover more own our own, maybe we just need a little push to do it. Perhaps remembering the words of Phil Gardner are helpful in this case too. YOU FIGURE IT OUT!!!

Phil Gardner

Last night I shared the privilege with other Augsburg community members to listen to the word of Phil Gardner. Phil spoke about job trends and the current situation in the labor market. He has being doing research on the transitioning period from college to "the real world." Therefore, Phil was able to speak with authority about some approaches students like you and I can take to coast the financial crisis.
One thing I enjoyed a lot of his lecture was the fact that I share a lot of his Ideas about the evolution of the economy in the overall.

Phil strongly suggested the audience, specially student looking for a job, to get acquainted with the new set of requirements that employers are looking for in employees. I think he specially highlighted the fact that in our time is essential for us to be prepared to hear "you figure it out" and actually do it.(that actually has other ties which I will like to discuss in the future). So in short we cannot just sit there and wait for the answers to be given to us. Paraphrasing Phil, once we are out of college there is not syllabus to guide us through; we are responsible to write the syllabus and find the readings and resources.
Another big point that he made was that failure is not a bad thing as long as it is the result of trying to succeed. The key to success is never to take your eyes of the price.
To finish this post I just want to thank the people that made possible for Phil to speak here. Nice Work!!!

A link to Phil's Website
http://www.ceri.msu.edu/staff/p-gardner.html

Probably the most impressing thing I have seen so far.

There it stands proud! The Eiffel tower represents everything I like and want to do in this life. Glorious! Clever! And yet simple!

I am back!!!

This has been the longest time without me writing. I really wanted to document my recent voyage through the land of Europe, but I realize how difficult it was to find a computer and spend time writing. In this period I came up with good gags for this blog. Unfortunately 12 airplanes, 11 or 12 trains, and 50+ beers later I don't really remember anything. SO to start up the year I want to commemorate all those lost thoughts that we let go into the darkness to never see them again. I hope everyone had a good start of the semester, because I did not...