Early Morning Thoughts

My apologies for the lack of so much as a crumb in the Breadbin over the past twelve days. There has not been very much of late I can, or want to, write about. Out in the wider world, I sense we're in a period of calm before the fit hits the shan in earnest: I won't speculate just when the feces will commence to spattering, but I don't believe the relative levelheadedness of the Occupy movement will last much longer. Nor, for that matter, do I think that the jitterbugging stock markets (two hundred points down one day, a hundred and sixty up the next) presages anything worth contemplating. I hope I'm wrong on both counts, and concede my predictive track record suggests I probably am--but if so, I'm afraid I have more questions than answers.  At what point, pray tell, does the money being frantically scribbled on to the collective balance sheets of several European nations actually disappear from whatever balance sheet whence it came? And what happens when people get to noticing it's gone?

Andrew Coyne has a terrific article in this week's Macleans--not yet available electronically, unfortunately, or you could bet I'd link it up--to the effect that the Occupy Wall Street folks have it all wrong: the rich aren't the problem. He cites some stats to show that while the income gap between rich and poor is indeed widening, it's really only the richest of the uber-rich responsible. The mere elite, let alone the well-to-do, are not suffering, by any means, but neither are they gaining at the expense of anyone else, Moreover, where once and not long ago the typical billionaire got richer by means of capital, the bulk of executive compensation nowadays turns out to be salary. And why should we care, asks Coyne, if a few people are obscenely rich? If shareholders of a private company vote to pay their CEO some lavish sum out of their own pockets, how is that a crime?

Just when you think Coyne is going to conclude his essay with an appeal to come join him in Galt's Gulch, he shocks you with the following:

",,,while there's little we can do about inequality at the top, there's quite a lot we can do about inequality at the bottom: mostly by giving the poor more money."

I must confess I did a spit-take, reading that. Coyne is not known for being a raving socialist, and most conservatives in my acquaintance positively grit their teeth at the notion of "giving" poor people anything. Yet there is much merit in the idea of a legislated minimum standard of living. Coyne again:

"The National Council of Welfare has just released a report estimating the cost of lifting every Canadian out of poverty in 2007 at $12 billion...about what you'd get from another two percentage points on the HST. Alas, that calls upon us to show compassion, rather than resentment; to give, rather than to take. Which may explain why there has been so much talk about the rich this past week, and so little talk about the poor."

Wow...

It's twenty to four in the morning, and I find at this point I don't have anything more coherent to say than "wow". So I'll vacate the premises, with a note that I won't likely return until Tuesday evening earliest. Work has been rather demanding of late. I've no doubt I made the right decision changing employers, but the vicissitudes of retail remain the same. 

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I'll leave you with some music I've just discovered. About two months ago, I first learned of a group called Dream Theater and have listened to little else since. I've just found out about an instrumental offshoot called Liquid Tension Experiment, and have experienced wave after wave of musical frisson listening to their soundscapes and jams.  Feel the love: