Inequality for All

Heard Robert Reich on NPR this morning promoting the documentary "Inequality for All". I hope to go see it soon, but wanted to put down a few thoughts on the interview before I forgot them.

The CEO making $10M-$30M per year saying he doesn't know where all his money goes, and the poor would be better off with it because they spend - highly anecdotal, but I should watch to see what the full story is. However, that does raise a good point: when economists and politicians are considering particular policies, is there a metric for how much of the money will enter the market, and how much will be absorbed? Dollars spent, in either production or consumption, per dollar of stimulus? I know traditionally production is preferred, but since we are such a consumer market, is consumption close to as good? In a recession, is consumption required to entice greater production? I really need to brush up on these basics.

Reich supports increasing the minimum wage as a way to combat technology and globalization. Going back to my last post, that is just a band-aid!

The call-ins were obtusely simple, like, "tax the capitalists who are profiting from all the machines that are replacing workers." ...and who do you suppose made those machines? The reason they say technology "displaces" jobs rather than "destroys" is because the job the machine does is replaced by jobs to make, sell, and repair that machine.

Also, should read Tip and the Gipper, and find some other first hand accounts of political history, not just the historical outcomes.

Income Inequality - Globalization and Technology

I heard excerpts from Obama's interview with NPR this morning, and I think the most interesting question was what he thought about the way the divide between rich and poor has increased over the course of his presidency. Obama cited globalization and technology as forces that pushed middle class jobs overseas or replaced them with machines. These are prevalent trends and the Obama administration is doing what they can to combat them. He said he did not believe these factors made the divide inevitable, but what he cited as steps he's taken to mitigate them were nothing more than band-aids: raising the minimum wage, closing tax loop holes, making the income tax more progressive, etc. If you are benefiting from a raise in the minimum wage or an increase in food stamps, then you are not, and will not be, part of the middle class. Disposable income is the key to a middle class existence, be it for a more comfortable lifestyle or for being able to save for retirement. No disposable income = no middle class. One thing that I hope he mentioned was how many fewer people would be falling out of the middle class on account of medical expenses, thanks to Obamacare. He has taken steps to stop the number one cause of bankruptcy, and should receive tremendous credit for that if successful. But the downside of globalization and technology are combated through education, and it looks like that's going to be somebody else's claim to fame.

Sure, taxes could be more progressive, and certain banking practices could be made illegal, but it comes down to what jobs Americans are getting. To improve the jobs Americans are getting, technology needs to become an ally. Technology can be a driving force behind jobs directly or indirectly, as a means to an end or as the end itself. We don't view things like planes, trains, or automobiles as technology, but they were at one time, and they created tremendous business. They ultimately became so ubiquitous that they're just a part of ordinary life, and our normal economy now. I'm sure fleets of stage coach drivers and mountain guides were replaced by a small team of train engineers, but was that a weight on the economy? No! When did our view of technology become so backwards? Oh yea, when we stopped educating our students to be able to change with the times.

Nobody would say that public education was better back when steel was being invented than it is now. What can be argued however is that there wasn't such a void between where education ended and where utilization of modern technology began. For example, anyone could pick up a steel shovel or walk into a steel building with no prior knowledge, and be able to benefit from the technology; that may not be the case for today's computer driven economy. As steel structures became ever more complicated, greater education was needed to meet the challenge, same is true of today's tech. The big difference lies in the fact that from the beginning of the 20th century to around the 70's, our education system was adequate in closing the gap between the state of technology and how much learning was required to profit from it. In other countries, that's still true, but we have fallen behind. The gap between where our schools leave us and where the state of technology is today has widened.

I think some notes on the Khan Academy would be an appropriate followup to this post, then probably a post on business practices, which I think is really where the divide comes from (ie: technology and globalization are already allies, and have already made America wealthy, but that wealth does not spread).

Rock Climbing Notes

Key notes from a lot of videos on youtube:

1. Obviously, keep your body in tight to the wall whenever you are making a move
2. Whenever possible, keep your center of gravity on the line perpendicular to the hold's edge, and pull your weight along that line to make the next move
1. particularly important for "slopers"
2. Also want as much surface contact as possible
3. Use straight arms to hang to save energy, until you make your move
1. The hip of whichever arm is extended is the one that should be close to the wall when reaching. 
4. Put your weight either on the inside of your big toe, or the outside of your pinky toe
5. Most natural progression of moves: Find a solid hand hold, set your feet to be able to push yourself to the next solid hold, make the reach/grab, reset the feet, then release the original solid hold and start again. If you release the solid hold before resetting the feet (and your center of gravity), then your body will make a more dramatic swing to its new base, and cause you to fall off.
6. Use your leg as a counter balance, whether it's out in the air, or flagging against the wall

Notes from Improve Your Climbing:

1. Have an active leg and a balancing/stabilizing leg
2. Twist lock - can keep the straight/hanging arm nearly straight even when making the move, by twisting your body in toward the wall.
1. Bend the knee on the side of the reaching arm
2. pivot toe from straight on to outside edge
3. Extends the range of the reach
4. Keeping the arm straight improves blood flow in addition to saving energy
3. Outside Edge - Don't need to use foot holds on the left with the left foot, could step through with the right foot, placing the outside edge of the foot on the hold
1. Forces a hip into the wall
2. same as the twist lock
3. get your feet into position with the active leg bent, then start the move by extending that leg, THEN making the reach, not the other way around
4. General Note: Ok to be parallel and have the butt out when setting up for the move, but bring the hips in tight to the wall during the actual move
4. Flagging - Pushing the free leg against the wall for stability.
1. Use the counter balancing leg to push against the wall either in front of or below the active leg
1. If the active foothold is high, then flag behind
2. If the active foothold is low, flag in front
2. Should fully extend the active leg at the start of the move, then make the reach
5. Drop Knee - the above moves are all for a single foothold. For two footholds, use an analogous technique where you pivot your hips to the wall, but now the knee is bent downward, rather than leg extended
1. move enables you to utilize a very high foot hold
2. in this case, the active leg stays very bent, and the one usually acting as the balancing leg may give a bit of a push or stay bent
3. the outward pressure from both legs creates a bit of a bridge between two stable points
4. must have careful foot placement in order to have room to pivot from inside to outside of your foot
5. place the pivoting foot while you're hanging with straight arms. Ok to have butt away from the wall to make the placement, then as you pivot, the hips come to the wall as the knee clears out of the way
6. need to rotate fully in order to lock into place (will look like you are running along the wall, with toes, hips, and knees all pointing in the same direction)