serfdom or golden thread

The purported tax-avoidance scheme of one internet entrepreneur has once again set the brain-trust of the United States of America into over-drive and grand-standing with a retaliatory plan to glean taxes from individuals who choose expatriation. Already the US is a soured thug in terms of tax treaties, demanding its cut from citizens worldwide, regardless of their place of residence and regardless of whether the targeted income was earned with the help from the homeland, made travel a distasteful affair beyond even beyond its borders, place the burden of reporting on foreign banks so as to make them wary about dealing with Americans abroad.

The proposed law would seek to repatriate tax revenues, impose withholdings and an exit-fee—in addition to barring these individuals from returning to the States. Plenty to do at the Hotel California. I am sure that this bill, should it come to pass and much worse is being done, will not affect cosmopolitan billionaires (the timing of this whole casus belli seems pretty tacky but it is unclear whether the media or the government is rightly understanding the motives and no individual ought to have to defend his or her reasons, especially political ones, for making such a choice), those brazenly berthing their fortunes off-shore or corporations that hide behind a string of nationalities, but for the average citizen, it demands that he or she would face undue hardships should they choose to immigrate. America’s bastions are not only uninviting to immigration, the gate-guards are saying that one cannot leave either. It sounds suspiciously like the policies of Soviet Russia whose restrictions on movement presented many with the difficult decision to remain or flee forever. Despite the reactionary nature of this proposal, I wonder if there was ever much difference between the two super-powers—especially within the self-styled framework of a monopolar world.

type case or alphabet city

Artist Hong Seon Jang has constructed several breath-taking model urban skylines from salvaged letterpress dies. More of this vintage typography turned topology can also be found featured on the estimable Colossal, an art and design blog boasting an array of fresh and interesting discoveries. These industrial dreamscapes remind me of the metropolis of the sci-fi film-noir classic, Dark City (DE/EN).

kitchenware revolution

While much of the world’s attention was focused on the hopeful inauguration of Barack Obama in the United States, many missed the culminating moments of the protests in Iceland against the recklessness and corruption of their former government, clanging pots and pans and marching on the Alþingi by the thousands.

The Icelandic people had already accepted enough deprivation in witnessing a significant percentage of the national treasure evaporate and many of their young people, without prospects for their futures, migrate to other countries, but were unwilling to suffer further austerity over private debts with public money. Though an investigative commission found wrong-doing and fraud on the part of borrowers and lenders and in government oversight was inchoate in the bulk of transactions and several plebiscites rejected repayment, the governments of Britain and the Netherlands (the major blowhards behind Iceland’s economic bubble) are threatening to take the country to the EU court over failure to make good on these loans. This movement of 2009, which previsions if not fathers others, is a template for the international Occupy rallies and demonstrates that people are not at the mercy of banking thugs. Iceland is still recovering but its reputation and demeanor does not seem diminished, nor its prospects for success, and real change is being affected by the infusion of ordinary members of the public—independent and with no political affiliations—into public policy and the parliament. The reversal of political orientation and the need to prevent the same financial backsliding drafted all citizens to revise their constitution. In light of current events and the amnesia of novelty and panic, we should look to Iceland’s stand.

farmageddon, pharmageddon

Just because there is the gloomy, heavy drapery of bankers’ crises and the pummeling occasion of planters’ style democracy obscuring the next assault that’s waiting in the wings, we would be faithfully remiss to lose sight of what could come. Bread—or cake—is of course the honey-pot, the next investment opportunity aggressively peddled, of bread and circuses, and I believe it is not so kooky or implausible to imagine that the present chaos is apt disguise for a handful of companies that are merging farms and pharmaceuticals to make local governments fold and adopt measures that have become prevalent elsewhere.

Despite some damage done to the repute of the environmental movement, many places have not faltered on agricultural and ecological policies, opposing genetically modified crops, most immature subsidies and expedient practices, like turning wholly to raising corn for ethanol or abandoning time-tested methods like crop-rotation. An unnatural experimental harvest could certainly (with the promise of money) supplant native legacy. I fear, with decreasing chances to profit on human gullibility, the focus could turn more to human suffering (hunger-management, erosion, deforestation), edging out local and sustainable operations that have knitted together the countryside with demands not easily refused or maintained, fields infiltrated with habit-forming, patented yields. Such invasive creations come from the same laboratories that have made certain invented disorders a cause-celeb and conveniently manufacture the medicines to treat such ailments, creating dependency with an army of co-conspirators.

golden parachute

Why is it that financial institutions seem to be the last ones to suffer and made to accept the blame in moments of crisis? Of course, numerous banks are being battered by outside appraisers, but that affects the clients that have graciously allowed the banks to hold their money—or not just hold it, in many cases, but rather do something risky and maybe a bit evil, subversive with it too—but restructured or commandeered, the money-managers are not allowed to lose, while credit, savings and mortgages for the public flitter away or are leveraged with insurmountable interest rates to guard against instability.

Of course, these imbalances are compounded in business and government as well, in the forms of lost capital, revenue and social-services. If any other utility—and again that’s all that any bank is, like the electric company or Reading Railroad—business enterprise or government failed as consistently and unapologetically to deliver, they would be rightfully remediated or dismissed.

The same financial institutions that are bringing the euro to the brink, like giant babies in some blameless but willfully destructive playpen, are admitting to nothing, nor being held with any responsibility by their host governments that created the framework for them to raise amazing wealth. I don’t think there is any extraordinary conspiracy behind the governments of the European Union trying to cobble together a fragile fiscal pact four years after certain inevitabilities became apparent (other than the anodyne corruption of politics and wealth). 

Delay and unchecked speculation, however, has only afforded the chance for bankers—not the cleverest or most creative lot—to huddle in their war-rooms and quietly, only eking out panic in controlled doses—prepare to re-tabulate the score, drafting the new financial order while economic ministers obliged with a believable cover, again deflecting blame and becoming the saving champions of the markets.

dramaturgy

There has been an awful back-draft lashing European politics and markets, sparked by the exercise of public prerogatives that seemingly did not follow the right plan.

All this angst and run-away conclusions are more than a little bit off-putting, since by demonstrating and maintaining a plurality within the framework of one currency, no borders—and even the framework itself might not be the essential part, worth preserving at the expense of its constituents—people, the public, politicians and the press (as opposed to dogmatists, demagogues and the media who are practiced dramaturges, re-characterizing the whole affair and dictating how people ought to think, wither and tremble) are talking above the general din about policy compatibilities and tenable directions. I think the counter argument that the pot has no right to criticize the kettle until it solves its own issues can be abused and is a childish way for preempting a discussion: the EU did not appreciate the irony of America’s economic chiding, coming in a variety of forms.

Nothing was ventured, as a result, about the structural differences, maintaining a plurality in both super-states but one noticeably without mechanisms for intervention. The US Federal government is not telling the States, like Texas, that do not levy an individual income tax on its residents to do so or accuse some localities of providing too many incentives. Maybe, however, it will come to that and we still maybe unwilling to learn from one another, since economic problems can always be masked behind a glossier façade of potential for profit and assigning blame is easier than accepting change. A crisis is always driven by under-estimates (willful or unintentional) that cannot hope to keep enthusiasm in check.

bottle of wine, fruit of the vine

If one looks at this label a-scant (especially after a glass or two from the bottle), it seems to read vinetards, instead of the word for a plantation for the cultivation of grapes (Weinberg). That really sounds like an insult, and I think that one would no longer fancy himself a connoisseur of fine wine after being called that, nor does it seem a particularly favourable endorsement for having bought said bottle of wine, which was actually quite good.