That reminds me, I should mention this cafeteria. I never see a lot of people but the selection is fantastic. It is like four different fancy restaurants, plus a coffee shop. There are four completely different main meals available. I wonder who they sell all this food to. There were only nine people in the place when I got there at noon. And two of those, hooray Miami, were blocking the others. “What are those little black spots on the bread?” Poppy seeds, buddy.Pudding-Tat (Pudding, the Tat) is avoiding me. I had to catch her and install a heavy duty flea collar. It takes a week for her forgive me each time I replace it. But, of her three years, she has only been an outdoor cat for one and it makes me wonder how cats managed in nature. Teresa has three cats, all around nine years old. They weigh in twice what Pudding does, and are totally indoor types.
You'd think that one of the first things all printer manufacturers would do is make printer sharing easy. Many computers, one printer. It must make so much sense that some people don't get it. Like Brother corporation. If you don't have the correct driver, the contraption won't share. And it is not the driver that comes in the package. I have a brilliant thought to pass on to all hardware manufacturers. Build the driver into the article, like they do with flash drives. So when you plug it in, it works. Or don't you get that, either?
It’s new computer here time, and I’ll relegate the old spaceship computer to light Internet duty. I’ve now got a unit so customized it has no brand name. It is 1 gigahertz, plenty for my needs. But all this takes time. I still have to take out all the timers and print restrictors. Then there are the instruction screens and lockouts. All of which I have to install on the other unit before I make a penny. I long for the day when the self-installing hard drive comes along but as long as MicroSoft exists, that is dreaming.
Welcome another virus that seems to do only one thing. Your task bar disappears. A whiz kid would tell you just hit your “windows” key to pop up the start menu. Good, now ask him which button you click to remove your flash drive. Duh. I had a callout today to solve this problem and that computer will have to go into the shop. It has another virus that will not eradicate after two years, even though it is on the list of anti-virus definitions. That means it is “archived”, a fancy way of saying it is now in digital form hiding in a backup copy on the disk. Anti-viruses don’t seem to catch digital code too well.
Two types of people can skip this next section. Those bored by economics, or those who are so dumb that they find economics boring. You know who you are! The more I hear about this make-work project from the Feds, the more I spread caution. It works because people are employed but in a credit-based world, that is going to backfire. Fake work is not the same thing as expanding the production horizon. It is also a copy of the alphabet programs of the Depression era. You see, a war came along before the people caught the backlash of that exercise in stupidity, and the programs were deemed a success. They were not.
As with all government programs, the waste will cost more than the benefit derived. These are laboring jobs and we have not had that brand of infrastructure for fifty years. Our economy is based on overcharging each other using fanciful credit arrangements. Efficiency and high quality are no longer rewarded in our lives, so why bother? Quick, point to the unemployed baby boomer who is willing to take a laboring job in the Florida heat. You see, the roads are already built and nothing new is being created. Instead they will be patching the allegorical potholes of their own neglect, and such a fine job they will do.
Unless the jobs pay $20 per hour, who is going to be driving over these roads? Since it currently requires around $15 per hour to stay alive, anyone paid less will just plunge into yet more credit card debt to make up the difference. Déjà vu. The traditional wealth-maker in America is foreign wars. Not the wars we export, like Viet Nam or Iraq, but where others do the fighting and we do the supplying. Real wars, not foreign entanglements. We know what brings the big bucks back into the country so soccer moms can drive SUVs for another couple of generations. Pollution is not their personal problem, see, they have kids and that is the end of the point of the meaning of the lesson, period full stop.
Do you recall what an externality is? This is where the cost of something is passed on to others who do not benefit, or is usually the case in America, are too dumb to know they are being harmed. A classic example is the smoke from coal plants spewed into the air. Cheap for the company; expensive for those who develop lung cancer. But if the definition is expanded to include all related costs not stated on the sticker price, you’ll begin to see my viewpoint. We can’t go back to an age where the buyer becomes aware of true costs, because then he won’t buy. This is why I’ve said the only thing that will save us is prices dropping to where people can afford to pay cash. I’ve never stated I expect that to really happen, but yes, I pay cash for everything.
Um, I was going to leave you with that happy thought, but I’m told an example is in order. Okay, take that Miami Convention Center I was at last Friday. It is in the middle of smelly downtown, where the majority of shopping is pawn shops and overpriced jewelry. It is miles away from Miami Beach. There are no ocean views and Miami closer to Cuba than any significant American state.
Who, one might ask, would hold a convention here? Until you see the prices. Such a convention center goes for a third the rate Dallas, in fact, it is “cheaper” to hold a convention here than in Wyoming. The people staging a Miami convention can pass the burden of getting all the way down here on to the attendees. Those executive jets, business class seats and $400 per night hotel rooms are a cost passed on to the consumer. Psst, that’s you. The corporations point out it amounts to pennies, but multiply that by the right number, and you may find a good chunk of your existence is wasted because you are absorbing these hidden charges. Or, more properly, these externalities.
