It might have seemed improbable that a skin-tight all-coverage spandex suit in lurid colors would be a choice of dress for some people. But a recent trend is conquering Europe and proving the opposite. What are we talking about? The Morphsuit.

No, it isn’t about people just hankering after being a real-life Spiderman. There’s a whole concept behind it.

Created by Gregor Lawson and brothers Fraser and Ali Smeaton, the company has already sold over 700,000 morphsuits, according to Scotsman.com. It started in 2009, largely powered by its Facebook page, which now has more than one million fans, all actively posting and sharing their experiences with the Morphsuit. According to Gregor Lawson, as further mentioned on Scotsman.com, looking after social media interaction with fans of the brand is an indispensable part of the success of the Morphsuit. Their Facebook page has to be checked several times a day, responses to comments and messages should be made as quickly as possible, and criticism is welcomed as well. The company underlines the importance of real interaction with consumers, which is a sensible tip. Judging by the general tone of their website, their attitude also seems genuine.

The Morphsuit is made from a specially developed type of spandex material that allows the wearer to breathe freely, talk, even drink through the coverage and kiss people. One ecstatic review on the company website says just that – the wearer has kissed more women since joining the ranks of the Morphs.

The suits can be reusable. The record so far was wearing a morphsuit 22,416 times before it had to be replaced. There’s a special double zip going all the way to the top of the suit head. So it’s like peeling off a second skin. As the website cheekily says, “So if you are heading to a party on your own, you can zip-up yourself up for maximum impact on arrival. And later, if you want the girl you’ve been dancing with for the past 20 minutes to see you, then it’s easy just to unzip, pull the hood down and engage. Perfect….assuming you are mildly attractive.” It’s suggested that cash should be concealed in a shoe, while a phone can be put in to a sock. The website also suggests a fanny pack, or the the bum bag in the adorable British version. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

It’s natural to think about comic book figures and superheroes when you look at pictures of the Morphsuits. But their amazing popularity probably has a lot to do with people just sometimes feeling like they need a disguise. Life is hard and sometimes we need something different to feel more free. The age-old appeal of masks and costumes has been around for a while. The Morphsuit definitely adds an air of mystery to the wearer, but it also implies the person must have a sense of humor. You can’t really wear it otherwise. The founders encourage “Morphs” to be confident and self-loving. You don’t have to look like a model to wear a suit, despite what some might think.

True, it’s an instant eye-catcher. One should be prepared for a lot of attention. Apparently people wearing the suit have been seen everywhere. At parties, concerts, festivals, football matches, at work, in shops, on the subway. In short, the suit seems perfect for almost any occasion.

The Morphsuits were originally geared at men, though now the company is planning to expand with a womenswear line. Currently they are operating in the UK from their flats, though a new office should be opened soon.

The suit has been redesigned since the beginning. Visibility through the material has been improved: you can see out, but no one can see in. Of course, while providing a quirky way to disguise your identitiy, at the same time the Morphsuit does leave very little to the imagination. The website recommends wearing “very tight underwear”. “Baggy boxers just make you look like you’ve got a lumpy arse”, is the succint tip.

Stephanie Kopf writes for the blog www.trenditionist.com
She has lived in Siberia, New York City and Germany. Her subject areas include anything related to the human psyche, European news, education, communication in all its forms, as well as the interaction of all of these with each other.

Image: Peter Mackinnon, Kerry Calder, and Stef Moir/First Photographics / Flickr/ Wikimedia/ CC

Speaking at the University of Wyoming fieldhouse

I heard him speak at the University of Wyoming when I was in second grade. Here is that speech, from 1963. He was assassinated fifty-eight days later in Dallas, Texas. I had met Senator Gale McGee on a few occasions, by that time. Here is what I heard:

John F. Kennedy
Address at the University of Wyoming.
September 25, 1963

Senator McGee–my old colleague in the Senate, Gale McGee–Governor, Mr. President, Senator Mansfield, Senator Metcalf, Secretary Udall, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to express my appreciation to you for your warm welcome, to you, Governor, to the President of the University, to Senator McGee, and others. I am particularly glad to come on this conservation trip and have an opportunity to speak at this distinguished university, because what we are attempting to do is to develop the talents in our country which require, of course, education which will permit us in our time, when the conservation of our resources requires entirely different techniques than were required 50 years ago, when the great conservation movement began under Theodore Roosevelt–and these talents, scientific and social talents, must be developed at our universities.

I hope that all of you who are students here will recognize the great opportunity that lies before you in this decade, and in the decades to come, to be of service to our country. The Greeks once defined happiness as full use of your powers along lines of excellence, and I can assure you that there is no area of life where you will have an opportunity to use whatever powers you have, and to use them along more excellent lines, bringing ultimately, I think, happiness to you and those whom you serve.

What I think we must realize is that the problems which now face us and their solution are far more complex, far more difficult, far more subtle, require a far greater skill and discretion of judgment, than any of the problems that this country has faced in its comparatively short history, or any, really, that the world has faced in its long history. The fact is that almost in the last 30 years the world of knowledge has exploded. You remember that Robert Oppenheimer said that 8 or 9 out of 10 of all the scientists who ever lived, live today. This last generation has produced nearly all of the scientific breakthroughs, at least relatively, that this world of ours has ever experienced. We are alive, all of us, while this tremendous explosion of knowledge, which has expanded the horizon of our experience, so far has all taken ‘place in the last 30 years.

If you realize that when Queen Victoria sent for Robert Peel to be Prime Minister-he was in Rome–the journey which he took from Rome to London took him the same amount of time, to the day, that it had taken the Emperor Hadrian to go from Rome to England nearly 1900 years before. There had been comparatively little progress made in almost 1900 years in the field of knowledge. Now, suddenly, in the last 100 years, but most particularly in the last 30 years, all that is changed, and all of this knowledge is brought to bear, and can be brought to bear, in improving our lives and making the life of our people more happy, or destroying them. And that problem is the one, of course, which this generation of Americans and the next must face: how to use that knowledge, how to make a social discipline out of it.

There is really not much use in having science and its knowledge confined to the laboratory unless it comes out into the mainstream of American and world life, and only those who are trained and educated to handle knowledge and the disciplines of knowledge can be expected to play a significant part in the life of their country. So, quite obviously, this university is not maintained by the people of Wyoming merely to help all of the graduates enjoy a prosperous life. That may come, that may be a byproduct, but the people of Wyoming contribute their taxes to the maintenance of this school in order that the graduates of this school may, themselves, return to the society which helped develop them some of the talents which that society has made available, and what is true in this State is true across the United States.

The reason why, at the height of the Civil War, when the preservation of the Union was in doubt, Abraham Lincoln signed the Land Grant College Act, which has built up the most extraordinary educational system in the world, was because he knew that a nation could not exist and be ignorant and free; and what was true 100 years ago is more true today. So what we have to decide is how we are going to manage the complicated social and economic and world problems which come across our desks-my desk, as President of the United States; the desk of the Senators, as representatives of the States; the Members of the House, as representatives of the people.

But most importantly, as the final power is held by a majority of the people, how the majority of the people are going to make their judgment on the wise use of our resources, on the correct monetary and fiscal policy, what steps we should take in space, what steps we should take to develop the resources of the ocean, what steps we should take to manage our balance of payments, what we should do in the Congo or Viet-Nam, or in Latin America, all these areas which come to rest upon the United States as the leading great power of the world, with the determination and the understanding to recognize what is at stake in the world–all these are problems far more complicated than any group of citizens ever had to deal with in the history of the world, or any group of Members of Congress had to deal with.

“Peace”

If you feel that the Members of Congress were more talented 100 years ago, and certainly the Senators in the years before the Civil War included the brightest figures, probably, that ever sat in the Senate–Benton, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and all the rest-they talked, and at least three of them stayed in the Congress 40 years–they talked for 40 years about four or five things: tariffs and the development of the West, land, the rights of the States and slavery, Mexico. Now we talk about problems in one summer which dwarf in complexity all of those matters, and we must deal with them or we will perish.

So I think the chance for an educated graduate of this school to serve his State and country is bright. I can assure you that you are needed.

This trip that I have taken is now about 24 hours old, but it is a rewarding 24 hours because there is nothing more encouraging than for those of us to leave the rather artificial city of Washington and come and travel across the United States and realize what is here, the beauty, the diversity, the wealth, and the vigor of the people.

Last Friday I spoke to delegates from all over the world at the United Nations. It is an unfortunate fact that nearly every delegate comes to the United States from all around the world and they make a judgment on the United States based on an experience in New York or Washington; and rarely do they come West beyond the Mississippi, and rarely do they go to California, or to Hawaii, or to Alaska. Therefore, they do not understand the United States, and those of us who stay only in Washington sometimes lose our comprehension of the national problems which require a national solution.

This country has become rich because nature was good to us, and because the people who came from Europe, predominantly, also were among the most vigorous. The basic resources were used skillfully and economically, and because of the wise work done by Theodore Roosevelt and others, significant progress was made in conserving these resources.

Theodore Roosevelt with John Muir at Yosemite

The problem, of course, now is that the whole concept of conservation must change in the 1960′s if we are going to pass on to the 350 million Americans who will live in this country in 40 years where 180 million Americans now live–if we are going to pass on a country which is even richer.

The fact of the matter is that the management of our natural resources instead of being primarily a problem of conserving them, of saving them, now requires the scientific application of knowledge to develop new resources. We have come to. realize to a large extent that resources are not passive. Resources are not merely something that was here, put by nature. Research tells us that previously valueless materials, which 10 years ago were useless, now can be among the most valuable natural resources of the United States. And that is the most significant fact in conservation now since the early 1900′s when Theodore Roosevelt started his work. A conservationist’s first reaction in those days was to preserve, to hoard, to protect every non-renewable resource. It was the fear of resource exhaustion which caused the great conservation movement of the 1900′s. And this fear was reflected in the speeches and attitudes of our political leaders and their writers.

This is not surprising in the light of the technology of that time, but today that approach is out of date, and I think this is an important fact for the State of Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain States. It is both too pessimistic and too optimistic. We need no longer fear that our resources and energy supplies are a fixed quantity that can be exhausted in accordance with a particular rate of consumption. On the other hand, it is not enough to put barbed wire around a forest or a lake, or put in stockpiles of minerals, or restrictive laws and regulations on the exploitation of resources. That was the old way of doing it.

The old way of doing it

Our primary task now is to increase our understanding of our environment to a point where we can enjoy it without defacing it, use its bounty without detracting permanently from its value, and, above all, maintain a living balance between man’s actions and nature’s reactions, for this Nation’s great resources are as elastic and productive as our ingenuity can make them. For example, soda ash is a multimillion dollar industry in this State. A few years ago there was no use for it. It was wasted. People were unaware of it. And even if it had been sought, it could not be found–not because it wasn’t here, but because effective prospecting techniques had not been developed. Now soda ash is a necessary ingredient in the production of glass, steel, and other products. As a result of a series of experiments, of a harnessing of science to the use of man, this great new industry has opened up. In short, conservation is no longer protection and conserving and restricting. The balance between our needs and the availability of our resources, between our aspirations and our environment, is constantly changing.

Techtonic plate theory would have to wait for confirmation
until secret US navy maps of the undersea topography
were declassified in 1966

One of the great resources which we are going to find in the next 40 years is not going to be the land; it will be the ocean. We are going to find untold wealth in the oceans of the world which will be used to make a better life for our people. Science is changing all of our natural environment. It can change it for good; it can change it for bad. We are pursuing, for example, new opportunities in coal, which have been largely neglected–examining the feasibility of transporting coal by water through pipelines, of gasification at the mines, of liquefaction of coal into gasoline, and of transmitting electric power directly from the mouth of the mine. The economic feasibility of some of these techniques has not been determined, but it will be in the next decade. At the same time, we are engaged in active research on better means of using low grade coal, to meet the tremendous increase in the demand for coal we are going to find in the rest of this century. This is, in effect, using science to increase our supply of a resource of which the people of the United States were totally unaware 50 years ago.

Another research undertaking of special concern to this Nation and this State is the continuing effort to develop practical and feasible techniques of converting oil shale into usable petroleum fuels. The higher grade deposits in Wyoming alone are equivalent to 30 billion barrels of oil, and 200 billion barrels in the case of lower grade development. This could not be used, there was nothing to conserve, and now science is going to make it possible.

Investigation is going on to assure at the same time an adequate water supply so that when we develop this great new industry we will be able to use it and have sufficient water. Resource development, therefore, requires not only the coordination of all branches of science, it requires the joint effort of scientists, government–State, national, and local–and members of other professional disciplines. For example, we are now examining in the United States today the mixed economic-technical question of whether very large-scale nuclear reactors can produce unexpected savings in the simultaneous desalinization of water and the generation of electricity. We will have, before this decade is out or sooner, a tremendous nuclear reactor which makes electricity and at the same time gets fresh water from salt water at a competitive price. What a difference this can make to the Western United States. And, indeed, not only the United States, but all around the globe where there are so many deserts on the ocean’s edge.

It is in efforts, I think, such as this, where the National Government can play a significant role, where the scale of public investment or the nationwide scope of the problem, the national significance of the results are too great to ignore or which cannot always be carried out by private research. Federal funds and stimulation can help make the most imaginative and productive use of our manpower and facilities. The use of science and technology in these fields has gained understanding and support in the Congress. Senator Gale McGee has proposed an energetic study of the technology of electrometallurgy–the words are getting longer as the months go on, and more complicated-an area of considerable importance to the Rocky Mountains.

Progress marches on

All this, I think, is going to change the life of Wyoming and going to change the life of the United States. What we regard now as relative well-being, 30 years from now will be regarded as poverty. When you realize that 30 years ago r out of 10 farms had electricity, and yet some farmers thought that they were living reasonably well, now for a farm not to have electricity, we regard them as living in the depths of poverty. That is how great a change has come in 30 years. In the short space of 18 years, really, or almost 20 years, the wealth of this country has gone up 300 percent.

In 1970, 1980, 1990, this country will be, can be, must be–if we make the proper decisions, if we manage our resources, both human and material, wisely, if we make wise decisions in the Nation, in the State, in the community, and individually, if we maintain a vigorous and hopeful ‘pursuit of life and knowledge–the resources of this country are so unlimited and science is expanding them so greatly that all those people who thought 40 years ago that this country would be exhausted in the middle of the century have been proven wrong. It is going to be richer than ever, providing we make the wise decisions and we recognize that the future belongs to those who seize it.

Knowledge is power, a saying 500 years old, but knowledge is power today as never before, not only here in the United States, but the future of the free world depends in the final analysis upon the United States and upon our willingness to reach those decisions on these complicated matters which face us with courage and clarity. And the graduates of this school will, as they have in the past, play their proper role.

I express my thanks to you. This building which 15 years ago was just a matter of conversation is now a reality. So those things that we talk about today, which seem unreal, where so many people doubt that they can be done–the fact of the matter is, it has been true all through our history–they will be done, and Wyoming, in doing it, will play its proper role.

Thank you.

Note: The President spoke in the University field house at Laramie. In his opening words he referred to U.S. Senator Gale McGee and Governor Cliff Hansen of Wyoming; President George D. Humphrey of the University; U.S. Senators Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf of Montana; and Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.

Citation: John F. Kennedy: “Address at the University of Wyoming.,” September 25, 1963. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9433.

Charles deGaulle at the funeral of John F. Kennedy

Happy 95th Birthday, Mr. President. We might have had you still with us.

Courage.

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

Yard sales hereabouts used to be an adult version of kids’ lemonade stands. They were basically just fun affairs, a chance to sit around with friends for a few hours on a sunny weekend, and in the adult version, maybe unload a few items that had accumulated for heaven knows how long in the attic or garage. Items that if not bought for pennies by a passing stranger, often got dumped into the trash, rather than being hauled back into the house.

The yard sales I’m seeing in the last couple of weekends are of a different order.

These seem to be larger than in past years. Not only are more things being put out for sale, the quality of offerings seems to be better, too, things one might actually want to buy instead of castaways that can be packaged as a Christmas gift for one’s least favorite aunt.

Prices of goods are higher as well. And there’s a definite difference in the bargaining. Again, in years past, if the first price noted was a dollar, a prospective buyer might offer fifty cents, and a few minutes of jocular haggling would follow over whether the end price would be 70 or 80 cents. Now the sellers are bargaining harder for money rather than for fun’s sake.

So what is my personal neighborhood Yard Sale Economic Index saying this year compared to years past? The middle class squeeze is getting tighter. Every penny means more to more people. Local impulse buying is less in evidence. Both sellers and buyers look like they’re having less fun in a formerly fun-based exercise. And the recession continues to drag along in ever more painful ways in the part of the world where I live.

Official “recovery” nattering notwithstanding, I suspect these observations, and their import, hold true in most places.

But Mr. B, he’s a competitor. He heads another Wall Street bank, JPMorgan Chase.

I know Selig. I know. But his company lost $2 billion on some trading deals. Lost money, Selig! It was terribly embarrassing for the poor man.

But don’t Wall Street banks often lose money on their trading?

Almost never, Selig. Goldman made money 25 days last month and only lost money one day — and that was a bad month. Sometimes we go whole quarters without a single losing day. The really strange thing at Jamie’s bank is not just that it actually lost money on trades, but that the losses involved simple stuff, credit default swaps.

Credit default swaps, sir?

You know, Selig, Synthetic derivatives.

Synthetic derivatives?

For heavens sakes, Selig. They’re just a kind of insurance. Like the insurance that little people like yourself buy to insure their cars, their houses, their lives, except this $10 trillion insurance market is free from socialist government regulation. That’s what gives banks the ability to innovate there so we rarely lose money on our trading.

Didn’t such innovation nearly destroy the world economy a few years back, Mr. B?

Yes, Selig. Mistakes were made. We mustn’t focus on the past, however. Got to keep innovating. Like one of Goldman’s own innovations — pair trading.

Pair trading, sir? You mean like putting clients in a deal, then betting the other side?

That was yesterday’s pair trading, Selig. A better pair trading strategy these days involves buying the Australian dollar and shorting the S&P 500 Index. Or vice-versa. Ever do that one at home?

I’ll ask my wife, sir. She handles the family money. But there’s something I don’t understand, Mr. B. Wall Street firms were bailed out by taxpayers a few years ago. Was this bailout so the banks could continue to make most of their money innovating with things like synthetic derivatives? With buying or shorting currencies and indexes?

Can you think of a better use for taxpayer money, Selig? I certainly can’t. But that’s not what I wanted to discuss with you this morning. I have a question. Am I as handsome as George Clooney?

Beg pardon, sir?

George Clooney. The actor. Speak up, man. And be honest. Do I or don’t I look as handsome as George Clooney?

Well, Mr. B., if the lighting were a certain way, or the bulb blew, or the person doing the viewing had cataracts, or was standing far enough away, or..

I think I’m catching your drift, Selig. Darn.

What’s the problem, Mr. B? Why do you care whether or not you’re as handsome as George Clooney? He only entertains people. Wall Street is making the world a better place with synthetic derivatives, and with currency and index plays.

The reason, Selig, is that Wall Street has decided to back Romney this time around, while Hollywood is backing Obama. And I thought if George Clooney and I were both viewed as equally handsome and sexy, Goldman Sachs being the face of Wall Street to much of the public, it might help Mitt at the polls.

Interesting notion, Mr B. Very innovative. Why is Wall Street backing Romney, though? Didn’t Obama dump the economic advisors he ran with in 2008 after he got elected, the ones who wanted to tame Wall Street, and replace them with Timmy Geithner, who used to call here all the time for advice? Timmy who kept The Street from getting really regulated after the 2008 crash. Timmy who beat back limiting Street compensation. Timmy who put the kibosh on a transaction tax that would have made The Street’s computer-generated mega-trading less profitable.

Yes, Selig. Obama, guided by Timmy, has been more than kind. But Mitt will be even kinder. He’s also the sort of fellow you could meet at a beach club in The Hamptons and not have to listen to whining about food stamp and Medicaid shortfalls.

Romney does look really comfortable in a blazer and tan slacks, sir. Bet he’d also be a good tipper.

He’d tip like a sailor, Selig. And people mock trickle down. Will it never end?

It will if Romney and a Republican congress get elected in November, sir. Guaranteed. Ready for another Stall #8 visit?

Yes. Just take out the GQs first, Selig. They might have some pictures of you-know-who inside.

The New York Times story was about a wonderfully intelligent, market-based method of putting solar panel-generating electricity atop individual homes in a way that cost homeowners nothing (that’s right nothing!), while also making money for the installers of these units and for the large Wall Street banks (yes, them!) who are funding the installers.

Here’s how this arrangements works. Installers buy cheap Chinese-made solar panels (alas, America blew this end of the industry) that are put on the homes of credit worthy home owners at no cost to the latter. The electricity generated by these panels, however, is paid by the homeowner to the installer, though at a rate no higher than he/she pays for electricity at present.

Hence, no extra out-of-pocket for the homeowner. The installer (and its Wall Street backers) meanwhile derive an estimated 7-13 per cent return per annum on electricity payments.

One might add, looking ahead, that hard-pressed local governments with large numbers of their own buildings (police and fire stations, hospitals, et. al.) would be crazy not to go for similar deals that would not only be good publicity as public-private partnerships, but would also generate decent jobs for locally-based skilled solar panel installers. (Chicago, Philadelphia, are you listening?)

That was the solar tale in yesterday’s New York Times. Which brings us to today’s very different solar tale written about in today’s Los Angeles Times.

This story is about the California legislature’s approval of a proposed 663-megawatt solar plant in the desert, a plant that’s supposed to feed electricity into an existing utility grid. Environmentalists hate this solar project because of its potential destruction of a precious desert ecology. It’s also the kind of project that requires an enormous amount of government intervention, approval, and various other kinds of financial and non-financial support.

Now let’s compare these two projects for what they mean, could mean, should mean for the future of solar energy, and for the future of power generation in this country and around the world generally.

The individual units on individual buildings approach taps into the inherently decentralized nature of solar energy, rather than centralizing solar technology for the benefit of utilities. The former is thus the future — individuals (and local governments) getting off the grid. The latter is the past — like adding a motor to a horse-drawn cart so your horse can jump in the cart once in awhile to rest.

Individual solar units rather than centralized solar generation gives individuals control over their home’s power source. In terms of employment, though building one large solar power plant creates a one-time big surge of employment, tens of thousands of individual solar installations create more jobs over a longer period and are an ongoing source of employment. And by the by, also an ongoing source of safe and socially responsible investment for Wall Street.

As an added benefit, as Kay Wood, a contributor to TMV has noted, if local governments adopt this no-cost, job-creating approach to solar installation atop their police and fire stations and hospitals, they achieve an added measure of homeland security against terrorists who might one day bring down a centralized power plant – or an entire power grid. 
   
Even with our fractured contemporary politics, the obvious solar choice here is a truly bipartisan one. The left loves solar. The right loves individual control. Let’s run with this one big time.

It has, Selig, It has. What was that wonderful music I was listening to with my headphones in there? It was so…so…

Strangely recognizable, sir? Uplifting? A perfect something to go with your reading of this month’s cover story in Bloomberg Markets Magazine?

Yes, Selig. And so much more appropriate than my usual listening choice in there.

Better than Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” sir? Your usual favorite? That’s high praise indeed, Mr. B.

Don’t get me wrong. Selig. Wagner is certainly bowl-worthy. But this new music…What was it?

“Dow 2007,” sir.”

“Beg pardon.”

I have a friend, sir. who composes the stock market. He takes charted stock movements, converts them to musical notation, adds a few jazz riffs, and creates a kind of music.

That’s amazing, Selig. I don’t suppose this technique also has predictive qualities. I mean, technical analysts in the market look at charts of stock movements searching for certain patterns they say sometimes predict which way the market — and certain stocks prices — are headed. Has your friend ever tried something like this with his market music?

He has, sir.

And have his predictions ever panned out?

Almost never, Mr. B. Though once in awhile…

Stop right there, Selig. I like that ‘once in awhile.’ If we were to package this kind of advice with the right legal caveats, claim its a kind of technical analysis that employs audial rather than visual hints, I see possibilities.

You might even bet the other side of the trade, Mr. B., to ensure Goldman wins either way.

Interesting notion, Selig. I’ll run it by our Ethics Committee. In passing, do you think we could afford to hire this friend of yours?

Afford to hire him, sir? He’s a musician. He makes his rent playing senior centers and bas mitzvahs. You can get him for a year for what you paid for dessert at that trader’s twenty-third birthday party the other night.

Hmmm. Much to cogitate about here, Selig. Do you have another market music tune from your friend that I can listen to?

I do, sir. Dow Fourth Quarter 2008. It has a funereal sound, but if you just want a bit of variety…

“That kind of variety I can do without, Selig. Hook me up one more time with Dow 2007. And have your friend destroy this other number. Believe me. No one wants to see, much less hear, 2008 played again.

Predators and vultures play important roles in both natural and economic systems. Herds of animals, for example, have to be regularly culled to improve the herd’s overall health and viability. Predators do the job. They kill the weak, the diseased, the careless, the inadequately protected young. Then vultures, hyenas and other members of nature’s clean up crew consume the mess and “refashion it” in the form of their own waste, which helps fertilize fields where healthy members of the herd feed.

Things work much the same way in the economic realm. Companies, industries, entire nations show signs of weakness and predators of various kinds attack (think bond vigilantes in world markets). Then the market’s vultures move in to clean up the mess. The result is a healthier economic “herd,” a healthier Main Street, that can grow in healthier ways having been culled of its unproductive or no longer desirable elements.

Mitt Romney’s major business experience, what he is putting forth as his major qualification to reanimate the economy as President, is his work at Bain Capital, a Wall Street vulture fund. In spite of the unflattering image the word “vulture” evokes, as is true in natural economies, these funds play an important and valuable role in keeping economies healthy.

Based on the above, one might suppose that Romney’s history with Bain was something he could truthfully claim qualifies him to get America back on its feet economically. Look a little closer, however, and its easy to see this is actually a work history guaranteed to point a new President Romney in the wrong economic directions.

The reason? Because what was described above is the way things work in a properly functioning natural ecology or environment — one in which the various parts, the herds (whatever they might consist of), the predators, the vultures, are all in balance.

If you come upon a natural ecology where herds have been overly culled, while at the same time lions and leopards are overly well fed, and the numbers and size of vultures and hyenas are enormous, you’ve got a sick ecosystem. If you see an economy in which Main Street is wobbly and anguished, while the predators and vultures of Wall Street wax fatter and fatter, you’ve got a sick economy.

Our own economy today is over-Bained, over-Citied, badly under-Main Streeted. The main economic problem here isn’t the cast of economic players and what each is supposed to do to keep things healthy. It’s that the balance wrought by some of these players, the predators and vultures, has made things very, very out-of-whack.

Culling this herd, culling Main Street more than it has already been culled, won’t improve our economic health. Doing so might not always be the wrong prescription. But it is certainly the wrong prescription for the wrong disease today.

Expecting this reality to be appreciated and acted upon appropriately by a former partner in a vulture fund backed by Wall Street predators is thus a very silly political choice for a mighty sick Main Street herd.

His argument, in brief, is this: most of the money garnered by these super rich worthies isn’t spent on their own luxuries. Rather, it is invested in ways that generate wealth that ends up being shared by all — though admittedly, the less cunning and well-connected 99 percenters do have to settle for much, much smaller shares.

The fact this this love-thy-economic-betters author is a former Wall Street colleague of a guy who is now running for President, a guy who sadly (that darn old democratic system) must appeal to more than half of today’s economically aggrieved 99 percenters, is probably not appreciated by the Romney camp. Maybe they shouldn’t feel that way, however. Maybe the rest of us shouldn’t feel that way either.

Maybe extraordinarily high levels of wealth concentration are good for everyone. I mean sure, it hasn’t proven to make most Americans wealthier in recent years. It hasn’t generated huge numbers of well paying jobs (or any other kind for that matter) at a time when this concentration has grown and grown. Indeed, it hasn’t made for an economy nearly as satisfying and secure and productive as when such concentration wasn’t nearly as evident, as during the post-WW II period between 1945 and the coming of Reagan.

But heck. Why focus on current realities, or the realities of recent decades past? Let’s focus instead on the economic theorizing of a super rich former Bain partner of Mitt Romney. And let us all then genuflect in the appropriate manner.

If this doesn’t seem a good enough of show of appreciation, why not invite a 0.01 percenter out to dinner to show your gratitude for the wonderful things he’s done for us all? And if that requires cashing in pension savings to make this best and brightest person comfortable at table with the fare we provide, cash in your pension savings (or what’s left of it). It’s the least you can do.

All hail Bain Capital! All hail Wall Street and the increasing number of tasty morsels it provides for vulture funds like Bain! Let us now all tap our heels together, mutter “death to regulation and progressive taxation,” and queue up to follow Bain folk down the iron pyrite brick road being laid out for us this coming election day.

Let’s put this into a political context. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, now facing a recall vote in early June, promised to make his state more business friendly. His most noteworthy effort in this regard involved coming down on the union bargaining rights of public employees.This has made Governor Walker a hero to the right, and an example of what the country can expect if Mitt Romney wins the White House.

Take it out on teachers as well as the poor, in other words, and they will come — “they” being job creating businesses that supposedly love a state where taxes don’t help the needy too much or pay attractive compensation to the state’s own workers.

Such is the theory. Except that while this approach might work beautifully in an Ayn Rand novel, its doesn’t seem to work that way in real life.

Why? The answers are obvious. Most businesses have a local customer base. If a lot of these customers lose already very modest government benefits, or receive less compensation from state employment, they will have less to spend at most local businesses. You know. Real Life. Not ideology.

Most businesses, when they are looking for a state to relocate or to set up a new facility, also consider factors that might appeal to their employees. One such factor, as any relocation specialist will tell you, is the local education infrastructure. A state where school teachers are a particular target of the governor doesn’t appeal to these specialists. You know. Real life. Not ideology.

Most businesses also don’t like to set up shop in combat zones. This is why, for example, places like Damascus are not attracting a lot of foreign capital these days.

Wisconsin, of course, is not a war zone. It is, however, a state polarized by the ideology-based actions of a Governor and his legislative supporters — actions totally unnecessary from a fiscal standpoint because state unions accepted compensation limits before their right to bargain collectively was taken away.

Why didn’t businesses approve of this action and expand or relocate in the Wisconsin? Because they prefer to locate in happy places, not angry ones. With so many other parts of the country vying for any job creating business with incentives similar to the ones offered by Wisconsin, being in the news month after month as the state where half the people won’t even talk to the other half isn’t a big draw.

Other states with governors calling themselves “conservatives” may have made a lot of state residents unhappy. But none has made so many of their own people so furious toward their leaders and so many of their fellow citizens,

Say what you will about the politics of Governor Scott Walker. From the perspective of job creation, such politics have proven to be dumb, dumb, dumb…

To fund government subsidies for student loans, House Republicans could either have come up with the money from eliminating some tax breaks for oil companies or eliminating a program that allows poor women to get breast cancer tests. And they opted to eliminate the latter.

The Republican dominated House also had to choose between cutting funding for the military or for food stamps. And opted for a food stamp trimming.

So subsidies for oil companies making near-record profits are more important that breast cancer screening. And another few tanks are more important than food for children, the prime beneficiaries of food stamp programs. Gotcha. Now I understand “family values.”

But I’m still trying to work through the relationship between the term “conservative” as used these days and some past meanings of the term. Herbert Hoover, before becoming President, was generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest humanitarians in history. This was due to his magnificent management of post-World I food programs in Western Europe and Russia.

Hoover, the proto-typical conservative, feed millions abroad. These days, though, “conservatives” in this country seem to have it out for food stamps that feed our own children.

Odd. Seems I have to think this one through a bit more.

No. Selig. I actually came by to talk with you about something important. To get your advice. Can we sit down and chat?

Sit down, sir? This is a washroom. The only places where we could…

Point taken. We can chat standing. Do you know what a political action committee is, Selig? A PAC?

Yes sir. They’re things that promote free speech. They free the media from the clutches of socialist indigents and allow decent rich people to finally get a hearing.

Exactly, Selig. Though I’m surprised a washroom attendant like yourself has this sophisticated level of understanding.

It’s because I listen to a lot of a.m. talk radio when no one else is around, sir. One of my friends is also the attendant at the Supreme Court men’s room in Washington, and he keeps me up to date on the court’s thinking about money and free speech.

The Supreme Court, you say. I’ve always wondered something about those people. Those long black robes they wear. When they have to use a washroom, how do they…you know…how do they manage…never mind. I need your advice on something else, Selig.

I live to serve, sir.

Indeed you do, Selig. Indeed you do. Here’s the thing. Some of the gang here at Goldman are thinking of contributing to a PAC. Naturally this will be chump change for us, but for people in Washington its crumbs to die for.

I’m a bit short of cash right now, Mr. B. Maybe you could come around at Christmas time if I get a bonus this year.

No need to grovel, Selig. I’m not here for a contribution. I just need some advice. The actual contributors would be the firm’s top earners, the best and brightest people, the job creators, the fighters for an opportunity society. Our problem is that being so bright and working so hard to create jobs, we don’t have time for much contact with little people like yourself. In my own case, except for a gardener who I can’t understand half the time, you’re the only little person I meet with on a regular basis.

Perhaps if you changed your diet, sir. That taco parlor you frequent. You might try eating lunches elsewhere, too.

Focus, Selig. Focus. The focus here is on which party — from your average little person perspective — should get our free speech. Should get our money. They both slobber for it. And no matter what they say at election time, they’ll both do our bidding after the election. But I still need your opinion on which to support with our free speech.

Why do you care about my opinion, sir, if both parties are in your pocket anyway?

Because, Selig, in the event that Wall Street brings the world economy to the brink of disaster yet again, people like you will be called upon for another massive bail out. And we want to be sure the folks in power in Washington then are folks who also had little people’s support this election season. So we all share the blame.

I hope you won’t think I’m sucking up, Mr. B, when I say your thinking here is brilliant, and you are one far-sighted investment banker.

Of course I think you’re sucking up, Selig. That’s expected. Now…into which trough do you suggest we throw some chump change slops?

What the heck, Mr. B. Give ‘em both a taste. It’s only fair to PAC the pair.

‘It’s only fair to PAC the pair.’ Very good, Selig. Even rhymes. I like it. I always seem to come up with good ideas — and good catch phrases like this — when I come down here.

A surprising number of Goldman guys achieve clarity in this very washroom, sir. Up for another visit to Booth #8?

Lead on, McDuff. With your help, I am now Booth 8 ready.

The New York Times didn’t mention the fact in today’s edition of the paper. Neither did the Wall Street Journal. Nor did the Los Angeles Times, though it did have a short piece about German environmentalists and nuclear power in their coutry.

Come Earth Day itself, of course, some notice of the natural environment will be on view. Doubtless the Obama Administration will use the day to strike out against Republicans’ non-existent environment protecting policies. Perhaps Mr. Obama and/or Vice-President Biden will even put on a flannel shirt a la Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and do a photo opportunity in a national park.

In fairness, it must be pointed out that some specific efforts to protect the environment have, in fact, been taken by Mr. Obama and Company. As a major priority pursued aggressively, however, it seems to rank on the level of raising more campaign funds from Wall Street. Indeed, it might be ranked exactly at that level, because an emissions trading scheme that Wall Street firms love because they would be doing the emission trading deals has been this Administration’s most energetic environmental initiative.

Other things hardly worth looking forward to this coming Earth day include media coverage of school children picking up trash at local parks. Alternative energy companies will also probably sponsor fairs and kindred events that only demonstrate that this country is falling woefully behind nations like Germany and even China in effectively promoting natural, non-polluting, ever renewable energy resources.

If you’re old enough you might remember the first Earth Day in 1970, when tens of millions of Americans marched for more stringent laws to protect the environment — and national leaders hastened to respond. You might also remember that in 2000, the largest-ever gathering of world leaders in Rio de Janeiro collectively promised to make the natural environment and its protection their number one priority.

That was then. Today, more contemporary priorities are what the media chooses to highlight. Like how much the two likely presidential contenders are raising from PACs for the coming election.

And there the focus will doubtless remain. Unless a dreadful environmental disaster forces even the likes of Fox News to pay attention to the reality that we are part of the natural order.

On behalf of humanity, I hereby apologize effusively to Mother Earth. And beg Her not to respond to our selfish and utterly foolish provocations in ways we so richly deserve.

Democrats used to know who and how to demonize Republicans in order to win elections. When FDR ran for reelection in 1936, he didn’t run against his official Republican opponent that year, Kansas Governor Alf Landon. He ran against Herbert Hoover. Against Hoovervilles. Against problems the New Deal had not yet fixed because the economic legacy of Herbert Hoover was too awful to fix quickly.

In 2004 the Democrats had another opportunity to demonize and triumph, but blew it that time around. The target they should have gone after that year but didn’t wasn’t sitting President George W. Bush, who, though he had gotten the country into an unpopular war in Iraq and wasn’t presiding over a booming economy, was actually a really likable guy. The demonizing target opportunity here was thus not President Bush. It was others in the Bush Administration.

The John Kerry slogan in 2004 should have been: “A president is known by the company he keeps.” And the demonizing targets should have included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. Gale Norton and John Ashcroft, all of whom were generally disliked and distrusted by most Americans, and a few of whom were loathed by a goodly number — a vice-president and powerful cabinet members for whom the likable George W. Bush functioned as the perfect beard.

Which brings us to the current election campaign of 2012. There are early indications that the Obama campaign will focus on running against Mitt Romney, focus on Governor Romney’s own background and present nostrums to reanimate the economy.

Not an altogether bad approach, course. Romney does come with a lot of baggage. He’s a former CEO of a Wall Street vulture fund. He changes his official views almost daily to accommodate near term political needs. And his nostrums to improve the economy, when you look closely at them, are just a formula to give more to the very rich in hopes they will give some back to everyone else.

All this, however, might not keep Mr. Obama in the White House as the Romney camp points out endlessly, and alas, quite correctly, that the economy hasn’t improved all that much since Obama took office.

What then, might this year’s Obama campaign learn from a past successful FDR campaign and a past unsuccessful Kerry campaign that might be effective in meeting the 2012 Romney challenge?

With regard to the former, endlessly demonize the eight years of George W. Bush in the White House, the massive economic disaster he left behind, and the aim of Mitt Romney to bring back these same Bush policies on an even greater scale. In other words don’t run against Romney, the would-be Obama fixer. Run against Romney the would-be Bush legacy repeater.

And with regard to the company Governor Romney keeps: Congress these days, especially the Republican dominated House of Representatives, has the lowest poll numbers in history. Demonize Romney as the man who will give this extremely unpopular Republican House of Representatives the power to impose its unpopular tax and other stances on the American people. Constantly place before voters the image of Romney the expediter of increasing unpopular Tea Party views and the views of extreme social conservatives.

The 2012 slogan of choice here: “Mitt Romney is known by the company he keeps in Congress, and the company he joined with on the road to his nomination.” Get the focus off the man. Get it on his unpopular associates.

Republicans have mastered the demonize and triumph technique. It’s not nice but it works. Democrats would benefit from doing it as well.

(This item cross-posted to DeanEsmay.com.)

Unfortunately, however, inflation here is not well under control when you look at it more closely and distinguish between “bad inflation” and “good inflation” as these two measures affect most Americans.

Bad inflation takes the form of higher costs for basics like food and gasoline. Everyone eats and food prices are rising, especially on the most basic of items such as bread and milk products. The people most grievously hurt by these increases are the poorest among us, those on food stamps, now suffering more end-of-month hunger days because there has been no increases in the value of their food stamps.

The other most wide-spread example of bad inflation is the big price jumps at the gas pump. This most directly hurts working people who commute to their jobs, a kind of inflation tax on the working middle class.

Traditionally, in times past, bad inflation hikes on basics such as food and gasoline were offset by good inflation in the form of increases in working people’s wages. Not this time. Not only are wages flat, company paid benefits are shrinking, reducing real compensation still further.

For older Americans, bad inflation hikes on basics also had a traditional good inflation offset — higher interest rates on their savings. As any financial planner will tell you, older people generally put their savings, the capital they depend on to kick off income that supplements Social Security, into ultra safe investments like federal bonds. And as anyone who depends on such securities to generate supplementary income will also tell you, the payback here today is small to virtually non-existent, certainly less than the official overall inflation rate.

This, then, is the good inflation/bad inflation story in this country today. As is true in so many other ways, the poor, the working middle class, the elderly, are getting shafted a lot more directly than well cosseted one percenters. The reason? Because these lucky ones expend a far smaller percentage of their incomes on food and gasoline, and make far higher returns on their far larger capital from investments in Wall Street friendly gaming.

But then I asked some folks on Twitter, who were beating up on a friend of mine who is a left of center lady, not unlike myself, and was on Fox this morning (the national cable version, not the local), if they could link to the clip about which they were razzing my friend, since, being a working parent, I don’t watch the morning news shows because, well, I’m working – and parenting. (I know – many of us have the television or radio on in the background while parenting and working but that is not the norm in my home at all – way too distracting; I can parent & work at the same time, but add cable morning news shows to the task list and I’m on overload.)

And their response to my simple and, if I might say so myself, civil request (intended to allow me to make an actual judgement on the razzing they were giving my friend which included them saying that the way she said the word “privilege” regarding Ann Romney was in a perjorative way) was to tell me that, for saying I was working, parenting and not watching Fox, I spoke like a “true Socialist.” Later tweets included mentions of their belief that I envy male anatomy and some other things that have nothing to do with anything, except to demonstrate perfectly how the motherlode of all linkbait is the often-called always-maligned Mommy Wars.

If ever there was a subject in need of being limited to civil discourse-only, this has got to be it.

Read the rest at the Civic Commons (where this working mom works, from home and from wherever civic engagement takes me).

What is it Selig? A leak in the piping? I hope my Stall #8 hasn’t been flooded.

No, sir. Nothing that serious. It was just that guy who came by this morning. I don’t know who he was, but he said he was here to install gun mounts over the sinks and toilet bowls.

Oh that. No need to worry. He was authorized. Something new we’re offering our staffers. For their protection.

Protection? From what, sir?

Crazed investors. Fanatical terrorists. That sort of thing. Can’t be too careful these days, Selig. Everyone is doing it. Have you heard about that Republican Convention in Tampa, Florida this June?

Yes, sir. Word about it has filtered down to the washroom.

Well, Selig, they’re allowing concealed handguns in the area around the convention site.  In some parts of the country you can also carry concealed weapons in bars and schools. So why not have them in the toilet stalls of an investment bank?

When you put it that way, Mr. B., I can see the logic. And I guess anyone who really understands the Constitution would have to conclude the Founding Fathers wanted everyone to have loaded guns at political gatherings, in bars and schools. Very prudent. But in Wall Street washrooms? I don’t know. I mean…

What exactly do you mean, Selig? What’s the problem?

Well, Mr. B., some Wall Street traders who come into washrooms are kind of… sort of… hyper. Overwrought. You know. Losing a few hundred million of other people’s money on a bond bet upsets them.

No reason to get upset over that, Selig.

You’re right, of course, Mr. B. But some traders respond by taking strong stimulants to help get them through the day. And when you combine that with guns you sometimes…

Strong stimulants, Selig? You mean cups of strong, heavily caffeinated coffee.

Of course, sir. What else could I possibly mean?

What else indeed, Selig.

Don’t get me wrong, Mr. B. I’m not saying that anyone, for any reason, most certainly not a highly stimulated trader, should not have ready access to a handgun. Or assault rifle. Or machine pistol. Or a bazooka or hand grenade if that’s what self defense requires. Only that in a Wall Street washroom it might cause occasional difficulties.

Say no more, my good man. Be assured this is only a temporary arrangement. The election coming up in November obliges Wall Streeters to make certain alliances to keep the country from going still further in the wrong direction.

You mean toward socialism, sir?

Yes. There. Big banks and gun super-enthusiasts will have to vote the same side to beat back the socialist beast. And if that means guns above sinks and toilet bowls, what the heck. We go along for a while, after November, the guns disappear. Does that make you happy?

Anything that promotes the interests of investment banks make me happy, sir. Your own Stall #8 is ready, by the way. And the man who came by this morning left a sample gun for you to play with… I mean for you to inspect. I think he called it a ‘MAC-10,’ along with a few banana clips of armor piercing ammo.

Splendid, Selig. Splendid. Forty-round banana clips with armor piercing bullets, you say?

For self-defense, sir. Just give me a few seconds warning before you actually lock and load. I have a family.

To learn more about a quirky novel from the author of this piece hit: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GC4T3E

The gap exists because of reality: when women look around and on an every day occasion, see and experience where we aren’t included or even thought about, or, when we are included or thought about, how we’re treated – whether in real life (Ginni Rometty) or fake life (anything on Mad Men) – we don’t like it. And we see the statements and policies of conservatives as, in general (yes, there are exceptions), upholding, supporting and keeping in stasis what we don’t like, while we see the statements and policies of moderates and liberals as, in general, seeking to change, alter, take down and improve that which we don’t like (though of course there are plenty of exceptions there too – start with any sex scandal).

And, as if to underscore how clueless the men are, US Senator Mitch McConnell claimed that his female colleagues certainly would support him in calling out the “war on women” as being manufactured. Thanks, Mitch, for demonstrating how completely you haven’t heard a word your female colleagues have said and how thoroughly you expect them to follow you in lockstep, to wit, from that link:

“Talk about a manufactured issue. There is no issue,” McConnell said. “Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (from Texas) and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine I think would be the first to say—and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska—’we don’t see any evidence of this.’”

However, three of those female GOP lawmakers whom McConnell cited— Snowe, Hutchison and Murkowski—have specifically spoken out against Republican measures they believe are aimed at women.

Then, there’s the whole gaslighting aspect to what McConnell and others like Republican National Committee Chair, Reince Priebus, are saying – Priebus analogizing his belief that the notion of there being a war on women is as far-fetched as suggesting there’s a war on caterpillars.

We’re not being gaslighted – reality bites. And no amount of optics of Republican female spokespeople on the trail or a strong spouse, daughter-in-law or mother will begin to cut into the reality.