Compressed Time

Hurricane Harvey was described as a once in 500 year event and we have seen a large number of events that supposedly happen infrequently fairly frequently recently.

The records we rely on for these estimates are based on historical measurements, sometimes looking at evidence left by the last such event.

However, 500 years just isn't what it used to be.

Harvey was followed in a couple of weeks by Irma, another rare event.

500 years in two weeks, must be some sort of record.

Katrina was another once in a lifetime event, as was Sandy.

Now, clearly, these events are happening more frequently than they used to since the unusual conditions that used to spawn them have now become the norm.

In fact, it is clear that this is just going to get worse as the temperatures and sea levels continue to rise.

Personally I was fine with seeing maybe on of these events in my lifetime, two would have been overdoing it.

I'm up to 4 or 5, sort of losing count and I don't feel 500 years old, not even a century yet.

What's the rush?

Dreamers

Well thousands of young people who grew up American are now in danger of being deported in a few months.

Now these are people who came here as children and grew up much like every other child in America.

Now the fate of these people is in the hands of Congress which has trouble doing pretty much anything.

The point is that while these people who grew up here are as American as well anyone else who grew up at the same time, some people feel like they are law breakers who must be punished.

Immigration laws are odd in the fact that they impact foreign nationals who technically we have no jurisdiction over.  Now of course we should be able to control our borders although I don't think a wall is the answer but this situation is about people who have been here most of their lives and whom in many cases have brothers and sisters born after them with full rights of citizenship.

I don't see immigration as the problem some do, since we need immigrants to provide us with the momentum immigrants always provide.

It should be obvious that immigrants, in most cases are preselected as the more daring people.  They are willing to leave a relatively familiar place to embark on a new life with all the risks that entails.

This nation was always fueled by that immigration motivation to move forward and expand.

Now getting rid of the Dreamers is not going to serve any purpose for America, they are actually generally good young people contributing to society.

In fact it is likely they contribute more than their peers since that is generally the case for groups in risky situations.

They have to overcome more and become more invested than the native born video game players.

I'm sure they play their fair share of video games too, but as Dreamers many of them are doing so much more.

Family

The one thing that has been basic to human life since the very beginning is the sense of family.  This isn't unique to humans or even mammals but of course the evolution of all species required the young to survive and the best way to assure that is to afford them protection when they are vulnerable.

Now of course this varies and some don't grow up in a family situation, but for most of us our earliest memories are being safe and protected in a family unit.

Leaving this family unit is something that nature has apparently geared us up to do in our teen age years when we start to reject authority.

Now this family model has been part of our heritage and is governed by strong instinctual impulses.

It may not be as necessary as it once was for our survival but it may be just as essential as ever for our mental well being.

I the modern age we have created a number of problems for families which generally involve a number of factors.

Originally families spent the vast majority of their time together with the basic unit, mother and children almost inseparable while the fathers and older males would at time leave to hunt or other pursuits.

Everyone had to do their share whether at home or away to survive and at least until those teen-age years, the family generally superseded your own needs.

In the modern era we see a redefinition of family which may be better or it may not be.  This isn't related to the sexual preferences of the family heads, more about the impact that the modern world has on the psyche of those growing up in a brave new world, to steal a phrase.

More to come.

Manufacturing Labor

It labor day in the United States and one of the things that led to the election results is the weakness in our manufacturing sector in traditional areas of the country.  The reasons for the weakness are mostly technological but it also does involve some foreign outsourcing.

Of course any job such as manufacturing has a multiplier effect so the decreases you see during the recession would be pretty dramatic.  Further the recovery isn't necessarily taking place in the areas hit hardest as outdated plants are shuttered and new manufacturing is moved to where the talent or cheap labor is.

Labor in this country is simply not the force it once was and to view it using a 1950s-1960s filter is simply going to distort the facts.

Manufacturing will of course always exist, but the number of people needed on the manufacturing floor is still decreasing as engineering finds more and more ways to automate the factories

It was the trend that was most noticeable to me over the last 40 years, as we moved from a factory environment where everything possible was controlled under one roof to one where the ultimate supplier is more of an assembler in many cases.

Its the other factor that makes even these fairly pessimistic numbers even worse as the jobs that do remain are frequently outsourced to suppliers who pay less and offer less benefits.

It is also one of the reasons Unions have so much trouble, when multiple suppliers are bidding to get a job, one paying slightly higher rates is at a disadvantage.

However it is labor day and we do see some uptick in Manufacturing so lets not be too gloomy.

Happy Labor Day!

Since the great recession when manufacturing hours in this country took a significant hit we have seen steady increases in manufacturing employment.  We have seen an uptick in 2017 from the 2016 period but not a dramatic change

Hurricane Fashion

If you are going to a hurricane area, what you wear is pretty dependent upon what you expect to do.

Now lets be honest that the visit of the president and first lady are simply public relations since there is nothing that can be done there that couldn't be done in Washington, except photo ops and taking the time of certain dignitaries.

There was of course the negative photo comments based upon the fact that the first lady wore heals on the first visit which she corrected on the next one with some new designer kicks.

What she wears has absolutely no impact on the victims suffering from the hurricane and realistically the whole concept of these visits is simply for the public.

I actually think getting briefed and watching news coverage is probably a better way to get updated on the devastation than making everyone focus on security and itineraries by visiting.

However, its something they all do and to make a big deal about visiting or not visiting is simply ridiculous.

What of course is important is what are we doing to mitigate the pain from this hurricane and prevent a future where storms just keep getting worse every year.

We already know that he is not doing anything to mitigate climate change and that's a much more dangerous situation than the immediate one in Texas.

We have made more of an issue over the fashion choices of the first lady than we have over the impending climate disaster.

We all need to get our future hurricane apparel soon.

An Ounce of Prevention

Natural disasters don't care what your politics are and no one generally is in favor of them.

Unfortunately, some will profit from them and the urgency chaos and speed involved end up leading sometimes to rampant fraud and abuse.

This is why it is important to have the structures in place that can respond to any such disasters quickly and efficiently.

Of course human nature being what it is the funding follows the disaster, and the organizations that respond whether Governmental or Private get energized by the actual disaster.

It is nearly impossible in this day and age to get the parties and the public to agree on much.

However, I do think everybody would agree that the Government should be as efficient as humanly possible.

Of course humanly possible means it wont be perfect.

The Government employs a lot of people, and since they are people they range across the spectrum.

You can find one or more of them abusing their position, but that is simply people acting badly.

In some ways the Government management, is more concerned about their political bosses than about running an efficient organization.

Of course there have been lots of initiatives to remove politics from the executive departments but clearly since they are all staffed at the top levels by political appointees it's hard to do.

Now obviously priorities change and departments need to be responsive, but if you change the CEO and all the senior executives at a corporation overnight, the stock would likely suffer because its too disruptive.

We do that to our executive departments every so many years depending on election results.

When you wonder about the inefficiency of Government, I think this accounts for a lot of it.

An organization like FEMA should have mandated goals and sufficient funding to accomplish them.

Its not really a political thing.

Gullibility

There are a lot of sayings that discus the gullibility of people.

There's a sucker born every moment, a fool and his money are soon parted, etc. etc.

The reason for this is that people are partly gullible and partly greedy.

The promise of something of value for almost nothing tends to be tempting to people, enough for many to stop being skeptical.

Now in many cases its fairly harmless, as when someone asks you for a few dollars to get food, or for carfare because they lost their wallet.

In other cases the scams are much more significant costing people their savings, their homes and their health.

It doesn't matter if the victim is vulnerable or old or sick.  In fact all those things are what helps define them as a victim.

The con men will lie right to your face and look very sincere doing it.  Its something you have to learn and avoid and one of the reasons people in big cities sometimes appear unfriendly, they can't determine if your for real or pulling a con.

Now as sad as this is, we see that politicians engage in this behavior to get elected.

Over the years some of the most outrageous lies started to get exposed by the media, but now we see so much questionable media that the legitimate media can be branded as fake news.

So bringing back manufacturing, bringing back coal, fixing trade agreements, building a wall, improving your health care and reducing your taxes while increasing defense and infrastructure were believed by enough people to matter.

The gullibility index was at an all time high and unfortunately it might be a trend.

Hey, this must all be part of God's plan - just trust those preachers!