the mellow tigger's musings

I've written here at least once over the years that I think GDP is a bad measure of the condition of an economy. I think the GINI coefficient needs to be included in any measure of national health. Maybe you can understand my frustration when, year after year, we see president after president get up for a State Of The Union address and declare that the USA is "strong".

I've been saying at least since the Occupy movement that things are bad and getting worse. I know I sound foolishly unrealistic when I say it, given all the politicians and newspapers and journals who say otherwise. Consider, though, this chart that was brought to my attention on Reddit. I decided to check the validity of it. I went directly to Google to generate the same graph. It shows how often people in the USA search Google with the phrase "food banks near me", from 2004 to 2023.

Somebody needs to explain to me how things can be so bad and can continue getting worse for so long, yet "the system" keeps telling us that everything is alright.

I don't see how any of this can continue. Please, explain it to me like I'm stupid, because it doesn't make any sense to me. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I need to understand why I'm wrong.

Local news recently broadcast this story about a fire station in Minneapolis getting a 24-hour opioid addiction recovery office. What that article never mentions is "north Minneapolis", the adorable warzone where I live. I pass that Fire Station #14 every week when I walk to the asian grocery store near my house. I hope they can save lives with this effort.

Other good news of incoming resources (potentially, not established yet) is a massive commercial kitchen and food incubator, whatever that means, with the promoters promising 265 jobs here. That article includes better details, like my area having only 23% of residents with private vehicle transportation. I didn't realize that the number was so low here. It makes the food desert situation worse. According to Wikipedia, we were previously (and have now returned) to one of the largest food deserts in USA metropolitan areas, and it's been bad here for a long time.

While Minneapolis is experimenting with micro-routes in another north Minneapolis area (not my neighborhood), there's still nothing here where I need it. I saw the headline that Scotland is trying a fully self-driving bus route, and I immediately wanted the same thing available here. Minneapolis tried a self-driving shuttle in the downtown area a few years ago, but it never came back. Why not combine these ideas together here in north Minneapolis? Self-driving micro-route shuttle in the warzone? Pretty please? I've already emailed my city council member, and I posted to Reddit. I wonder if somehow we can make something happen to improve life here where it's so difficult.

I still want to write up some definitions of capitalism and neoliberalism, mention alternatives, and generally just think about what we're doing to ourselves by choice. First, though, I feel it's necessary to draw attention specifically to the central lie of the free market economy: the invisible hand of the market will produce the best outcomes for the system.

It sounds like a brilliant idea inspired by the principles of evolution, namely the self-organization of parts into a complex whole without central coordination. It's true that competition can encourage creativity, but only insofar as all necessity does. That necessity can be imposed by the harsh physics of the universe or by the reasoned decision to choose certain limitations. The hypocrisy of unfettered competition's superiority is easily exposed. Consider this simple question:

If a sports game is so good in its current form, then would it be even better to remove the sports official, so each team and each player can freely choose at will their own rules?

Also interesting is a related question of why English has so many names for sports officials, if sports would in fact be better off without any of them? Why the emotional investment in rules and enforcement within sports but nowhere else?

Capitalism and neoliberalism simply do not care about the cost to the environment or to the human population, as long as wealth is extracted and collected first for a few key individuals. We see this effect in practice with predictable bank failures, pollution scandals, falling wage values, and the ongoing biosphere crisis. Now, we even have PFAS "forever chemicals" in toilet paper. Yes, capitalism has managed to poison toilet paper. Profit is the sole driving force of our current economic system, for as long as it can be maintained, even though it's obvious to everyone (since 1993, at least) that it can't be maintained forever.

Which world do we want to live in? World 1, in which corporations and people work to extract profit from everyone, everything, and everywhere at all times? World 2, in which corporations and people work to continue their existence within constraints of sustainability and ethics? It's simply a choice, and it always has been. Will we choose to add constraints to make the game more enjoyable? Which system of those two possibilities do we want to maximize for its efficiency?

Choose. May you live in the world that your efforts create. Whether my wish for you is a blessing or a curse probably depends on your choice.