They are stuck in a cycle of digging up a particularly heinous sample of fraud, corruption, ignorance, stupidity, spin or greed. The commentators then respond with suitable exclamations of shock and horror, or by offering their own competing instances of skullduggery. After 50 to 150 remarks, all goes quiet again until the bloggers post their next outrageous tidbit and the pattern repeats.

Whatever is going on here is hardly commensurate with the scale of the catastrophe that awaits us.

There are plenty of sites that do couple thought and action like yours and http://www.Avaaz.org

By the way, here is your link again – URLs in brackets do not work here.

http://www.showdowninchicago.org/index.html

So, is the dearth of action:
- Utter disillusionment and loss of faith in macroeconomics?
- Academic abhorrence of anything practical?
- Fear of power brokers and becoming branded political troublemakers (surely a bit late to worry about that)?
- MIT timidity (hasn’t Baseline Scenario played down that link enough already)?
- Or what?

I do not believe it is a lack of understanding of where to start or what to do to make their case more compelling. This is the age of Wikinomics, Groundswell, We-Think, Here Comes Everybody. MIT has a Centre for Collective Intelligence. Obama, himself, is an object lesson in surfing the social media.

My gut feel is that it is simply that – like anorexics trapped in a dysfunctional frame of reference – Simon and James just can’t see their way out of their rut.

So, come on people. It is not good enough for Susan Hockfield to bemoan the need to downsize, If ever the world needed thought leadership it is now.

It is simply not true that those of who understand the true nature of the issues that gave rise to the Baseline Scenario are doomed to being helpless victims shouting in the wilderness. As your own research has clearly shown, small groups of dedicated people are able to affect massive change, through means dictated by circumstances. That is called leadership, and *all* social change, positive and negative, is the result of leadership.

In that light, I call upon us all to ACT in order to reform not only the U.S. financial sector, but by doing so lay the foundation for the more just society we all seek.

I challenge you, dear sirs, to exercise LEADERSHIP by committing yourselves to acting on your convictions. It is only through acting on your convictions that you will provide the best possibility for seeing them realized.

In fact, you are already intellectual leaders of a gathering movement, even if you have yet to realize it. You have it within your power, yes power, to provide necessary sustenance to this movement. In the immediate term this can be done via the following:

Post information about the Showdown in Chicago (http://www.showdowninchicago.org/index.html), a protest against the same policies that you also oppose. You need not endorse the action, merely help publicize that people who hold views very similar to your own (i.e., Dean Baker) are brave enough to act.

When you find yourself on major media outlets, like Bill Moyers, mention that there are grassroots organizations fighting this battle. Again, not an endorsement, just assist us in letting people know such organizations do exist and they can decide for themselves whether joining such an organization is good use of their time.

Provide free speaking engagements to organizations like A New Way Forward (I am a volunteer member of a local ANWF organizing committee), who would absolutely be honored to hear from you.

This is just a start, but it might have more impact than you realize.

At the very least, please do not help perpetuate the notion that, unless we happen to be a member of the oligarchy or in a position of extreme political power, we must be resigned to our fate on the short end of the stick.

Sincerely,

W.E.B Crawford
Volunteer Organizer ANWF-Bay Area

Life is a sexually transmitted disease that always ends deadly.

Recently there have been stories in the news about employees at Wal-Mart, Safeway (grocery stores) and others rewarding employees for good health habits with lower insurance premiums. This is a trend which I imagine catching fire quite quickly because it has saved money for Wal-Mart and it does provide people with an incentive to get their act together. Although really the incentive to maintain health has always been there, but I guess people in today’s world have to be slapped in the face with that incentive by looking at the monetary bill.

My story is about buying time to do research as cheaply as possible.

For 20 years prior to taking my SS at 62, I cut my expenses everywhere I could in order to afford time on the book-keeping research. I quit insurance because my medical costs were way less expensive than the insurance. I went on to macrobiotic food to cut my medical services. That and exercise. I took SS at 62 to get a medicare card.

However, when the card came along the home remedies worked so well I found myself more trusting in the home remedies than is the medical attention that a medicare card would buy me.

Part of the macrobiotic advice was to take no drugs, which I have followed since 1991. And so the card sits in my pocket unused.

I know that my case is an exception. People will argue that I have been lucky. But in terms of runaway medical costs, I found an alternatives that not only helps reduce runaway costs, it helps me to have a more fulfilling life.

I read a statistic that on average a medicare card holder spends $8400.00 a year. Suppose there was an advantage to me for saving the government that much money? Might more persons follow the route that I took? Particularly when the doctor is providing services that are designed to fatten is gross receipts.

When insurance takes the consumer out of decision process relative to cost of service,

http://www.geocities.com/egfrothos/FourthCrusade.html
Though the Nikean exile had strengthened and purified Byzantine culture, the Empire had been too badly damaged and its decline could not be arrested. By the fourteenth century an Arab geographer related seeing “sown fields within the City and many ruined houses”. The Imperial Palace was in ruins the last Latin Emperor had stripped the lead off the roof to pay his debts. A city which had housed one million people lay almost deserted.

You are right that as the beast starves there will be concessions and some attractive offers made, but as long as you realize WHY you are doing it, it shouldn’t take too long.