"America" is a song performed by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel, which they released from their fourth studio album, Bookends, in 1968. Produced by the duo and Roy Halee, the song was later issued as a single in 1972 to promote the release of Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits.
it's a pyramid scheme
Between 1963 and 2013:
- families near the bottom of the wealth distribution (those at the 10th percentile) went from having no wealth on average to being about $2,000 in debt,
- those in the middle roughly doubled their wealth—mostly between 1963 and 1983,
- families near the top (at the 90th percentile) saw their wealth quadruple,
- and the wealth of those at the 99th percentile—in other words, those wealthier than 99 percent of all families—grew sixfold.
Why is the racial wealth gap so big? People with lower earnings may have a harder time saving. The typical white person earns $2 million over a lifetime, while the typical African American earns $1.5 million and the typical Hispanic person earns $1 million. These disparities partly reflect historical racial disadvantages that continue to affect later generations.
Shuttered, closed... well, America?
😩 Blue Shores... READ
Trump and other politicians may be too busy to care about the reality we see happening across America but many many small towns and small cities have long lived the consequences and experienced it first-hand... we see America's crumbling small town...
Now the towns are doing what they can regardless of an inept federal government... it's up to you and me, too.
Shop local, open your own small business, work with your city leaders to keep building a local economy and grow a local food supply.
Big Box store? No thank you.
What happened to America? #shoplocal
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| Wilson's in Greenfield since 1982 |
We are so very lucky! In 2017, we still have Wilson's, a downtown department store in Greenfield (and plenty of small businesses and a Saturday farmers market). Our town has fought with the city council to NOT allow a big box store.
I grew up in Superior Wisconsin and we had a department store Roth's. It's important to be able to shop and spend local. A department store is a place to buy clothes, underwear, gifts, birthday cards, even mattresses. I bought myself a orange leather wallet at Wilson's for my birthday last year. When I need something, I look there first.
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| Wilson's is where my husband buys jeans |
My sister's small town in Illinois was ruined when the big box came into town. They promised many things and even said they'd advertise with the local newspaper (to get their early support) - but that never happened - and one by one the small stores were shuttered. Out of Business. Out of a job. My sister lost her job.
I understand people need things... they need to shop... they need food, etc.
What happens when you do that at a big box or online - maybe to save a few bucks.
New Report: Wal-Mart Destroys Local Economy ...
New Study: Wal-Mart Means Fewer Jobs, Less Small Businesses ...
What happened to America? If you click on those links, you'll have my answer.
How to handle a meanie
When Someone’s Being Downright Mean
Not every manager is a good one. There’s not much you can do about the way your manager speaks to you, even if it’s rude, unfair, or so irrational that it’s over-the-top.Before you initiate a screaming match that won’t end well for you, take a deep breath and reinterpret your boss’s comments:
- If your boss does this a lot, imagine him as a crazy person who speaks his own bombastic language. Translate inside your head to figure out how would a normal person would express this same thought. “This is a total piece of crap, I hate it, and don’t have any suggestions on how to fix it, but it sucks” may just turn into, “I’m disappointed by these results, so why don’t you get back to me with some constructive suggestions on how you think we could improve our process?”
- Is there any truth in what he/she is saying? Forget the exact words that are being thrown around—are there any takeaways you should note for future improvement?
- Take note of all the helpful suggestions and feedback you dissected from his/her mean statement, and throw out the rest of the words. (Manage Up)
thanks Barry!
So here is my gift to you – a Get Out of Jail Free card for those silly social situations.
Simply print, cut out, and keep in your wallet. If you want to get really serious, then I would suggest laminating it. Whenever you are short on time, or just not feeling it, simply show the card and other people are banned from complaining. Done! You are now free to only partake of the baking, cleaning, shopping, gift-giving, that you WANT to do or that are NECESSARY to keep people clean, clothed and fed. Enjoy the freedom, and you are welcome!
READ:
Simply print, cut out, and keep in your wallet. If you want to get really serious, then I would suggest laminating it. Whenever you are short on time, or just not feeling it, simply show the card and other people are banned from complaining. Done! You are now free to only partake of the baking, cleaning, shopping, gift-giving, that you WANT to do or that are NECESSARY to keep people clean, clothed and fed. Enjoy the freedom, and you are welcome!
READ:
Why Does She Do It?
Cheap Basturd Boss
READ UP: How to Deal With a Cheap Boss | Chron.com
This Guy!
Would you like a "Get out of Jail Free" card from your boss? https://t.co/5i8sOirHzh— My Boss is a Bastard (@MyBossIsABstard) May 17, 2017
OH. OH. read this:Top 10 percent of US households now own 75 percent of our wealth –> That stunning number and a remarkable chart come to us via Pedro Nicolaci da Costa at Business Insider. 
POWER: The Queen of Versailles
I recently spoke with Greenfield about her latest book, Generation Wealth, an enormous undertaking made up of Greenfield’s photography as well as short reflections on wealth and money. Generation Wealth documents the last quarter-century of America’s obsession with and desire for money and the material goods that signify status—and what happens when people lose all of it. The conversation below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Lauren Greenfield: I did not expect Trump to win the election, but when he did, it was kind of like the content of this work, of the 25 years, bearing out. In so many ways, Trump and his rise was the apotheosis of Generation Wealth. There were so many commonalities between him and David Siegel [one of the main subjects in Greenfield’s documentary, The Queen of Versailles, about a wealthy family before, during, and after the financial crisis], from the love for gold and the aesthetic of luxury, to the owning beauty pageants, to beautiful women in their personal life being an expression of their success, to making money in real estate. That’s more for Trump than for David Siegel, but certainly a theme in the book, the power of celebrity.
But I think in terms of the populist part, there’s a quote from Fran Lebowitz that I put in the front of the book about how Americans don't resent the rich because they always imagine that will be them someday. I think that is part of the admiration for Trump. Unlike some other cultures that resent the rich or resent the upper class, Americans admire wealth. READ
The Queen of Versailles is a character-driven documentary about a billionaire family and their financial challenges in the wake of the economic crisis. With epic proportions of Shakespearean tragedy, the film follows two unique characters, whose rags-to-riches success stories reveal the innate virtues and flaws of the American Dream. The film begins with the family triumphantly constructing the largest privately-owned house in America, a 90,000 sq. ft. palace. Over the next two years, their sprawling empire, fueled by the real estate bubble and cheap money, falters due to the economic crisis. Major changes in lifestyle and character ensue within the cross-cultural household of family members and domestic staff. VIA
Gillian B. White: This book seems perfectly timed. There’s not only an ongoing conversation about inequality, but the U.S. has a president who seems to fancy himself a populist, but has also made his name off of flaunting his wealth. What do you make of this moment?
Lauren Greenfield: I did not expect Trump to win the election, but when he did, it was kind of like the content of this work, of the 25 years, bearing out. In so many ways, Trump and his rise was the apotheosis of Generation Wealth. There were so many commonalities between him and David Siegel [one of the main subjects in Greenfield’s documentary, The Queen of Versailles, about a wealthy family before, during, and after the financial crisis], from the love for gold and the aesthetic of luxury, to the owning beauty pageants, to beautiful women in their personal life being an expression of their success, to making money in real estate. That’s more for Trump than for David Siegel, but certainly a theme in the book, the power of celebrity.
But I think in terms of the populist part, there’s a quote from Fran Lebowitz that I put in the front of the book about how Americans don't resent the rich because they always imagine that will be them someday. I think that is part of the admiration for Trump. Unlike some other cultures that resent the rich or resent the upper class, Americans admire wealth. READ
The Queen of Versailles is a character-driven documentary about a billionaire family and their financial challenges in the wake of the economic crisis. With epic proportions of Shakespearean tragedy, the film follows two unique characters, whose rags-to-riches success stories reveal the innate virtues and flaws of the American Dream. The film begins with the family triumphantly constructing the largest privately-owned house in America, a 90,000 sq. ft. palace. Over the next two years, their sprawling empire, fueled by the real estate bubble and cheap money, falters due to the economic crisis. Major changes in lifestyle and character ensue within the cross-cultural household of family members and domestic staff. VIA
get out of jail free card?
it will be funny
BOOM is kinda ditching directions in our next few posts - we can poke fun at the wealth gap, greed, sexism and classism all around us...Don't worry, it will be fun... BOOOM
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| wait, I'm the boss |
Lost Lands? Think with me more
Lost Lands Found by Scientists
Atlantis was a myth (maybe), but real-life lost lands do exist.
A manned research submersible takes a rock sample from the seafloor near Brazil.
Video still courtesy CPRM
Video still courtesy CPRM
A lost continent off the coast of Brazil may have been found, scientists had announced in 2013.
Granite boulders dredged from the seafloor off the coast of South America two years ago could be remnants of a long-vanished continent, according to Roberto Ventura Santos, the geology director of Brazil's Geology Service.
"This could be the Brazilian Atlantis," Santos told reporters, adding that he was speaking metaphorically and not claiming to have found the legendary sunken world. "Obviously, we don't expect to find a lost city in the middle of the Atlantic," he said.
Santos and his team speculated that the granite—a relatively low-density rock found in continental crust—belonged to a continent that was submerged when Africa and South America drifted apart and formed the Atlantic Ocean about 100 million years ago.
But Michael Wysession, an Earth and planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, noted that granite can find its way onto the seafloor through other means. "There are pieces of granite in the middle of the seafloor that date to about 800 million years ago when we had a snowball Earth scenario and there were large pieces of rock embedded in ice rafts"—mobile glaciers, essentially—"all over the ocean," explained Wysession, who was not part of the discovery. "As those ice rafts were melting, large blocks of rock dropped down all over the seafloor."
Wysession thinks that because the ocean floor has been extensively mapped with satellites, it is unlikely that evidence for any major lost continent will be found. "There's nothing that big that's hidden down there," he said.
The Atlantis-like lost, hidden, or fantastic world is a common theme in fiction. There are J. R. R. Tolkein's Middle Earth and James Hilton's Shangri-La, not to mention Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. The original lost land, Atlantis, was first mentioned by Plato around 360 B.C. According to Plato, Atlantis sank into the earth and drowned beneath the seas. Real continents rarely disappear in such dramatic fashion. "Continents by definition are made of low-density rock and cannot be subducted deep into the earth," explained Staci Loewy, a geologist at the University of Texas at Austin.
Nonetheless, there are real "lost lands" like the Brazilian "Atlantis" that have disappeared from view because of rising seas or the geological upheavals of plate tectonics and erosion. "Parts of continents can be worn down by erosion, and fragments can be broken off and isolated as microcontinents when larger continents break apart," Loewy said.
Here are some actual "lost lands" discovered by science.
Pangaea
A supercontinent believed to have formed around 300 million years ago, Pangaea was an enormous landmass that later broke up to eventually form the continents we know today.
Scientists now think several other supercontinents—such as Kenorland, Columbia, and Rodinia—existed before Pangaea, but the shapes of these ancient land masses are unclear.
Rodinia, for example, was a supercontinent thought to have been formed about one billion years ago; it's believed that it subsequently broke apart to form Pangaea.
"Those pieces are now part of the modern continents, but they have been significantly altered by one billion years of plate tectonics and erosion such that reconstructing the supercontinent of Rodinia is very difficult," explained Loewy.
While they appear stationary, Earth's landmasses shift around over geologic time, carried across the planet's surface by the slow, grinding movement of enormous, shell-like plates.
"The surface of the earth is made up of a rigid layer called the lithosphere; the lithosphere is broken into numerous pieces referred to as tectonic plates," Loewy explained.
"These plates move around the surface of the Earth, colliding into each other, creating mountains such as the Himalaya and Andes; pulling apart from each other, creating volcanic ridges in the middle of oceans like the mid-Atlantic Ridge; and sliding past each other, such as in the San Andreas Fault in California."
Mauritia
Scientists earlier this year announced that they had found evidence of a drowned "microcontinent" off the coast of Africa, near the island of Mauritius.
Sand grains from Mauritius's beaches were found to contain fragments of the mineral zircon that were between 660 and 2 billion years old—far older than the island itself.
One theory is that the sand grains are remnants of Mauritia, a lost microcontinent that once existed off the coast of Africa and which was submerged when India broke apart from Madagascar about 85 million years ago.
Microcontinents are shards of land broken off from continents and supercontinents. The distinctions among the three aren't clear-cut, however, and labeling a landmass a continent or microcontinent can be arbitrary since there are no precise size requirements for each term.
New Zealand, for example, is actually part of a large continental structure that includes the Campbell Plateau. "It's not all that different in size from Australia, but because most of it is underwater, we call Australia a continent and New Zealand an island," Wysession said.
Microcontinents can also merge into larger structures. For example, "the north African edge of the supercontinent Gondwana broke up into slices like the pieces of an apple, and each of those [microcontinents] moved north to form southern Europe," explained Louis Jacobs, a paleontologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
Beringia
Though Asia and North America are now separated by a thin strait, it is very shallow—about 150 feet (46 meters) deep—and when sea levels are low, such as during ice ages, the two continents are connected by a land bridge known as Beringia.
According to a controversial theory, humans heading east after leaving Asia some 40,000 years ago found their way blocked by glaciers and were forced to settle in Beringia for thousands of years until conditions thawed enough for them to continue to North America.
Less contentious is the theory "that the Clovis people came over from Siberia to North America about 14,000 years ago," Wysession said.
Scotland's Hidden Landscape
In 2011, geologists studying ocean-mapping data stumbled upon a previously unknown landscape now buried beneath more than a mile of marine sediment off the coast of Scotland.
The hidden landscape, which had an estimated area of about 3,861 square miles (10,000 square kilometers), had furrows cut by rivers and peaks that were once part of mountains.
Scientists think it was briefly elevated above the waves by geological processes about 55 million years ago but became submerged again after about 2.5 million years.
i hear voices
Evening Read
Self-described “psychics” who hear voices could be on to something, writes Joseph Frankel:
“A lot of the time, if someone says they hear voices, you immediately jump to psychotic illness, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia,” [the Yale psychologist Philip] Corlett said. But research suggests hearing voices is not all that uncommon. A survey from 1991—the largest of its kind since—found that 10 to 15 percent of people in the U.S. experienced sensory hallucinations of some sort within their lifetime. And other research, as well as growing advocacy movements, suggest hearing voices isn’t always a sign of psychological distress.The researchers at Yale were looking for a group of people who hear voices at least once a day, and had never before interacted with the mental-health-care system. They wanted to understand, as Corlett put it, those who do not suffer when “the mind deviates from consensual reality.”
Read some of their stories here.
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