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The scraggly oak trees intertwine their branches in a tall ceiling that shades the entire drive. Here, the appropriate view of the eternal isn’t blue and bright, but sheltered and close to the ground. The rows of marble and granite dazzled by bright flowers have their own quiet redemption as the slow speed limit and a gentle wave from each passerby gives the setting grace.
This is Oakland Cemetery, Saint Paul’s municipal cemetery, founded in 1853.
Jobs are scarce and workers are feeling the pinch all around. Republicans would have you believe the government is to blame, limiting growth through bureaucracy. Democrats would have you believe that companies are simply greedy. But is the income of American workers really limited by a lack of growth or the avarice of a privileged few?
The short answer is just a bit more complicated. The distribution of the income has changed substantially since postwar America changed sometime around 1968. It’s not a failure of government or even the greediness of corporations, but a change in the most important market there is – the market for the talent and hard work of ordinary Americans.
After the mechanized cruelty and destruction of World War II, two important works of literature tried to capture the feeling of despair. Along with well known 1984(1948) by George Orwell, there is the lesser known Age of Anxiety (1947) by W H Auden. Both of these cast a shadow we still live under, twisting our language to defy and define a mechanical world not entirely fit for humans. Auden’s more romantic treatment is worth the read if for no reason other than its resonance today. Continue reading
There is a rhythm to economic reporting. More than just the seasonal adjustment that makes up most of the fudge in the economic reports, each story has a progress on its way to becoming something suitable for the mainstream media. The biggest stories often take a full year, passing several well defined milestones.
This delay has to do with several factors. Conventional wisdom seems to rule, which is to say that old news affects the narrative long after it is not exactly true. But the cycles themselves suggest that the real problem is that many reporters really don’t understand what markets and market movers are telling them.
On Monday, 12 May, the first comprehensive energy bill in seven years died in the US Senate. It was an amazing bill full of small energy saving provisions that had nearly universal, bipartisan backing. What killed it was an amendment that would attempt to force President Obama to make a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline – though how effective even that would be is far from clear.
This was a moment rich in irony because this pipeline has long stood in the way of a comprehensive energy policy. Now, it has killed the most simple and obvious conservation measures. Not long ago Barataria backed the continuous delay of this pipeline because better and more inclusive ideas seemed to be bubbling up the longer it was stalled. This piece is a continuation of that one.
There is no substitute for a real energy policy, something that every developed nation except the US already has. In place of that we have a patchwork of projects here and there and very little real control over the situation to protect the environment, conservation, and even basic safety. That has to change.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 