Category Archives: Economy

Developers are Destroyers

Developers are destroyers. I do not know why we did not take that away from the nineteen eighties when suburban development left us with instant slums and urban redevelopment resulted in acres of vacant land.

I do not know why whole “underdeveloped” countries stripped of their minerals, wildlife and forest lands did not clue us in that development is destruction by other than military means.

Now “economic” development is the new flavor, but claiming ownership of natural resources and taking them to market for a buck has the same result. The majority of the people are no better off.

Once the land is stripped of vegetation, wind and water complete the devastation. But, perhaps that is the point. As the young woman said, when her site plan was turned down, if she didn’t get permission, she’d just clearcut the forest without a plan.

Arresting development is sounding better all the time.

Saint Simons Marina Update

MAY of 2017

MAY of 2018

Private enterprise has long been touted as the route to excellence and high quality service. Very likely, the St. Simons Fishing Club used that argument to get control of the little marina at Gascoigne Bluff.  Which is not , by the way, for the “benefit of the citizens of Glynn County,” but happens to belong to them and is being grossly abused. That the same situation can be found at the Brunswick Marina on Glynn Avenue, as well as the Surf Sailor Club on St. Simons, would seem to confirm that good stewardship is not a concept honored in these parts.

Wherever you look, Glynn County resembles  a third world country. And believe me, I know of what I speak. After all, I lived briefly in Chile in 1953 and saw it with my own eyes.

“The Big Short”

Warched it this morning on a netflix disk.

The only point of disagreement is that more like $14 trillion, rather than $3 trillion was “lost.” But the people who could not make their mortgage payments and lost their jobs were not the victims of the hedge fund speculators. Rather, the speculation is enabled and promoted by a Congress that rations the distribution of currency and the hoarders who soak up whatever they can grab.

Hannity’s Investment in Glynn

When it was first announced that Sean Hannity had partnered with the Department of Housing and Urban Development on a project in Glynn County to the tune of $14,750,000, I couldn’t find anything in our GIS records and could not remember a project of that size having been undertaken in 2014. Now I know that the reason I could not locate the project in question was because it was completed in 2008 under the ownership of another Limited Liability Company, MULBERRY-LEGACY BRUNSWICK LLC.
Continue reading →

SNAP, etc

Sidney Lanier says:
Sidney Lanier SNAP is a subsidy program for food producers and distributors. A regular subsidy to individual households, as Switzerland is proposing and as both Nixon and McGovern supported in the ’72 election, would be more equitable and efficient. But, that would violare the fundamental prejudice that people have no money because they do not know how to manage it. Which of course is contrary to the reality that all dollars come out of the U.S. Treasury and, if people have none, it is because they were given none from the public purse and have not been clever enough to steal some. See, the problem with paper and electronic dollars is that they are inedible, undrinkable, unwearable and non-protective. Indeed, unlike the gold and silver, of which they used to be made, they cannot even be turned into artifacts or baubles which someone might value more. A cross of gold would be more useful than a pallet of Benjamins. Personally, I think anyone with an eleemosynary impulse should start carrying some Benjamins and hand them out more or less at random to people who will spend them and prime the economic pump. The dollar’s current has been slowing since about 1991. See that graph?

Right to Work

“Right to work” should be rephrased as “Right to Obey.” The proponents are not interested in products, but in obedience. The recent emphasis on “workforce development” points to the direction they are heading. How to force people to do what they are told. Apparently, the example of starving humans is not having the desired effect. The crash of 2008 did not have the desired effect, either. Although many people were removed from the labor force, data suggest that the “recovery” has not brought them back.
Continue reading →