Spirit.

Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus is, in my opinion, one the all time great albums of the late 60’s early 70’s. Spirit were one of the first bands to incorporate jazz in to their music. Fresh Garbage is one example. But one of their greatest songs was Natures Way. It was kind of a hippy anthem, and rates as one of the best of an era:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsTK2LHZKPQ&feature=related

More Nudder Captions . . . Again!

The Iggy Donnelly Disease: Socialistic Capitalism

Iggy Donnelly and Son practicing "Here comes the Sun" by Geo. Harrison

On Monday morning, NPR broadcast a story about how the U.S. Economy is drifting toward European styled socialism.  NPR interviewed a German couple, the wife/mom from New York had married a German man and the couple now live in Germany.  The couple have a five month old child for whom the family receives from the German government two-thirds of the mom’s salary for one year after the child’s birth.  Like the U.S., Germany has an aging population, and thus they are interested in incentifizing the birth of babies.  The tax rate reflects the generous German program – the couple pay about half of their income in taxes. I had an email friend who lived in Germany who worked for a community college that offered all types of education absolutely free.  This program sounded like a for real “free university”.

Revealing my potential biases, I work in, and have for several years, a health care  field that is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Government.  Even though he had some distracters ( See: Amity Shlaes, The Forgotten Man), I believe that FDR was able to leverage the power of the U.S. Government to reverse a crushing economic depression in the 1930’s.  I think there were academic and artistic advances in the 1930’s that would have been impossible without the New Deal.

Regarding the points that he U.S. Economy may be moving toward European socialism, a bigger safety net sounds good to me.  So does greater regulation that protects the public from the reckless capitalism that hurt people who did not contribute to the problem, nor had any way of benefiting from the risks.  But as we have seen from the very end of the Bush administration, these same marginalized people had much to lose from the reckless speculating of the wealthy.

Tuesday, 08/04/09, Public Square

Happy birthday President Obama!  Born August 4, 1961, he is celebrating his 48th brithday today.  All at Prairie P&Ps wish you well, wish you a pleasant peaceful productive (those three Ps again!) day!

What’s happenin’ around your way, bloggers?

fnord