She was my cockatiel since March or April of 1993.  She died this afternoon, apparently of abrupt liver failure according to the vet.  I knew she was getting old and feeble, so I had thought quite a bit about how gentle I'd like her end to be, if I could make it so.  As it turned out, her last hour was in increasing discomfort and fear.  Many years ago, a friend asked me if I would cry when Bitsy died.  Yes, I did.  For her death and absence, but also for my failure to ease her pain and panic.  She certainly deserved better, being as she was one of the most enjoyable creatures I have ever lived with. 

She was named "Bitsy" for her narrow beak and slightly smaller stature.  She couldn't eat the big seeds of regualr cocaktiel mix, so for her whole life she ate budgie mix.  She had no taste for treats, fruits, or veggies, except for millet, which she could strip bare in a single day of enthusiastic gorging.  Most of the toys we ever put in with her got dusty from neglect, and my attempts early in her life to teach her to speak went absolutely nowhere.  But she could be entertained for half an hour at a time with a toothpick.   I'd hold it in my fingers and she'd work her beak up it to pull it away.  Just as she succeeded, I'd grab the other end, and she'd just start working down the other way, still trying to pull the toothpick out for herself.  When she eventually won, she'd chew it happily for ten or twenty seconds.  She also loved to climb the wooden stairs we had for her until they broke.

Bitsy's personality was a strong contrast of affection and ornry.  She liked to be out - until she was ready to be back in the cage.  She was warm to me and to dad (even preferring dad after I left for college), but never trusted mom or my brother.  She bit more often than she needed to, even drawing blood from mom's finger once.  But once you learned exactly how to stroke her head, she would let you get away with just about anything, as long as you kept it up. 

I will miss her alarm calls whenever she heard the front door or garage door open.  I'll miss the way she'd fly back to me.  I'll miss crawling on the floor with her, watching her explore.  I'll remember the futile eggs she laid, the drop of blood on her nostril from her first encounter with a glass window, how tame she'd act the week after a nail and feather clipping, the way she scared my brother's cat last week, and how she finally figured out at the end of her life that the vaccuum cleaner wouldn't harm her, but never quite got how my chin stubble wasn't something for her to try to eat.

Goodbye, my Bitsy bird.

An excellent article from 411mania that seems like good plain sense.

The Great Prosperity Lie
Posted by Mark Radulich on 11.08.2010

30 Years of Easy Credit, Free Lunches and the Destruction of the American Middle Class.

The default position in political discourse today is to blame our collective woes on the other man's political party. Conservatives accuse liberals of trying to remake the US into a socialist paradise, condemning the economy to having to shoulder the burden of cradle to grave entitlements that stifle economic growth. Liberals accuse conservatives of trying to remake the US in to a caste system of ultra rich and powerful individuals/corporations while simultaneously reducing the remaining 98% of the population to a new kind of serfdom. Conventional wisdom teaches us that usually the truth is somewhere in the middle but there is still the compulsion in (at least) the American psyche to run screaming from good common sense and instead adopt the "tribe" mentality. The psychological factors that have fans at each other's throat during a soccer game is the very same that has us fighting over which economist is in possession of absolute truth, John Maynard Keynes or Jude Wanniski.

In 2008 the world economy suffered a trillion dollar credit collapse. Though some tried to apply sober, non-partisan explanations for how this event came to pass, it wouldn't take long for opposing political operatives to use the economic collapse to create further divides among the American people. The most frustrating aspect of bearing witness to the last two years of discussions about what has happened to the economy is how much of what led to the collapse has been completely either misrepresented or misunderstood. And even if that wasn't the case it seems as if more people are interested in having their own political beliefs justified than they are in really understanding what has happened.

For example, many on the Right argue that Ronald Reagan's economic policies created exponential economic growth and that if we'd only go back to whatever those policies were we'd be out of this financial quagmire faster than you can say voodoo economics. Still more argue that Keynesian economics would actually work if the government would just spend more money than they have up to this point. This sort of argument usually breaks down into one side blaming Reagan and Conservatism for all of our problems and in turn the other side blames liberals for everything that has gone wrong. In fact, one of the biggest misunderstandings of history comes in the form of the belief that from 1980 until 2008 (with the occasional dip here or there), the US experienced great, unmatched prosperity due to this policy or that belief. Reagan has been lauded for bringing us out of the malaise, Bill Clinton has been lauded for presiding over an economic boom, George W. Bush gets credit for untold growth due to passing a tax cut, etc. The problem with all of the above is that they are myths. There has been no actual prosperity for Middle America for decades now.

How could that be you ask? It's simple really to understand just how we've all been sold an unending supply of snake oil. As with most things, the devil is in the details and as you'll see, it has less to do with political parties and more to do with our own tendency to want "free lunches".

Our story begins at the end of the world…that is to say the end of World War II. Prior to Europe having not one but two Great Wars, the US was considered something of a backwater and in terms of global superpowers, we did not rank. We had a strong economy but it was almost all directed internally between Reconstruction, Manifest Destiny and geographic isolation. However, after most of Europe and Asia's industrial complex had been razed the fact of the matter was we were a super power by default. Of all of the major industrialized nations only the Soviet Union and we were left relatively unscathed. So when people talk about the great economic boom of the 1950's you have to put that into perspective. The global market for goods was basically ours for the taking. What has been lost to modern historical antiquity is the fact that we had a network of factories that were no longer needed for the war effort that could be repurposed to make everything from toasters to cars. For the next 15 years nobody, including the Soviet Union could compete. Let's not continue the hyperbolic, jingoistic and flat out wrong belief that we had all of this prosperity by virtue of just being an unapologetic bastion of capitalism. We had a moment of unchallenged growth. Then the moment passed.

I point this out because it's the next phase of history that often gets completely misunderstood and is devoid of proper context. By the 1960's both Europe and Japan had rebuilt enough of their agro-industrial infrastructure to place them both back into the global marketplace thus providing competition for American goods. The world had begun to dramatically shrink for the first time since the Age of Exploration. For example, in the 1950's containerized shipping began to take off, which dramatically lowered the cost of exporting goods. In 1967 we had the world's first televised satellite transmission, which resulted in the furthest points in the world being only seconds away. Not only did this cause the US to have to loosen its monopolistic grip on the global market it also is the beginning of outsourcing in terms of jobs. In addition, what was once a great geographic divide in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that contributed to America's unrivaled economic growth suddenly and without anyone realizing the long-term consequences, those oceans were reduced to decorative ponds. America was not only no longer alone in the world we were suddenly on a Japanese subway car with the rest of the known universe. Also still, though it would be years for this to come to fruition, labor began to lose some of its gains for the first time in a century.

When discussions of the Cold War are bandied about, what people usually focus on is the underlying story of "Freedom VS Tyranny" in America's proxy war with the Soviet Union. America's involvement in Korea and Vietnam are discussed with our attempt to combat Communism in mind. That might have been the marketing strategy but the real story is how both wars affected our economy. In the case of Vietnam, we opted to pay for that war by printing dollars instead of raising taxes while greatly expanding the newly created entitlement culture. President Johnson could have done either the Vietnam War or the Great Society without having to raise taxes but attempting to do both eventually led to stagflation. The only thing you need to know about stagflation is that most people's wages did not keep pace with the cost of living. It would be several more years before the infamous Carter Malaise speech but the foundation of America's economic woes really began during the Johnson Administration. For the record, he was a Democrat and the Democratic Party dominated Congress. This is what I mean when I say there's plenty of blame to go around.

Carter often gets maligned both for how he dealt with the Iranian hostage crisis but also for how he handled the economy after the OPEC oil embargo. While I am no fan of President Carter it is important to keep the era in which he resided over in perspective. Our recessions were no longer localized or cyclical but were in fact structural. Snoopy or Superman could have been president and they would have had to deal with these issues. That's probably one of the difficulties in managing the economy in the post WWII-Reconstruction period. So much of what keeps the gears moving in the economy is out of anyone's control. It's easy to place blame at the footsteps of our elected officials for messing up the economy but in all fairness, they have no more control of it when things go south than they do over the weather. With that said, Carter had the dubious honor of being the first American President to deal with the consequences of a burgeoning global marketplace. You're a hero when you make people rich and there's no competition (Google, Microsoft, etc.) but you suck when you can't quite navigate the perils of world trade. Carter didn't have good answers for how to strengthen America's position in the world economy. That's not so much his lack of ability or intelligence but rather just the circumstances of having to deal with the new world in which we are even now struggling to understand.

That brings us to Ronald Reagan and the thirty-year lie. Like the movie Memento I will start at the end and work backwards. We are in the position we are in now, that is a trillion dollar economic correction, because we were all too willing to buy into the religion of "free lunches." Thirty years ago we basically stopped dealing with reality in terms of economics and instead looked for an easy way out. It's like we knew we were overweight but instead of reducing the portions of food we ate, we allowed ourselves to believe that shooting heroin makes for a great diet. Sure it felt good and it would be years before we realized the damage we were doing to ourselves but in the short-term boy did we look fantastic! Simply put, credit became our heroin.

Back to Mr. Reagan; He ran on the concept that America was not on a decline but that its best years were ahead. He famously stated that "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." He meant that regulations, originally meant to protect workers, needed to be curtailed if not completely done away with and he packaged this message in the idea that "Government" read: regulation, was preventing the average American from pursuing the American dream of small business ownership. He also promoted a culture reminiscent of the Spirit of '76 in that he was vehemently against the high tax rate of the day. Reagan famously cut taxes much to the joy of the richest amongst us but did not get (nor did he seem to ask for) anything resembling a spending cut. He famously gets credit for outspending and eventually bankrupting the Soviet Union but seldom does anyone bother to ask just how he was able to pay for his vast military build-up. Essentially he robbed the Social Security and Medicare funds to pay for his spending increases and the tax cuts that everyone seems to remember so fondly. Meanwhile, this set the stage for the immeasurable sums of money that would be borrowed for the next 20+ years. What people fail to realize about this era is that despite popular myth, Reagan didn't solve the economic problems we had at the time; rather he punted them down field. And the last and most important aspect of Reagan's presidency was that he presided over the loosening of our lending laws. Money may not grow on trees but from the 80's until 2008, credit pretty much did grow on trees. Interest rates have been kept unrealistically low for various periods of time resulting in masses of people and business' having access to credit that the real economy could not support. To be clear, nobody cried about this when it was happening. The banks liked it because it increased their profits. The Republicans liked it because they could say they kept taxes low. The Democrats and eventually George W. Bush liked it because then poor people could buy houses. And we all liked it because we could maintain the illusion of middle class life even though our wages couldn't support it. Nobody realized how deep the hole was until we were too far buried in it. The sun always rises in the East and people never reject a "free lunch."

Since 2008 both sides of the political spectrum have accused the other of causing the systemic banking failure that has caused our current economic situation. As I've previously written, both sides were responsible for the banks and credit card companies giving away money like candy on Halloween. Reagan may have been president but control of Congress was split between both the Democrats and the Republicans. If what Reagan was doing had been considered a terrible thing by his peers back then one would think they would have at least gridlocked his agenda. Clearly that is not what happened.

So what is the Prosperity lie? The Prosperity lie is simply the myth that America's economic growth was rooted in something real and not an illusion. If we consider consumer spending to be a factor in measuring prosperity from the bird's nest one can argue that America did grow. But saying the economy is resting on a bed of personal credit purchases is like saying you built your castle in a swamp. From 1975 to 2005 consumer debt rose from 62% of disposable income to 127% of disposable income. Payment for debt rose from 11% of disposable income to 14%. In other words, the only thing being bought over the last 30 years was credit interest. In 1980 there were 300,000 consumer bankruptcies in the US. In 2004 there were 2 million consumer bankruptcies before the Bush Administration had a collective plotz and changed the bankruptcy laws making it exponentially harder to be granted said bankruptcy. But we are a hardheaded lot and since 2004 bankruptcies first dropped to 600,000 before rising to 1.3 million and counting. It doesn't get much clearer than this. The prosperity lie is that none of the economic growth we've been led to believe was happening was actually real when you consider the unpaid debt that accompanied it. Time has come to collect on the "free lunch."

Lastly, as I've mentioned there was absolutely no change in wages over the last quarter century but the cost of living rose exponentially. This is akin to trying to pay for your everyday expenses with your credit card and believing that said credit card is part of your income. In addition to the average American taking on debt the size of a small African nation, there were also changes in the home that hid the rising cost of living. For example, 34% of women were working in 1950. By 1998 that number rose to 60%. Many families were able to maintain their middle class lifestyle by adding a second income. While this may have been done voluntarily, had families not done it the fact remains that many more people would have fallen out of the middle class. Generally speaking, lower wages doesn't translate to growth. Alongside of this was the cost of childcare and the growing cost of non-parenting that has been the long-term consequence of many (but not all) two-income families. So with all of these tax cuts we've received, the cost of caring for our citizens has eaten much of our GDP, which was then covered by borrowing from outside nations. Again, long-term borrowing for short-term expenses is not real growth or prosperity. Those that have said otherwise are lying. Neither party is willing to level with the voters, choosing instead to make ludicrous promises because they really don't have any clue how to fix a trillion dollar banking correction. Tax cuts have been tried over the last 30 years and as I've already written, one cannot prove causation in terms of growth. Standard Keynesian stimulus no longer works because we do not have a monopoly of the manufacturing market and recently we've lost our edge in the intellectual market (thank you Jersey Shore).

Clearly one of the ways we can begin to make some change is to stop treating politics like an Islander-Ranger hockey game. Along with this I would include those of you who are so cynical you see no value in our current political system. Tuning out is no better than choosing sides. Holding all politicians accountable for their actions is better than only attacking the opposition party and looking the other way when yours does the exact same thing. Again, a trillion dollar economic correction doesn't go away over night and is not so easily absorbed. Many of you are anxious for a permanent solution but much like a stomach virus, the only cure is time. Some of the misery can be mitigated but the fact remains, nature is stronger than human action.

As for our economic woes, the solutions begin at home. It will take decades in the best of circumstances for the correction to complete. There's nothing anyone can do about that. You personally, as I've written before, need to take responsibility for your own actions, including spending. Dave Ramsey is an advocate for doing away with credit cards, that is a good place to start. Education, whether it be academic or technical is the life's blood of economic survival in this age. As far as government goes, we need to invest in infrastructure repair and equally important we actually need to pay for it. I don't know where the hatred of taxes came from but it makes no logical sense to expect government services (schools, hospitals, military, safety nets, roads, security, etc) to be paid for by magical fairies. We can quibble about how government will collect those taxes, whether it be through income or consumer spending or whatever but the fact remains that if you want to live in a country with electricity, clean water, working roads and some sense of security then you have to pay for it. Saying that you would if not for all those darn welfare queens is not going to fly in a democracy. There are just as many cheats in the private sector and only Michael Moore wants to do away with capitalism. To be clear, you pay just as much for a welfare cheat as you do for someone who runs up his credit cards and then declares bankruptcy. Let's not waste anymore time arguing over who is worthy and who is not or which political party is godly and which is satanic. That has proven to be rather pointless and clearly a distraction from the bigger picture.

From a country song dad liked to sing:

"I was looking back to see if you were looking back to see if I was looking back to see if you were looking back at me."