Skip to main content

The World In Which We Live: Safety Is An Option Edition

In a world in which Fight Club, The X Files, and the complete works of Phillip K Dick have collided into one twisted reality we call normal (with a dash of Black Mirror and The Big Short for flavor), we now learn that software upgrades that could have prevented the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max passenger jets were available... at a price. "Want your passengers to live to fly another day? Sure, but it'll cost you." And I'm unsure who is more evil, the manufacturer for making safety features ON A FLYING MACHINE optional at additional cost or the airlines for declining to install the features. This is a stunning failure of human decency in the eyes of this writer.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. This is business as usual in our extortionary economy. In the US, medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy, a real-world manifestation of the "your money or your life" ethos of the street thug in literature and film. The hand wringing over what should be done differently continues as the pace increases. Corruption. Fraud. Violence. The wheel spins faster. And we look on helplessly.

This is the world in which we live on this 28th day of March, Year Of Our Lord 2019.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Regarding Keeslyn

In January 2020, a young lady named Keeslyn Roberts disappeared from a fuel station near my home. The case remains unsolved. This post will examine the actions, and lack thereof, of those in authority, and how this contributes to the case remaining unsolved. But first, a little backstory. As a teen, I lived in the same neighborhood as the Roberts family. Keeslyn's father, Eric, is older than I, and I don't recall the two of us having much interaction. His sister, on the other hand, is the same age and we've been friends for over 40 years. It was she who told me about Keeslyn's disappearance and the family's frustrations with the lack of police action. To learn more of the specifics of the case, numerous podcasts and news stories are available online. To my understanding, the police reaction to the disappearance has thus far been little to no reaction. After no word from his daughter for several days, Eric went to the fuel station where her car was parked. He th...
Post a Comment
Read more

How To Beat A Billionaire - Updated

If you've spent any time at all on this site, you will have noticed I have an interest in investing. I had no interest in finance until my mid-40s, when I took a job at a printing company in which one of the partners is a CPA. I learned personal finance the hard way, struggling with credit card debt in my early 20s (it was the 90s; I blame the guitar and camera stores). After digging myself out of the hole I was in by age 27, I was cautious to avoid debt anytime I could. Investing, aside from employer retirement plans, was not on my radar. Fatherhood really spurred me into action when it came to investing. There's simply no way a savings account can outpace inflation; if you want to thrive financially, investing is the best way to get ahead. So, with encouragement from my boss, I began to study and learn. Investopedia and The Balance proved to be immensely helpful. In time, I opened an account and started buying exchange traded funds (ETFs) and was on my way. I read a few...
Post a Comment
Read more

Big Trouble In A Small Town

Big trouble is brewing in a neighboring town. Cedartown, Georgia has a scandal of its very own: an affinity fraud in the form of a Ponzi scheme is allegedly being perpetrated by a building and loan organization. The target: conservative Christian Republicans. The alleged perp: a fellow conservative Christian Republican, tho there's nothing conservative about the amount of money bilked: $140,000,000.00 from approximately 300 victims. That's a stunning average of $466,667.00 per victim.  Affinity fraud is nothing new. For a prime example, just search the name "Bernie Madoff" and you'll receive a Master's thesis of information. Like Madoff, the head of the building and loan targeted those who felt they could trust their fellow traveler. Also like Madoff, the alleged perp promised  unusually high returns on investments in distressed businesses. The returns were rumored to be in the area of 8-18%. I'm no financial guru but if my business needs a loan with a 1...
Post a Comment
Read more