List of Previous Titles

Saturday, February 27, 2016

A change to take our breath away!



The United States of America is currently dealing with a real crisis of currency in that in spite of the printing presses running 24/7 they are not able to print enough dollar bills to cover their needs, and they never will.

It therefore appears that serious consideration is being given to scrapping the system of using cash altogether. In other words the United States would become the first country in the world to be cash-less.

Whether this prospect is true or not I simply wanted to think about whether it would be possible or practicable; and what would change for the better or the worse. I am not saying that it will happen, I leave that to others who make a study of such things. It has been suggested that something serious might cause a major disruption on March 15th of this year, but we will just have to wait and see.

Apparently the majority of economic transactions that take place are done so digitally. Perhaps as much as 93 to 95%. Over the past week I have closely monitored my spending and I have only had to spend a maximum of ten euros in cash on one day for the lottery because I am not allowd to use cards to gamble. Otherwise, I routinely spend only between 20 cents for parking to less than ten euros in shops that operate cash only businesses. In my case, I'm 99% there.

In a cash-less society I think the first thing that will go is corruption. Guilty politicians will no longer be able to look forward to little brown envelopes. Any efforts at bribery by other means can be tracked because someone will have to make a purchase or a sale.

The black market business of dealing in drugs is cash driven. How would drug addicts get their fix if they cannot use cash? Would that drive drug cartels out of business, and would the gangs that are so brutal and murderous have any other reasons to stay together?

The people trafficking business that is so callous about human life would hopefully cease to exist. Those people are monsters and do not deserve to carry on their activities, but they are a cancer on society. Very concerned people would like to see the end of what they do, often sending people off to their certain death because they have been paid, but they are like cockroaches, they are seemingly endless in their numbers.

The end of that group would also have a positive impact on the business of prostitution, but the actual trade of sex for money could continue as even today services can be paid for by card. If a woman chooses of her own free will to sell her body and pocket the reward, I don't have a problem with that. However, when others attach themselves to her against her will than I do have concerns.

In order for a cash-less society to work, absolutely everyone in the world would need a card and a bank account with a positive balance and an income. There is that end of society that live on handouts from passersby, so if I don't have some change in my pocket to give, the person who has been able to rely on me will be in hard luck.

There are many businesses that are traditionally cash based because they are small enterprises, and high volume. I suppose that some accommodation would have to be made to keep their businesses functioning as they are necessary to our way of life.

The positive changes, other than cleaning up our society would be to the financial system whereby all transactions would happen by the stroke of a computer keynote. In the world of very high finance that would spell relief.

For the rest of us, I'm not so sure yet.

Copyright (c) 2016
Eugene Carmichael 

Sunday, February 21, 2016

There are none so blind.......



...as those you just don't want to see.  I'm talking about Global Warming, and the fact is that we are in the midst of February and we have had lunch on the terrace where we found it to be too hot. This is the middle of winter, yet we have been having days like this for over three months. Yes, we are very much enjoying the days, that do turn cold at night to remind us what season this is, but how can anyone deny that the planet is warming.

It has been called an Inconvenient Truth, which for some no doubt it is, but the truth is the truth. When I encounter someone who chooses to believe that global warming is not happening I simply cease to be a part of the conversation. Why should I stand there and allow myself to be annoyed by some simpleton. That person may not be the problem, but if he or she is someone who needs to be doing something in response to the warming of the planet to reduce man's input to the problem, and they don't even accept that it is happening, then we are really in trouble.

What could be some of the reasons why someone who is supposed to be intelligent would deny the fact that it is happening? If you have an interest in the coal industry you are being blinded by your financial interest. In your heart of hearts you may quietly realise what is going on, but you are reluctant to take any loss at all by reducing our reliance on coal. There are some very big names in this group who continue to simply close their eyes to what they are helping to happen.

I think that anyone else must be acting out of sheer bloody mindedness that they would rather not face up to the truth of the situation. However, Mother Nature is trying to open our eyes through examples that are crystal clear. Hot winters and even hotter summers should convince us that we are in the warming cycle. Weather has its cycles just as economics has its own.

As if we needed more convincing come the Summer we will probably have to contend with a plague of mosquitoes and flies and cocroches whose numbers were not diminished by the severity of cold weather that was needed, and if last summer was anything to go by we may find this summer to bring  killer heat.

So, inconvenient it may be, but the truth of the matter is that warming of the planet is with us, and it is growing worse by the season.

At some point we will all either take our heads out of the sand and accept the truth, or we will have to bury our whole bodies in the sand just to escape the heat.

Copyright (c) 2016
Eugene Carmichael 

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Happy St. Valentine's Day!



A man once said that we men make a great mistake when we tell a woman that we love her because she will find an inexhaustible number of ways to make us prove it every day for the rest of our lives.

Having said that ladies, when you tell us that you love us, Heaven knows you must come to regret it in so many ways because we can be a real test of your resolve.

Love is the great leveller of men and women. We meet someone, or even just see that person passing in the street and something happens to us over which we have no control. We fall hard, head over heels in love, or in the case of women, perhaps heels over head in love, and we have no idea why. They say that opposites attract, which means that we will spend the rest of our lives in mortal combat with one another. In a word, falling in love means falling in a lot of trouble. It's a honey trap to both men and women, and trying to avoid it is like trying to avoid breathing. You can achieve the objective, but then you die.

Well, those are all the bad things I can think of to say about falling in love, but once we are in love the joy and the feeling of being alive is without parrallel. When two people are purring along in perfect sync all is definiately right with the entire world. There is no other feeling that can compare. We soar like eagles and we are truly kings and queens of the world. Stand well clear of our coming crash zone, as crash we will, but for the time we are sailing up in the clouds we are the happiest we will ever be.

As men and women we are put here on earth to do our part in the furtherence of the species, so all this feel good experience is simply the setting for us to procreate, so we should get on with it and at least replace ourselves with children, and ideally to give the world at least two spares.

As different as we think we are compared with others around the world, we are, in fact exactly the same. We gain our fundamental education, a job, and someone to love with whom we create a family. The rest is all politics.

Once a year we set aside a day to celebrate love. Why not? We celebrate all manner of other things not nearly as important as love, so a day to declare our love for at least one other person is appropriate, in my opinion.

If you love someone and you need that person you're a very lucky individual. Take the time to smell the flowers and to savour the feeling of being loved and appreciated.

Happy St. Valentine's Day to you, and to me.

Copyright 2016
Eugene Carmichael

Sunday, February 7, 2016

The declining institution of Marriage




When I was born people in my geographical zone were given very little time to live by actuaries. Because of our lifestyle and our access to health care, and the quality of health care, I was expected to live to a maximum age of forty-seven. That placed a lot of pressure on me to get my primary and secondary education done, and to get a job, find a woman, get her pregnant and have our children before we dropped dead. Consequently I married at age seventeen.

Fast forward to today when it is forecast that today's babies will have a maximum life expectancy to age 85. Today's babies have all the time in the world to get the same things done, so when I noticed that people were getting married at much later stages in life I naturally presumed that was the reason.

In many cases I suppose that is the reason, among others like economics, but it appears there is another much darker reason. In the Western world, particularly in America, home of the super independent woman, men are pushing back against a trend that has seen ruined lives almost guareented from the time he marries the love of his life.

Women naturally want equality with men and they want their own economic independence. You may say there's nothing basically wrong with that, except if they don't need a men to depend on, do they need a man at all? There has been a trend and a trap against men where he marries, participates in bringing children into the family, and then finds himself forced out of the house and into a life of financial servitude to a family from whom he is barred.

Because we men are our own worst enemy we will make it easy for a wife for whom this is the ideal situation. We are bound to do something stupid where we run head first into the wall of intolerance. To make matters worse, the first thing we do when forced out of the family is to look for another woman.

Men are on strike! They are refusing to make The Proposal because they simply realise that they will most likely be shooting themselves in the foot. The woman can still have her children, but she will have to fend for herself in finding a home. He will give her child support, which will leave him money to live on, but he is very reluctant to tie himself up legally because there hasn't been any such thing as happily ever after for a long time.

The pendulum has swung too far to the other side. In most things the ideal is in the middle, so one can only hope that there will be movement back from the abyss. However, these things take time and they don't well advertise themselves. It has taken my whole lifetime to move away from the traditional to what we have now, but it need not take another lifetime to move the needle to the centre.

In the name of happiness and hope, sooner would be better than later.

Copyright (c) 2016
Eugene Carmichael