Where does the time go?

 We were discussing modern times and why people don't seem to volunteer anymore.

There are many reasons and while all can be overcome, it is how we respond to the changing world that will decide if we succeed.

What has changed in the last 40 years, since Den Mothers and Little league coaches had a surplus rather than a shortage?  Having lived through this time, let me throw out some reasons.

1. The 24 hour 7 day a week life.  No longer does the world shut down for Sunday, nor do the TV stations close up shop at 11pm.  With the Internet going full blast, and other forms of electronic communication set for warp speed, there is no structured down time.  Your boss email you at 3 in the morning?  Just because they can't sleep, shouldn't you?  Want to catch that concert you missed?  Before when it was missed - it was done. Now you miss nothing due to delayed streaming and YouTube.  

2.  The self service culture.  Yes online ordering is convenient, but it also takes more time.  Funny about that; we know what we want, but instead of just getting it, we spend hours comparing prices, shopping venders, reading all the reviews, and in the end, after chasing down the delivery , we decide to return it!  Then we go to the store, where we repeat almost the same procedure, except there, much of the time we are the price checker, checkout person (self service), bagger and delivery person - all in the name of convenience.  Shopping has become a end in itself rather than a quick necessity to fill our needs.  And medical forms - now we are working for the health care providers in maintaining our own health records*

3. Self publishers. This blog is an example. I end up writing something once a week, and I have multiple blogs.  But you don't have a blog you say.  What about those 20 posts to Facebook, the 35 responses to others cute cat (or kids) video?  If your phone "screen time" is 2 hours a day , that is 14 hours a week, 728 hours per year!  Now some time is spend answering emails (what did you do before you had a "smart" phone - if it is so smart - why does it not answer your emails for you), but we live in a world of PUSH technology - you open up your Facebook page and there are 30 post waiting for you to read.  Before you would just look at only things you wanted to look for - PULL technology.  

Aside - STOP SENDING ME SURVEYS!  I go to the doctor - get a survey.  I buy something at the store - get a survey.  I look at website - get a survey.  I even got a survey of how I liked a survey!!!!  

Now there are other things that tire us out, distract us from what we should be doing, and in general suck up the time we used to have for free.  What do we do?  How do we claim our lives back?  More to come.....

*Being aware of your health is not a bad thing - filling out the same information over and over because they cannot agree on a common system is another time waster.

Tax Cuts and Spending - When is the right time

 All Republicans want to do is cut taxes and spending.  All Democrats want to do is raise spending and taxes.  Both are right - it is the timing that is wrong.

Republicans tend to cut taxes when times are good - makes sense, right?  More money in people's pockets. 

The only problem is when things are great, people HAVE more money in their pocket.  This is the time for paying down the deficit (which Republicans seem to abhor - the deficit that is)   You can spend a little more, but that tends to lead to inflation unless the spending is targeted.  

When things are tough, cutting taxes and increasing spending seems to be counterintuitive, but actually it is something the government can do to help get the economy going again, provided as it gets better it eases off and slowly raises taxes and moderates spending.

Yes it is a balancing act.  In the preceding case, raising taxes to pay for increased spending goes hand in hand.  People have to see a value for their increased taxes.  But we have been off cycle for so long, it would take either a massive change, which would be disruptive to the economy, or a long gradual adjustment, which would not satisfy the "we want the world and we want it now" crown on both sides.

The economy is not totally a zero sum game, but it has it's limits.  Trying to stay within the limits is getting tougher every day.

Factual Conspiracy or just a good guess...

From Hot Air:

 From this article on Havana Syndrome

“What a strange story this turns out to be if there are in fact no attacks and no hidden weapons. I guess there’s a lesson here about believing something is the result of planning and (hostile) intelligence when in fact that wasn’t the case.”

From this article on the origins of Covid

“Only willful blindness would prevent anybody from at least suspecting that the COVID virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

And by suspecting, I mean believing that the virus’ emergence into the human population likely resulted from a lab leak. Unless the Chinese admit that this is the case we may never have definitive proof, but other scenarios strain credulity.”

Conspiracy Theories are part of Survivor Bias.   You forget the dozens of ones that go away and only remember the ones that either are proven true or those that come anywhere near coming true.  In this case it is just like taking a guess on everything and then claiming knowledge and wisdom if one comes true.  The real test is to keep an accurate score of right and wrong guesses.