It’s easy to talk about socialism in the abstract, but hardly anyone tries to imagine and codify exactly what socialism in the United States could be like.

David Schweikart has a vision of what our society could be like after socialism replaces capitalism:

"[T]he Marxian vision of a new world is one in which the work I do — the work we all do — is both challenging and satisfying. Through work I develop my skills and talents, and have the pleasure of contributing to the well-being of others. The work I do involves my body as well as my mind, physical dexterity as well as intelligence — capacities that have been nurtured through education."

“Jobs, jobs, jobs” – that’s the recurring refrain by I-69 proponents claiming that the interstate highway will bring economic development to Central and Southwest Indiana. But after nearly 21 years of opposing I-69, Thomas Tokarski says about that claim: “It’s bogus.”

“The myth of highways as economic saviors and bringers of jobs is very engrained in people’s minds. People don’t even question it anymore; they just assume that’s the case,” he says.

The reality is very different from the myth.

Global climate change is having profound effects on human health.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), by 2020 climate change-induced ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog, will cause millions of respiratory illnesses and thousands of hospitalizations for serious breathing problems, including asthma. The cost will be about $5.4 billion.

Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It, by Paul R. Epstein, M.D., and Dan Ferber (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), probes the topic of climate disruption’s effects on health in depth.

The Dilbertization of discourse

What's the nature of professionalism? What does it mean to "act professionally?"

My dictionary defines "professional" as one engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime. In other words, the primary definition of "professionalism" is pecuniary. It's a link with money. Specifically, how to get it and how to keep on getting it.

Professional is often contrasted with "amateur." Particularly where the latter term is use pejoratively as in, "He's just an amateur."

I sit on something called the Monroe County Economic Development Commission -- a (mostly) advisory commission to the county government's fiscal body, the county council, on matters of local economic development. In fact, I'm currently the commission's president -- a title that carries no additional powers or responsibilities but, like so much born of the state legislature, exists for existence's sake.

Every year around this time the economic development commission reviews the status of all of the county's tax abatements. A tax abatement is simply a grant by the local government to rebate all or a portion of a property owner's property taxes, in the hope of fostering some degree of economic development that wouldn't exist otherwise.

And every year we try and take some measure of whether or not that spirit of development is holding.

News Release
Consumer Federation of America

A new report from the Consumer Federation of America by Dr. Mark Cooper, "Building on the Success of Energy Efficiency Programs to Ensure an Affordable Energy Future," shows that federal energy efficiency policies can leverage real and largely untapped potential to save consumer's money and create a cleaner, healthier environment with lower carbon emissions.

This report also concludes that incorporating energy efficiency programs in federal climate and energy legislation would substantially reduce the cost for consumers.

You wouldn't know it from the propaganda emanating from the Statehouse, but things are bad in Indiana. Like real bad. Indiana is among the top-tier states in both mortgage delinquency and mortgage foreclosure rates (a strong indicator of economic distress) and is absolutely hemorrhaging jobs. As Morton Marcus pointed out in his column today, in 2008 and 2009 Indiana lost over a quarter of a million jobs -- the third worst percentage decline in the nation.

But the governor seems to be either (blissfully?) unaware of the state's true situation, or he's purposefully ignoring it. Listening to his state-of-the-state speech, I couldn't help but feel I'd been transported to an Orwellian neverland, where bad is good and good is all around.

Toyota makes me think of America.

"How's that?" you ask. "Toyota cars and trucks may be popular with Americans, but they're made by a Japanese automaker." Of course, Toyota is a foreign car company. More precisely, Toyota, like other auto giants, is a transnational corporation with manufacturing plants and dealerships around the globe. Heck, some of the defective parts involved in the Toyota recall were made right here in Indiana.

Nevertheless, all of the problems and bad press swirling around Toyota gets me thinking about the good old USA.

Of all the irritations that come with making a living as a university professor, and there are quite a few, the inability to do much in the way of "reading for pleasure" during the school year is at the top of my list. I'm talking minor irritants, mind you. Don't get me started on the major league indignities that come with working in academia. In any event, at this time of year I like to kick back and catch up on some reading: fiction, nonfiction, it's all good.

One item I've been meaning to read for some time now is Canadian journalist Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I've read any number of Ms. Klein's essays for The Nation, Mother Jones and other progressive publications. What's more, I've heard her speak on many occasions -- most recently during Democracy Now!'s exceptional coverage of the climate change meeting in Copenhagen earlier this month. However, this is the first time that I've sat down to read one of her books.

It's apocryphal, but the urban legend goes that Albert Einstein was once asked for his opinion of mankind's greatest invention, to which he curtly replied "compound interest." Compound interest, the underpinning of economic exponential growth and an utterly necessary device for the proper functioning of any economy hardwired for exponential growth, the simultaneously simple and devilishly complicated instrument that is the beating heart of the industrialized world.

Every economic transaction we make is colored by compound interest. We borrow a couple hundred grand to buy a house, make a two grand a month payment on it, yet still owe more than a two grand difference between this and the last payment. Why?

Compound interest.