Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Washington is a Monument with Feet of Clay

Below is the video from Lt. Colonel’s appearance at the South Florida Tea Party on April 15th.

When the Baron showed it to me I’d just finished reading the April 18th post at The Belmont Club. As many readers know I am a fan of Wretchard’s writing and mention his analyses on a regular basis. This one, “The Washington Monument”, may be one of his finest efforts. Interestingly, it repeats some of the same themes Col. West used in his speech, though from another perspective.

West heartens me; Wretchard leaves me pondering what he’s said. In other words, West is a leader and Wretchard is a prophet (though he might not agree with my estimate here that is how he functions from time to time).

First the video, which was sent to us by our German translator JLH. It’s fun watching the signer for the deaf who stands next to Col. West and repeats what he says:


Now, on to Belmont Club, where Wretchard begins with an analysis of the recent meeting between the White House Press Secretary and leaders of the White House Press Association, who asked for this get-together in order to air their grievances. They're feeling left out of the loop. Talk about high school…they’re upset at being treated the same way they treat the general public. Welcome to the club, Mr. & Ms. Media Person.

Wretchard moves on to describe how things work in Washington (in other words, why the White House Press pool feels so dissed by Obama, though he doesn’t say that directly):

Where one is on the totem is everything in Washington. The idea of hierarchy permeates every situation. Behavior is a question of knowing your place; when to say ‘thank you’ and never speaking out of turn. If you can’t understand the rules you’re a rube. Because of the default presumption that you are at Court; it follows that beneath every courteous speech ultimately you want something from the king or the duke or the duchess.
- - - - - - - - -
There’s a bit of a jump here, with a discussion of Clinton’s remarks the other day about how the current public demeanor resembled what it was in 1994, during the period of the Oklahoma bombing:

…And this is where Bill Clinton has got it subtly wrong.

The former President argued that political discourse had gotten so strident that certain individuals on the right have crossed the line between criticizing government officials and “demonizing them.” Things now remind him of the days preceding the Oklahoma City bombing when Clinton’s unpopular actions were unappreciated by an America lucky to have him.
Ah yes, back when the press drooled on another empty suit. Little did we know back then that their craven behavior was mere foreplay compared to what they were prepared to do for/to Obama. At least Clinton pretended to like “journalists”. The Dauphin doesn’t have to do anything of the sort, so he doesn’t bother. Disdain is Obama’s strong suit.

After a report of Clinton’s interview regarding us restless natives, Wretchard analyzes how Monica’s boy gets it wrong:

The point Bill Clinton is missing is that the danger doesn’t come from right wing ‘anger.’ The anger is just a byproduct. The voices he hears from the Tea Party crowds aren’t threats; they’re warnings. The real peril is coming from somewhere else: the demographic decline in industrial world working populations, the increasing cost of energy and the international movement in the factors of production. A whole generation of failed policy from both parties is coming to a head and it probably means that the welfare state, the European Union and by consequence the Chinese economy are heading for a cliff.

What’s driving the Tea Parties isn’t amorphous hate. It is concrete fear: worry that pensions have been devalued; medical care will become unaffordable; taxes are too high and jobs are gone, never to return. And a look around the world shows there’s no place to hide. When the wave hits it will be global. [my emphasis —D]

In the many back-channel emails we get from readers, those are precisely the worries we hear, and the worries we have ourselves. Our pensions have lost much of their value. It is unlikely the Baron will find work in his field again. Computer programming is a young man’s bailiwick, unless you’re in a government job you’ve had forever.

The financial news talks about the government takeover of private pension monies in order to finance their grand giveaways. So now the question becomes not just “will Social Security be there” but also, “will your company pension be there” or will it have been cynically raided as the Social Security funds have been for generations?

Medical care “reform” is going to be an expensive, fraud-ridden and incompetent failure. Think of Social Security on steroids and heroin. In the form in which it passed, our national healthcare is a disaster waiting to descend. Socialized medical care may have worked in countries where socialism is regnant, but those economies are failing too, and they’re going to take their citizens’ medical care with them. But America, despite the overreach of government and the unions, is not and never has been a polity where socialism could function very well. Despite the valiant efforts of the Obamians and the Keynesians to groom us into becoming obedient recipients of government largesse, Americans are simply too ornery for such plans to work in the long run.

Even now, as evidence of the ‘grey’ market, of services paid for under the table (and thus out of the reaches of the tax man) continues to grow, I wonder how they handle that in Europe. Do government laborers work “side jobs” on their off-time to earn extra money? Is it a huge market and growing bigger as it is here? Or is the surveillance too rigorous for that to happen?

Wretchard comments on the current situation of world governments:

In the UK membership in political parties is at near historic lows. In America Congress’s popularity is lower than whales**t. The Eurozone is cracking up under its weight of debt. First Greece, now Portugal are being ripped off the cliff face like a zipper - and all the climbers are roped together. Japan is like a kamikaze sub heading for the depths and tapping out a sayonara. Russia was history long ago. And China, when it has used up its flowering moment, will face the consequences of its one-child policy. And Middle Eastern potentates, stuck in the same old, same old, are warning about a Summer War [the link to that War at his post is worth following].
Thus, as W. says, “the Tea Parties aren’t about putting some country club Republican in the White House…” And they never have been. The Tea Parties are a phenomenon of the rising of a movement toward individual state control, sometimes to the exclusion of the federal behemoth. Washington has every reason to be afraid of that desire that West expresses to shrink the bureaucracy.

Then Wretchard circles ‘round to the beginning of his essay with this passage, worth reading and re-reading:

The cheese-paring scene at the White House Press Corps is just as indicative of the coming storm as the Tea Parties. It is yet one more sign that the old institutions are making plans for a future that isn’t there; moving trillions of dollars in projected revenues around a five year plan like Hitler’s fictive armies were moved around a map in 1945. When you hear Gordon Brown describe the billions he’s going to spend to save the world and heal the planet; when you read news about the proposed legislation on “cap and trade”- the issue isn’t the “right wing hate” but where’s the money going to come from? The most telling fact about Bill Clinton’s speech is that 2010 reminds him of 1994. If he - or the political establishment - can’t tell the difference between the decades, that’s your problem right there.
Amen.

Bill Clinton, and the Democrats in general, are stuck in 2008, when they thought they had it nailed. Unfortunately, circumstances beyond anyone’s control have handed them a large mess. Their response, a kind of manic, drunken spree, has the electorate afraid of them. Our response has been to begin to work to get rid of those currently in power. They have become part of the problem in our very troubled future. Their solutions are bizarre, scandalous, and deeply cynical. In that sense, this is indeed a transparent administration.

I only hope the few decent folks in our current national legislature are not washed away in this tsunami of fear. I pray that citizens will look carefully at who it is that represents them in Washington and choose to retain those who are attempting to hold back the deluge of bad legislation in this shameful 111th session of the American Congress.

As Col. West said in several different ways during that speech, the most important thing facing federal, state, and local governments is re-establishing fiscal security. In order to do that, a lot of bulls are going to be gored. The next five years will not be pretty, not anywhere.

God help us all.

28 comments:

1389 said...

I haven't been able to find work in the IT field for over two years, despite getting extensive retraining and certification in Microsoft network administration.

It seems that, despite all of the burdensome bureaucracy that was supposed to guarantee a work environment free of age discrimination, nobody is hiring women over 55 in this field, at least not in the US.

Dymphna said...

That's discouraging. It is no different for men. The IT field is supposedly for the young guys, the older ones can't get hired.

The mistake you and the B made was getting old.

Dymphna said...

BTW, our carpenter said it's the same for him. No one wants an old carpenter, even a wizard like this guy. He can restore anything, but it's not a valued skill.

The only jobs are in government, if you're under 50 and you can get a clearance.

Anonymous said...

Here we don't handle it. For example, they made cigs more expensive - we just buy them from Moldova and pay taxes to the Moldovan government since they're smaller. About work? Declare less of your income or work for cash. I actually have some respect for people doing tax avoidance.

If I was China, I'd let the yuan rise to it's real value and repeal the one child policy. And the private retirement accounts are overvalued. Think of what you Americans do - you buy stocks that don't pay dividends or are overvalued and then sell them and buy bonds when you retire. What if there's no buyer? What most people have in their 401ks and IRAs is worthless courtesy of the FedGov and FedRes. The market is still extremely overvalued in the US if you look at the P/Es and so on.

And don't expect social security to be there. The US has over 80 trillion of unfunded liabilities and they're impossible to meet. Watch this. Anyway, from what I recall seeing, the US would spend it's whole budget on welfare in 40 years. A history of the US debt.

Here more than 47% is a net leech on the rest. Allen West is good. :P

Another thing, Europeans don't have work ethic anymore. In an interview people in Hong Kong or Asia will ask you how much they can work, Europeans will ask how much time they can take off.

Anonymous said...

Yes, working under the table is increasingly common in France. Many people manage a living just by collecting state handouts, plus doing a few undeclared odd jobs for cash, from time to time. Unfortunately, I've never seen any figures for that.

The situation varies from country to country. In Greece, taxes used to be a joke (it's one of the reasons of its present predicament).

I have a Greek friend who once went to the tax office to pay a stack of overdue parking tickets. The clerk gave her a puzzled look and asked her : "Are you sure you want to pay this ?". In other words : get the hell out of here ! Nobody ever pays overdue parking tickets ! Are you crazy or what ? She did the right thing and walked away.

I've personally come to the opinion that evading taxes is actually a moral duty : to yourself, to your family, and even ultimately to the nation. Feeding an army of overpaid, underachieving and meddling civil servants destroys the country. If you'd asked me a few years ago, I would have said the opposite.

A few months ago, I was sitting at a café next to a table of immigrants. There was a very vocal black lady there, who kept saying how much she liked President Sarkozy. (This is supposed to be provocative, coming from a person of immigrant background, since Sarkozy got elected partly because he promised to eradicate ethnic crime.)

The reason she supported him was that she was able to live out of state handouts, rented a nice city council flat for little or no money and a splendid view on a park in a posh neighbourhood, and was adamant that were anyone to offer her a paying job, she would refuse it : no need for her to work. She quoted various figures out of her budget in order to convince her friends.

It's only when some civil servants' wages will be cut by 20 %, or when the fire brigade will be closed on Sundays, that people will start to react.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

@rebelliousvanilla,


"Europeans don't have work ethic anymore."

Those lazy white people ...

Neoliberal nonsense.

X said...

Robert, I can see your position. I've never particularly liked taxes, but I always worked on the assumption that they should be paid because they shuld be paid (sort of a tautology, I know, but there are underlying reasons that would take too long to explain). Now? Well... I've had a few brushes with local government officials tha thave left me so cynical about their behaviour that I simply refuse the idea of paying tax unless I have no choice. I'd already got myself set up to avoid a great deal of tax by putting my earnings through a limited company, but I never countenanced evading it until recently. These days I take cash whenever possible.

And for the record, europeans do have a work ethic, though I suppose that depends on your definition of "european" to a great extent. Every country in Europe has a different idea of what "work ethic" means... on top of which, the problem is that it's so easy not to work and still live in most western european countries. That isn't a lack of work ethic, it's basic human nature - if people can get by without having to put in effort then most will do just that, no matter what their general work ethic. The way to figure out who has the good work ethic is to see how they act when they can't get by without effort. People with a good work ethic will work. People with a bad work ethic will still be lazy buggers and try to get along without working.

In fact, living in a situation that actively punishes hard work (such that if your earnings go up, your actual take-home income starts to go down due to the extra costs imposed by the state) will quickly force people to go Galt and stop working - or stop working in a way that would be picked on by the state. They'll still put their back into whatever they do but they might not be "productive" any more - at least, as defined by the state.

Anonymous said...

Regarding work ethic in France : it's going down the drain by the minute. You can see it everyday.

Most of the time, when you deal with a company, you know more about the technicalities of its business than the company's representatives themselves.

Let me give you an example. I'm certainly not a finance expert, but I know how to read and how to make a division. That's enough for me to see that the guaranteed interest rate and growth of capital did not add up on an investment I made (a very simple, run-of-the-mill product ; nothing fancy).

I pointed that to my "financial advisor" at the major French and worldwide bank which sold me the investment. This guy is not my regular contact at that bank. He is supposed to be the senior type, the super-duper specialist you get to talk with when you really need some out-of-the-ordinary financial advice.

He agreed that the end-of-year capital was lower than it should have been, given the promised interest rate. First, he tried to explain the discrepancy by the fact that his own electronic calculator was not accurate enough. (WTF ? A financial specialist at a major international bank who does not even use a decent financial calculator ?).

When I challenged him over this ridiculous explanation, he agreed that the figures on the bank's own statement did not make any sense. One of his colleagues was called in, and could not provide any explanation either.

Would they try to ring one of the tens of thousands of people working at that very-well known bank, many of them highly qualified and paid astronomical salaries, since several of them certainly know the answer ? Nope. Are they concerned by the fact that they deliver obviously false bank statements to their customers and make false promises ? Nope.

The very same people, after this, call me personally at my home in order to try and sell me other investments. They can't see the connection. They don't care. They just go through the motions.

I have a hundred such examples.

Dumb, and dumber by the day.

Deliberate dumbing-down of education + mass immigration of illiterate people + relentless promotion of hatred for authority, hatred for knowledge, hatred for our intellectuel heritage, hatred of the old + relentless promotion of "rebellion" and distrust of the established order + nanny state = this.

We have yet to see the results. For the moment, it is still happening below the radar.

Anonymous said...

Robert, it's funny, but I have a similar view on paying taxes. Not paying them isn't immoral since it's your own money and you can't steal your own money and the money is usually used against your interests anyway, so who cares? Here we have a flat tax rate, so I guess it's sort of more fair, but when we had a progressive one, nobody paid taxes properly - everybody worked for around the minimum wage. lol

Here a MP proposed to give gift certificates to retired people worth of about 0.5% of GDP. I burst out in laughter when I read it, considering my country is borrowing money like there's no tomorrow to pay the overpair, overemployed public workers and retired people. I'm always shocked when retired people complain that they only get 3-400Euros as retirement checks. That's more than I'd get if I worked, so why complain? You also own a house that is worth, a lot of times, over 100,000Euros, so why should I pay for your handouts? Then I get the retired people who complain about how expensive my city is like they're forced to live in it. If I was a retired person, I'd sell my house and move to a small city and live it up with the money I got for the house. Now, some of you might say that they want to leave the place to their kids, but then the kids should take care of them, not me.

4Symbols, I'm not a neoliberal, but I am able to see the truth. I also have relatives who employ people and I know the expectations that silly unemployed people have. Sadly, it's the truth. Ask someone you know that hires if the people who show up don't care more about how much time off they will have, benefits and so on than how will they actually help the company and how much time will they be able to work to deserve their wages. I know of cases here of idiots with no experience that can't do anything expect two times the average wage, team building and a lot of other stuff. It's sad, really. The most hilarious part was when people complained about the government putting socio-professional classes at odds - it's not like they take from my parents to have these people employed, of course, it's class antagonizing. When you take from Paul to give to John, Paul will always be pissed. These people seem to believe that Paul should shut up, or otherwise he is a mean, class antagonizer. Also, it's hilarious to me how the government is trying to set up wages for docs and teachers. They reached that point in socialism where it's obvious that you can't calculate prices without a real market.

Graham, compare the mentality that other people have. Look at the way nations act - they just want to thrive, not to slack off. I do agree about the tax system and I would abolish the income tax completely, but still, the mentality of most people in Europe is work aversion.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces


@Robert Marchenoir,

Have been arguing against the deliberate dumbing down, mass immigration etc. etc. since the eighties in the U.K.

The Neoliberals are now going in for the kill to destroy the white underclass by abolishing welfare.

Do you think U.K. "conservatives" will defend this indigenous class?

Most "conservatives" will not see the logic in defending welfare, the very word is like a red flag to a bull - a "conservative" bull in a China shop.

EscapeVelocity said...

The Neoliberals are now going in for the kill to destroy the white underclass by abolishing welfare. --- 4Symbols

Thank goodness. Id much rather not have a white underclass. The sooner they are destroyed, the better. Id much rather have a white working class.

Anonymous said...

4Symbols : I do not know enough about British Conservatives to offer an intelligent opinion about their intentions.

Two remarks however :

1. "Neo-liberals" do not exist. There are classical liberals, who believe that freedom of the individual is paramount, and that the power of the state must be severely curtailed ; different flavors of liberals have different degrees of aversion towards state intervention.

And there are statists, who are socialists (confusingly called "liberals" in America).

"Neo-liberals" is just a smear word. I never hear about "neo-socialists" or "neo-communists", in spite of the fact that these ideologies are over a century old.

2. It's welfare which is ruining the underclass, and society more generally. A small amount of welfare is a good thing. But it should be limited to very few people. It should remain the exception. When welfare becomes a way of life, a principle, when a society is led to believe that the more welfare, the better, then you have a sure recipe for moral and financial ruin.

The former British doctor Theodore Dalrymple, whose profession led him to deal everyday with the underclass, explains this very well in his books and articles.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces


@EscapeVelocity,

Thank you for taking the part of the neoliberal "conservative" bull in the panto of neoliberalism.

Do you honestly believe that the overnight striking of subsistence welfare in the UK will magically turn at minimum 2 million people into masters of the universe like opening a child's pop-up book with a sculpture of a instant "conservative" economic utopia. The reallity will be ghettos surpassing any in the third world a neoliberal utopia.


@Robert Marchenoir,

1. "Neo-liberals" do not exist.

Neoliberalism panto audience participation - "He's behind you!", "Oh, yes it is!", "Oh, no it isn't!".

2. "Arbeit Macht Frei"

Anonymous said...

4Symbols :

"Arbeit Macht Frei"

This part of your comment is correct.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

Would not be surpised that the British neoliberal chattering class were behind the theft of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" legend with the intent of erecting it a the entrance of the social housing scheme where I am in residence.

Kyrie eleison

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

"The root cause of our contemporary cultural poverty is intellectual dishonesty." - Theodore Dalrymple.

Where is the intellectual honesty from a man who was willing year on year to take the thirty pieces of silver as salary from the welfare state.

EscapeVelocity said...

I sense a BNP voter....disgruntled at Labour only for importing Islam and foreigners, but loves socialism.

EscapeVelocity said...

Linky

Why work when I can get £42,000 in benefits a year AND drive a Mercedes?

excerpt...

The Davey family's £815-a-week state handouts pay for a four-bedroom home, top-of-the-range mod cons and two vehicles including a Mercedes people carrier.

Father-of-seven Peter gave up work because he could make more living on benefits.

Yet he and his wife Claire are still not happy with their lot.

With an eighth child on the way, they are demanding a bigger house, courtesy of the taxpayer.

snip...

At their semi on the Isle of Anglesey, the family have a 42in flatscreen television in the living room with Sky TV at £50 a month, a Wii games console, three Nintendo DS machines and a computer - not to mention four mobile phones.

With their income of more than £42,000 a year, they run an 11-seater minibus and the seven-seat automatic Mercedes.

But according to the Daveys they have nothing to be thankful for.

continued...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... cedes.html

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

@EscapeVelocity,

"I sense a BNP voter...."

Why should there be a problem with the BNP being part of the democratic process, having said that my own politics are a wee bit more sophisticated and you would probably be surprised whom I voted for the last time I voted in a UK general election, but in this general election I will again be withholding my mandate.

Historically being an advocate of subsistence welfare puts my conscience in the same league as Winston Churchill who said -

"There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies."

The first person I ever met that argued against welfare was a communist and the second was a socialist - thats true.

As for the Daily Mail article - ripen the fruit then crush - administer to the point of absurdity and then annihilate.

Dymphna said...

I'm a bit late to this party, but...

4Syymbols quoted Churchill:

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies...

Say what?? That's what mummy's breasts are for; what the community has to do with her breasts escapes me. A child's nutrition is a family project, NOT a community project.

I had no idea Churchill was a precursor for Hillary Clinton. Egad!

More sins against our communities have been committed in the US by those Dems spouting off about how what they do is "for the children" while they continue to rob blind future generations.

People producing those babies need to be working to support their offspring (at least when their jobs aren't ripped from under them).

In some of our grocery stores, the expensive canned baby formulas and better brands of disposable diapers are under lock and key along with the cigarettes.

Also, what's wrong with working for the state as a physician? Should he have resigned and worked in the private health sector in the UK? Was it possible to do that when he was practicing medicine? I thought socialized care was preferable. How does the NHS provide care without providers?

Dymphna said...

Oh well, the Daupin is Europeanizing us all. We shall have the VAT soon, and a deformed version of socialized medicine.

The VAT on top of all the other taxes, too. I looked at my grocery receipt from yesterday and the taxes are broken down this way:

2.5% food

5.0% non-food (rubbing alcohol, ammonia, and sponges in this case)

4.0% prepared food (the broiled chicken was on sale for cheaper than I could buy and prepare it)

Compared to the North, we're a low tax state. Sheesh.

Anonymous said...

Welfare creates and destroys the underclass. By the way, 4Symbols, you don't have subsistence welfare in the UK - subsistence means that you get cheap food and a crappy place to live in, not hundreds of pounds, car, nice house and so on.

Dymphna, here we have 19% VAT on everything. :D If I had a lot of land, I'd look into agriculture. lol

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

@Dymphna,

The absurdity of canned baby formulas held under lock and being displayed in a glass cabinet like an artifact in some future museum of western civilization illustrates the madness of neoliberal politics from both the left and the right.

The contention is that welfare is a conservative value that has been turned into an absurdity by left/right neoliberals priming both the grocer, mother and baby for destruction.

I believe churchill would have sought a way to liberate the fomula in the interests of both families to nurture western civilization.

Theodore Dalrymple, YES he should have resigned to maintain his intellectual honesty, I would have.

@rebelliousvanilla,

Being one of the underclass that you speak of this gives myself greater insight into the political workings of the UK welfare state. That knowledge is not from anecdotal evidence from left/right neoliberal motivated trash tabloids but from years of empirical evidence. Quite literally I know where all the neoliberal political bodies are buried.

Anonymous said...

4 Symbols, you say :

"Theodore Dalrymple, YES he should have resigned to maintain his intellectual honesty, I would have."

and :

"Being one of the underclass that you speak of"

I suppose it goes without saying that in order to maintain your own intellectual honesty, you have refused any of the benefits that you are possibily entitled to, thanks to the British welfare state (no subsidised city council flat, no unemployment or disability allowance, etc).

Zenster said...

Dymphna: In some of our grocery stores, the expensive canned baby formulas and better brands of disposable diapers are under lock and key along with the cigarettes.

This one simple observation speaks volumes about modern society.

Ostensibly, cigarettes could be under lockdown solely because there are age restrictions on their sale. Although lots of liquor isn't behind glass so that explanation doesn't quite fit. Therefore, a more likely conclusion is that they are a high theft item. To be sure, some shoplifters are doing it in order to resell their loot but there is also a portion that is simply addicted.

The baby formula and disposable diapers are an altogether different matter. Like tobacco or alcohol, both of these heavily promoted products have significant impacts upon people and the environment.

The increasing rates of children who have allergies are, to some degree, being traced back to lack of breast feeding during infancy. The transfer of immunity to infants conferred by breast milk is a critical link in post natal health. Often, for cosmetic reasons, especially in Asia, human lactation is intentionally suppressed in favor of more convenient infant formulas.

The reduction in maternal bonding and aforementioned health issues all make the role of formula one of dubious value. Commercial promotion campaigns for it were, at one time, so successful that government regulations forced the placement of language on containers urging mothers to use it only as an alternative to breast milk.

Disposable diapers are another modern product that poses serious consequences as well. All flexible polymers obtain their elasticity from compounds known as phthalates. These chemicals fall into a category known as endocrine disruptors. Environmental surveys performed at sites adjacent to factories with high phthalate discharge rates have found a pronounced increase of aquatic wildlife exhibiting hermaphroditic or ambiguous reproductive system formations along with physical deformities.

A human infant’s thin skin is far more prone to osmotic absorption of complex chemical compounds like phthalates and the post-natal growth phase is very sensitive to even minor hormonal imbalances. Placing an infant’s genital area in direct contact with the phthalate treated polymers found in disposable diapers along with the high moisture environment involved presents a potential risk for direct uptake of these endocrine disruptors. Far more publicity centers on the presence of these compounds in plastic baby bottles than in disposable diapers where uptake rates are probably orders of magnitude higher.

Another dirty secret, literally, about disposable diapers centers on the environmental aspects of their use. Much ink has been devoted to whether the laundering of cloth diapers consumes more or less energy than using disposable ones. Few industry sources will bother to inform consumers about how many of these disposable diapers are going into our landfills. Conservative estimates are at the 10% level while other while others range as high as 30%. This represents a tremendous amount of human waste that is diverted away from appropriate sewage treatment facilities and, instead, being buried in landfills where the fecal matter can be leached down into the water table.

None of this addresses other equally serious and problematic issues of why people are having babies that they cannot feed and clothe without resorting to shoplifting. When compounded with the health and environmental impacts cited above, there emerges a disturbing portrait of a society dependent upon marginally performing technologies whose downstream effects have been insufficiently accounted for.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled discussion.

Zenster said...

To clarify:

Conservative estimates are at the 10% level while other while others range as high as 30%.

Those percentage figures reflect the entire bulk mass of measured landfills.

That's right, up to 30% of a landfill can consist of disposable diapers.

That is a HUGE amount of human excrement being introduced directly into our environment.

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

In hoc signo vinces

@Robert Marchenoir,

What are you talking about Dr. Theodore is making the same analysis more or less of what went on in the U.K. as my own in this video lecture.

The Bureaucratic middle class looted Britian not the underclass.

Are you reading his books upside down?

The Moral Roots of Economic Crisis