« Back

In The Scheme of Things

Ken Melvin | July 30, 2022 10:01 am

Climate Change

“What’s in it for me?” they asked. They being the transactional species. “Truth be, nothing,” was the answer. Truth be, there was nothing they nor anyone else could do in their lifetimes that would make it better for them, their kids, or their grandkids. Too late. So, they kept on doing the things that would kill the very thing that had given them everything.

There was a time when they believed that this that had given them life and everything else had done it for them out of its love for them. A time in the past when this species sought to give back. But, that was a while before. For some time now, it has been, “What’s in it for me?”

In space, time is distance. From self-centered and self-absorbed to one-way transactional is hardly a small step in space-time. But a speck when compared to all time. Not even that. All time is in billions of years.

Oh well, it was a noble experiment; even if short. As in all the universe, here on earth the search for equilibrium will continue. Little doubt, some of earth’s species will survive; maybe even a few million of these transactionals. For sure, not enough for them to wreak havoc again for a good long while.

5 Comments

Jim Hannan says:

July 30, 2022 at 12:08 pm

I can imagine Greta Thunberg as the head of the EU in a few years.
- run75441 says:
  
  July 30, 2022 at 2:06 pm
  
  Jim
  
  Maybe it is time for such . . .
Fred C. Dobbs says:

July 31, 2022 at 3:45 pm

On a somewhat shorter term…

Manchin pitches Democrats’ tax and climate bill to silent Sinema

Bloomberg – July 31

Senator Joe Manchin, the architect of the Democrats’ new tax, climate, and drugs bill, made a public pitch to his colleague Kyrsten Sinema to get on board with the legislation, arguing that it doesn’t raise taxes.

Sinema has not divulged her position on the bill and has the power to sink it.

Manchin made his pitch in a series of Sunday political talk show appearances where he defended the proposed Inflation Reduction Act as cutting price increases despite a study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School showing it would have little impact or could increase inflation slightly in the near term.

Democrats are seeking to pass the bill this week in the Senate and in the House next week. Doing so would require all 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus to vote yes on the bill and defeat a slew of Republican attempts to amend it. It would also require all 50 to remain Covid-free and able to endure a long vote series.

Sinema’s office has said the Arizona Democrat won’t make her position known until later in the week at the earliest, after the top Senate rules official has scrubbed the bill of any non-budgetary items.

Manchin said he doesn’t know if Sinema would vote for the bill, but she should.

“She has so much in this legislation,” Manchin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The West Virginia senator said tax changes in the bill don’t amount to tax rate increases, something Sinema has opposed, citing the economy.

The bill would impose a 15% minimum tax on large corporations and make changes to how carried interest is taxed to try to force more hedge fund managers to pay their income using the individual code’s higher rate. It would also beef up Internal Revenue Service tax audits by paying for more personnel. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  July 31, 2022 at 3:53 pm
  
  And sort of related…
  
  Democrats Gave Mitch McConnell a Taste of His Own Medicine
  
  New Republic – July 29
  
  … On Wednesday, the Senate minority leader and the entire Republican Party were blindsided after Democrats came to a surprise deal on the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that would raise corporate taxes, provide green energy funding, and cut prescription drug costs. Republicans were seemingly upset because they felt they had been tricked into passing additional legislation on Democrats’ agenda.
  
  Shortly before the deal was announced, Republicans had joined with Democrats to pass a bill that would provide $280 billion to boost semiconductor production in the United States. For some Republicans, the problems went back further—to a bipartisan infrastructure bill (passed in November) and gun control legislation (passed in June). McConnell was making deals with his counterpart, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Now Schumer and Democrats were double-crossing them by putting together a spending package after they had already roped Republicans into passing a series of smaller bills. …
  
  “We got our ass kicked. It’s just that simple,” said Republican Senator John Kennedy. “Looks to me like we got rinky-doo’d. That’s a Louisiana word for ‘screwed.’ And we got our ass kicked. That’s the way my people back home see it.”
  
  The problem, it seems, is that the typically more tepid Democrats have started to act like Republicans. The decision to hoodwink the GOP was a positively McConnellish move: Pass a series of bipartisan bills that wouldn’t have moved forward if Republicans knew that a version of the Democrats’ reconciliation bill was still alive; then, after passing them, move forward with that reconciliation bill. McConnell can only fume. …
coberly says:

July 31, 2022 at 9:28 pm

Ken

kind of reminds me of a cartoon i saw in a Playboy about fifty year ago;

an old lady dressed in rags is sitting in front of the big desk of the expensively dressed young man who says, “Yes, Mom, I know all that, but I’m asking what have you done for me lately.”

btw, despite the rumors, the creator of all this didn’t do it because he loves us. He loves us because of everything he has done for us. That’s the way love works. [cf Beattles song of about the same time: “the love you take is equal to the love you make.”]

not quite so long ago, there was a team of very important people going around to colleges giving lectures to the kids about how their grandparents were stealing their (the kids”) future by collecting Social Security. They were well received, I heard.