The Richard Vebrees of 1929 were singing the same song until the "great awakening" of October that year when the excesses and the laissez-faire financial practices flung people into poverty for over a decade.  Yes, Richard, the country and the stock market recovered with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and WWII.  If you took the time to read the links I imbedded in my article, Richard, you would have your answers about the present situation.  D. Crook's assessment of Sen. Hasagawa's statement is on the money (so to speak).  The stock market is a giant casino wherein corporations buy back their own stock to enhance their value, insider trading abounds and leashes on excessive and illegal behaviors become longer and longer. "Past performance is not an indicator of future results." is a statement required by the SEC in the pitching of investment vehicles.  Now just why is that?

Lisa,

Thanks for articulating all this as I agree with most of what you say.  In the 23 years that I have lived in Bellingham, I worked on getting legislation passed on various issues such as rental inspections, composition of the so-called Planning Commission, permitting, rezoning, neighborhoods, etc.  Getting anything done locally was like pulling teeth while some things we got passed locally were eventually thwarted by state level legislation that negated any progressive achievements.  The $$$ won out.

Now, decades after I arrived here, I see some of the results.  Rental inspections passed here but were all but negated by legislation in Olympia to allow private inspections, most of which were worthless.  Permitting times were reduced, giving less or no time for residents to react to new construction.  More decisions on permitting were given to the Planning Director and more approvals were virtually automatic  as a result of legislation by the council.  The Planning Commission seems to have devovled to members who are more sympathetic to developers than to the residents of our neighborhoods.  Neighborhoods have all been forgotten, no longer having say in much at all, let alone planning.  

And don't get me started on the waterfront development.  I spent hours and hours and hours over several years at meetings about port development, pasting Post-Its to the wall with ideas to create a pleasant and beautiful area.  What have we now but a gravel and dust bowl with a stunning (?) "pump-track" for bicycles and a bunch of ugly containers pretending to be an entertainment area.  Oh, and there is the monumentally overpriced condo complex that still sits unfinished.  The whole area is as about inviting as a New Jersey port facility at midnight in a day in February.  

Sheesh!

Tom,

Thanks for your post on a topic that I have been worried about for years.  We have dodged a bullet for the time being but given the substantial activity on the trails on Samish Ridge, our luck may soon run out.  

I note in particular a place adjacent to one of the trails leading from the intersection of Byron and 47th St., that is the cul-de-sac at the southern end of the 600 block of Racine St.  Which is covered in dry grass and has several medium to large tree stumps and tree branches.  One of the large stumps has been heavily burned over time indicating that a dangerous fire has been lit several times within several yards of the wooded area to the south and west of the parcel.  My call a year or so ago to the FD was not greeted as though this were something that they needed to check out.  The message, if there was one, was "if there is a fire, call us back." 

I live within about 500 ft of this area and cannot deny that this keeps me up at night from time to time. 

 

A related piece from the Guardian today.  

Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse

Excerpt:  "We can’t put a date on Doomsday, but by looking at the 5,000 years of [civilisation], we can understand the trajectories we face today – and self-termination is most likely,” says Dr Luke Kemp at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.

“I’m pessimistic about the future,” he says. “But I’m optimistic about people.” Kemp’s new book covers the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over 5,000 years and took seven years to write. The lessons he has drawn are often striking: people are fundamentally egalitarian but are led to collapses by enriched, status-obsessed elites, while past collapses often improved the lives of ordinary citizens.

Today’s global civilisation, however, is deeply interconnected and unequal and could lead to the worst societal collapse yet, he says. The threat is from leaders who are “walking versions of the dark triad” – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots."

David,

When I was born during WWII, the world population was 2.5 billion, give or take a few hundred million uncounted stragglers hither, thither and yon.  Now we are, I am told (does anyone really know?), about 8.5 billion souls.  I have read here and there that 11 billion is a top sustainable number while others say the figure is a few billion depending on ________(insert your constraint) here).  The list of permutations, combinations and probablilities is infinite. 

This Wikipedia article will make your teeth itch.  Nobody really knows, do they?

My take is that the currrent population is not sustainable in the long run and any increases or even the status quo will push us inexorably into worldwide disaster.  People in the future will refer to us in Ozymandian terms. 

 

For those of you who are on NextDoor, there is a lively exchange regarding this article at https://nextdoor.com/p/MsJtSQ5GwZdw/c/1400566301?init_source=notification_center

Carol,

Thanks.  It is, I think, a mistake to piss off a bunch of veterans.  They know action.  They know organization.  They know focus.  And they are tireless in their pursuits.  It starts with one...

"Earlier this year, Morgan Akin took down the American flag that had flown for decades outside his home in deep-red far northern California. It was a small gesture, one that did not echo through the halls of the US Capitol or make headlines.

"But for the 84-year-old Vietnam-era veteran and retired game warden, it represented a monument shift, one his family immediately took note of. It was Akin’s way of taking a stand in response to a country that had become increasingly unrecognizable to him. In the weeks before, masked officers arrested an international student who had co-authored a campus newspaper op-ed about Gaza in the street, the defense department temporarily removed Jackie Robinson’s biography from its website, and the president planned to host a massive military parade to celebrate his birthday."  From US marine veteran takes a stand against Trump

 

Note to readers:  If the links to the items in Enoch Ledet's comment do not work for you, you can copy the link and place it in your browser to go to the link. 

Pat,

Thanks for your taking the time for such a lengthy comment.  Your account is sobering and exasperating.  At the bottom of all of this is greed, pure and simple.  Thanks for the tip about Skagit Regional Health.  I can already imagine the phones ringing down there tomorrow morning (Monday) from PeaceHealth clients wishing to flee this disaster of a hospital here.

But I might add that my ire is not directed to the doctors and nurses of PeaceHealth.  It is directed to those who run the PeaceHealth organization, those who make millions of dollars a year and let patients freeze in a basement room and deny just wages to workers.

In the realm of Dante's Inferno, they belong in the 7th Bolgia of the Malebolge, a place reserved for thieves.

Dick