Religion among the Sons of Abraham. .

          Three great religions today, Christianity, Islam and Judaism all have their roots in a common source. They all trace back to  Biblical Abraham. But, they have diverted significantly over the years to become distinct in their own ways due to various factors.  But, they all have a couple of things in common. They all believe in one God and not a multiplicity of Gods as practiced by other religions. They all depend on a book to tell them what to do. In every case this book is deemed to be holy, the word of God. Why? Because somebody, or group of somebodies, said so. They also have another common thread, throughout their history these three religions have been highly patriarchal, although in more modern times a lot of restrictions have been lifted in certain religions. Men were the bosses and women were bound to obey them. Women were inferior and segregated in social standing in every way one can think of. In a real sense women were the property of men, to be bought and sold by their fathers and their main function seemed to be that of a maid and brood mare. The thing is that the "holy" books support this condition. The Muslims, to a some extent, depending on which country you pick, haven't eased very much on those conditions even in modern times. But, then they are really a young religion, some 600 hundred years younger than the Christians. Think back 600 years and the Christians had many of the same beliefs.   
    Let us start out by announcing that I am not a biblical scholar, or even close to one, nor have any desire to go that route. What I am is a person curious about history and why things are as they are, although I don't pretend to be a scholar in that area either.  The contents of this little treatise may offend some people, maybe a lot of people, who read it. But, I find it interesting. 
      I don't want to talk about God, or a divine being by any name. I don't know, if fact nobody knows, whether there is a God or not. On  the other hand it is impossible to show that God doesn't exist.
      Certainly many, maybe most, people fervently believe that there is some divine being that created and controls our world. That this divine being is a personal God that looks after us and can answer our prayers, heal the sick and do other wonderful things for us. 
     Belief in their God buoys people at a time when they could have collapsed from sorrow or fear. People send their loved ones off this mortal life in the promise of a life after death with the sure knowledge, or at least the hope, that they  will be reunited again. That belief sustains them and lets them go on with our lives. It has been said that there are no atheists on the battlefield. And, there are lot of conversions to religion from people facing death from serious illnesses or danger.
     Stephen Hawkins said that God wasn't necessary for the creation of the universe. That's true, but when you look at the size and scope of the universe, in which we are such a tiny and insignificant part, it is hard to believe that there wasn't some great plan to this whole thing. 
     If there was a planner for this vast universe, with all it's natural and physical forces at play, then, I believe, that the planner is so superior and different from us, in every way, that we have absolutely no hope of understanding the planners nature or motivation in creating such a enormous and mysterious world or what we're doing in it. We would have about as much chance knowing the motives and desires of that entity as an gnat would know about us. I have heard the argument that we were created in God's image to worship Him. Now isn't that a whizzer. God needs somebody to worship Him?  A being so powerful that he created this vast universe?
     It has been said that if God didn't exist, we would create him. We needed God(s) because they explained the unexplainable.  Zuess, Thor, Odin, Apollo, Venus, Neptune and a whole host of Gods were imagined to be the cause for the sun to traverse the sky every day, lightning to strike, storms that wrecked ships and terrified people, volcanoes that erupted causing great damage, plaques that wiped out huge populations and almost everything, good and bad, for which mankind did not know the reason.
      We had to placate the Gods or they would be mad at us and so we decided that prayers, offerings and sacrifices were necessary to show the Gods that we worshiped them and feared them. That way, we hoped, the Gods would smile down on us and the Sun would rise in the morning, that spring would happen after a cold winter, that the volcano that is near wouldn't erupt, that the battle would be won for our side, the illness afflicting himself or somebody close would be cured and for all kinds of other reasons. That practice of sacrifice reached epoch proportions in some societies with the Aztecs sacrificing thousands of people to their God to curry His favor. 
          The need for God(s) gave rise to religions because mankind must somehow formalize their beliefs. With religion however, came the need to communicate with God(s) and know what was wanted of them. Ergo, the rise of Prophets, Elders and the Priesthood, or something like them, that purports to have direct pipe line to God and knows His will. Alexander never made a move without consulting the Oracle. Caesar made sacrifices to the Gods before every battle. The Pope is said to be infallible in matters of faith. Catholic Priests can forgive sin. Mohammad was visited by Gabriel an Angel direct from Allah. The position of the church leaders in religion gave this group great wealth and powers in the affairs of men. What followed, of course, by the established church powers, was that they would  go to any means to maintain and even increase that power. Rebellion against that idea when it grew to excess is what spawned the Jesus movement among the Jews, after all Jesus was really rebelling against the established church, and the Protestant movement in the Christian church. The Jewish Priests wanted Jesus killed and you've heard of the Inquisition, the church powers struck back with a vengeance at the threat to their position, all in name of God of course. 
      The rise of religions have also resulted in killings on a massive scale and sometimes genocide. The Jews did not just win battles in their conquest of the Holy Land, the killed every man, woman and child in the conquered cities, or so the Bible says. The Crusaders slaughtered the Muslims when they captured cities. The Turks tried their best to eliminate the Armenians. The Germans, with help of the Poles, French and conquered Ukraine did their best to solve the "Jewish" problem with mass executions of Jews. The Czar of Russia drove the Jews from their homes of many years. Muslims have strapped explosives to their bodies or flew planes into tall buildings in order to kill those that don't believe as they do.   The Muslims and the Hindus did their best to kill each other upon the exit of the British from India and the establishment of the independent India and Pakistan. All in Gods name of course, or so they were instructed.          
     Christian slave owners and the whole southern population avowed that it was God's will that Blacks were made inferior and should be kept in slavery, after all they were the children of Ham. Even after emancipation, that line of reasoning was being preached from the pulpit in southern churches for many generations to support the idea that blacks were inferior and should be segregated. 
     The French Catholics tried to slaughter the Protestant Huguenots while the English Protestants were making war on the Catholics.
      At the root of all these events was the teaching of their various religions. 
     So, religion. while on one hand granted great comfort to individuals, it has caused untold misery to millions.
     Have you ever noticed that the God(s) are just like us, filled with easily recognized human emotions. Not surprising because we created them in our image. They get jealous, they get mad, they demand that they be worshiped. The stories of Odin and Thor and the Greek Gods adopted by the Romans, is a story of strife, jealousy, love, wars and all the other conditions that we are familiar with.
      Look at the old testament and the story of Job and Abraham and his son. Both of those stories are about a God that is subject to vanity. The Abraham and Job stories are about God wanting to prove to Lucifer that they would be faithful to him no matter what he inflicted upon them. Strange that an all powerful being would feel the need to do that. Sounds very human doesn't it? If a human King had inflicted those trials on one of their subjects we would call him a monster. 
      The Tower of Babble story is the story of a God who got angry at the people and scattered them to the winds, resulting in the development of all the different languages that we speak. Of course that was really just a story to explain why every one didn't speak the same language.
      In fact, the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament in the Christian Bible is a story of a wrathful God who punished the people when they didn't act according to his wishes. That's the story of Noah, the punishment of Adam and Eve being banished from Eden, of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lots wife and even the story of Moses who was not allowed to enter the promised land. 
     Strangely the God of the New Testament is a kind and merciful God who sent his son among us to atone for our sins. Not sure how being crucified on a cross atones for the sins of persons who rob, kill and generally wrecks havoc on his fellow man. It's almost like the God of the New Testament was a new God.  
       Look at Genesis in the Hebrew and Old Testament of the Christian Bible. That book is full of interesting stories. In the very beginning God created a man, Adam, and then removed a rib from Adam and created Eve. All was peachy keen, living carefree in the Garden of Eden where there was no want, pain or any other bad thing. They had one mandate. Don't eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. But, Eve tempted Adam to eat the fruit because it was so delicious. You know the story from there. The mystery is: What was so special about the tree of knowledge. It is often considered that what the story was really about was SEX.  Eve tempted Adam into having sex with her. So Eve, and by inference all women, were temptresses who will tempt men into sin and damning their souls. That gave rise to all kinds of restrictions on women in the religions of the sons of Abraham.  
     The other neat story is the Cain and Abel tale. Cain and Abel made a sacrifice to God from the area of their labor. But, God didn't favor Cain because he only sacrificed the produce he grew in the fields, while Abel was favored because he scarified a lamb. That really doesn't make any sense does it? Cain was giving him the product of his hard labor while Abel, with much easier job as a shepherd gave him something that required little effort on his part. But, the idea of blood sacrifice was required by the pagan religions in those days so the ancient peoples understood that story. Cain then slew Abel in a jealous rage and was driven to wander and to take a wife and live in the land of Nod which was east of Eden.  He was given the Mark of Cain to insure the people wouldn't kill him because he was hated. Wait a minute. Adam and Eve, according the Hebrew and Christian Bible, were supposed to be the first people on earth with only their children alive. Where did the woman that became Cain's wife come from? Did he marry his sister? And where did the land of Nod come from?  Who were the people who were a threat to Cain? Apparently there was a whole civilization to the east of Eden that gets only honorable mention. Interesting. Some early writings had an answer for that, but the those stories were not included in the current Bible. They required that Eve actually be the second wife to Adam. But, that's another story. 
       And then, there is the creation story, which is not plausible to say the least. At least if taken literally. Bible purest have dated the age of the universe to be something like six thousand years. If one took the Bible literally that might hold up. But, there is so much scientific evidence that puts that premise to be false. In fact, only a few of the stories in the old testament are supported by archeological findings, mostly the newer events. 
    Take the story of Moses. A fun story. But, there is no archeological evidence that there was significant presence of Jews in Egypt at the time that is attributed to Moses (The New Kingdom). Remember the number of Jews that left Egypt was supposed to be in the order Six Hundred Thousand men (Exodus 12:37-38). That meant the number of Jews in the exodus would number something in the order of one and half to two million people when you include the women, children and non Israelite's exiting from Egypt and roaming the Sinai for 40 years. No archeological evidence exists to support the presence of Jews traveling in the Sinai, and with that many people traveling through out a locale for so long, it is certain they would have left evidence of their presence behind. But, at the same time there is significant evidence of Jews in Canon and in Sumeria . In addition, imagine the significant impact on the economy of any nation if that large a labor force left at one time. After all the population of Egypt at the time was somewhere around 3 to 4 million Egyptians.  

And, there is no record of any economic impact on Egypt in the time frame. Most historians believe that the Moses story is largely fiction, but there likely is a grain of truth in the story somewhere. 
      Then there is Noah. Another fun story to entertain kids in Sunday School. It doesn't take much of a search into the history of the earth to know that there was no flood that covered the earth at any time that humanoids walked here.  The story probably grew out of stories of big floods, which at times did happen, and the discovery of fossils of sea creatures high on mountains. Having no knowledge of plate tectonics, the only conclusion they reached was that, sometime in the past, great oceans covered the earth for a time. At least that's one theory as to how the Noah story evolved. 
     Even these stories don't compare to the Jonah and the Whale story. The idea that some body could be swallowed by a whale and survive in it's belly really stretches the imagination.  
    Of the three religions with common roots, only two have a mandate to go out and convert everybody they come in contact with, by force or any other way. Islam and Christianity was spread at the point of a sword. The Jews, however, are a clannish bunch and closely guard the walls of their religion.  After all, they are the Chosen People, although, based on their history I'm not sure what they were chosen for.  Perhaps they were chosen to be persecuted, slaughtered and driven from one land to another after the Christians became dominate in western and eastern Europe. And, today they have whole nations of Muslims on their backs calling for their annihilation. It must be nice to be chosen.
     Of the three, the Jews are the oldest of the religions. Their holy book is a collection of stories handed down for generations by word of mouth, and finally, some, no way of knowing how many, where collected into a single scroll or book, the Tanakh. I couldn't figure out when that happened, perhaps as early as the 5th century BCE. A Bible scholar may know the answer to that but, I don't think it's all that important.   
     There were certainly stories that were not included in that book, but were left out because they didn't support the ideas that the people who started bringing the stories together liked. There is no way to ever know, but knowing just a little bit about human nature argues that many tales that were part of the oral tradition would be left out of the "Official" book.  Multiple stories about the creation are common everywhere. All the religions of the world, including those in the New World,  have different creation stories.We need them to explain the how and why we are here.  
     The tales that made into the Hebrew Bible are in many ways just tales to teach that it is good to be faithful to God. But, the main thrust of the book is to relate the history of the Jewish people and their relationship with their God, even though many of the tales are suspect, to say the least. Note, I said Their God. The First Commandment delivered by Moses for the Jewish people was that He was their Lord and that they should have no other Gods before Him. It is interesting that the Commandment doesn't say that He was the only God, only that He was their God. Not surprising when you consider at the time of creation of the Commandments, many God's proliferated the known world. 
     The Jews have evolved a long string of traditions through the years. I think that many of the those traditions transcend the several Jewish sects that have developed, but on the other hand different sects within Judaism have diverged. When you consider that history of the Hebrew Bible and it's evolution through the centuries, it is easy to see where stories told and handed down would get embellished and changed to fit whatever message the tale teller wished to convey as the traditions of their faith became solidified and traditions grew. Even after the stories were written down, to copy them would require a scribe to do so by hand, so they would be very rare. It would be typical that people who could read the written account would then retell the story to others. And, among the listeners would be be someone who would put the tale to papyrus, or whatever the medium that was used at time. Another chance for someone to put a spin on the story. 
      However, somewhere along the line they began to view the written versions as sacred and became very careful to accurately copy the text. That is known because the comparison of the newer versions to the oldest known texts are very faithful, it's just the oldest known texts are relatively new considering the time span of the Jewish religion.  
        The story of how the current Christian Bible evolved and finally set in stone is an interesting one.  Anybody who thinks there was agreement among the various Christian branches in the early church hasn't read history. In fact Christians were killing each other over their differences. There was real disagreement on the nature of Jesus, Mary, the trinity, women's role in the church and many other issues.  As everybody is aware now, there were many gospels, most of them having one of the Disciples names attached, that were floating around in the first 3 centuries of the Christian churches. None of them actually written by the Disciples, in fact no one knows who actually wrote the Gospels, but they were apparently created some 30 to 150 years after the death of Jesus. We know about a few of them because of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other discoveries in the last century or so. There is no way of knowing how many others were destroyed as being heretical. After the Church took power, all Gospels not included in the approved canon were ordered destroyed and to possess them was a death sentence, let alone to read them in church. 
     The Emperor Constantine, a recent convert (probably, maybe) to Christianity, noted that there was no consistent  and uniform consensus concerning many of the fundamental issues in the Christian church among it's many different followers. He wanted to use the growing Christian religion as a unifying force for his empire.  So he called a council of leading church figures (the Bishops of the major church centers) to define what should be taught as official Christian theology.
    The first attempt to officially define the nature of Jesus, the Trinity and Mary was tackled at the Council Nicea (c.325 CE) chaired by the Emperor Constantine. Up to then there was no recorded effort or serious attempt to reign in the various beliefs prevalent among the Christians. Either some of the major branches of Christianity were not invited or chose not to attend, as there is no record of the Gnostic's or any other branch attending. Only those branches that had embraced a Priesthood with a defined hierarchy got their say in the council. After all, Constantine wanted a church that he could control and without a strict hierarchy that would have been hard to do. Constantine set himself up as the head of the church.
     Various synods were convened after that and after about a one hundred year evolution from the time of Constantine, as to which books would be included in the bible and considered holy, was most likely finalized under the the direction of Augustine of Hippo at the synods of Hippo (c.383) and two synods of Carthage (c 397 and 419). Of course, this was an all Catholic, all male get together, so it isn't surprising that the Gospel according to Mary Magdalene was excluded. It presented a position that could not be tolerated, by giving women a prominent place in the Christian Church. The Gospel according to Thomas was also left out because it may have cast doubt on some of the other stories that were in the final Bible. The Gospel according to Peter presented a resurrection story that the bishops didn't care for. The Gospel of Judas didn't make it because it told a different story of the events leading up to the crucifixion. Several others didn't make the cut, including the Gospel according to James.
    They liked the story in Revelations, even though they really had no idea who wrote it, and we still don't. Somebody named John?  It scared the population and gave power to the church. It should be noted that the concepts of Hell and a great battle was not a new one. It was an old tradition among many religions. In fact a lot of the story in Revelations could have been borrowed from Pagan tales that told a story along the same lines. By the way, Armageddon is a place not an event.   
     One can not talk about Christianity without talking about Paul, or Saul if you wish. He was the most influential writer and Apostle of Jesus in the early church. He was the one who brought the gentiles into the church where before him, it was common that only Jews were welcomed. 
     Almost half the books in the New Testament are attributed to Paul. In his writings he drew heavily on Stoic writings to express his view of the message of Jesus. Most people know that Paul never met Jesus, except the resurrected Jesus, according to him, that moved him to convert, so everything he knew was second hand. 
There is no way of knowing how much of his theology was actually taken from any contact he had with 12 Disciples or was his own ideas about what the Christian Church should be, heavily influenced by Stoic writings. 
     Paul traveled widely over the middle east and into Spain to preach his message as well as writing the letters that appear in the New Testament. He, more than any of the 12 original Apostles, was responsible for the spread of Christianity over the Roman world. 
    However, women can thank Paul, or someone writing in his name, for many of the restrictions placed on them in the developing Christian Church.
From Wikipedia:

"The second chapter of the first letter to Timothy—one of the six disputed letters—is used by many churches to deny women a vote in church affairs, reject women from serving as teachers of adult Bible classes, prevent them from serving as missionaries, and generally disenfranchise women from the duties and privileges of church leadership.

9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame facedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;
10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.
11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.
12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

    It seems that Paul was a product of his day. 
    The Catholics, both the Roman and Eastern versions blamed the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus. Luke said so.  But, historically that can not be accurate. The story of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, doesn't hold water.  Pilate in washing his hands of the matter, would have made the crucifixion impossible.  Only a Roman magistrate could convict a person to be crucified, and then only for violating Roman Law.  And they were good at it. The Jew's Priests did not have that authority. In fact Pilate declared that Jesus was not guilty of violating Roman Law. Let's get real, why would Pilate, the Roman Governor be called on to judge such a minor case anyway. After all, he was the Governor of the province, only one step from the Emperor.  It is thought by many modern bible scholars that the person, or persons who wrote the Gospel according to Luke did not dare blame the Romans. After all the Romans ruled Israel with an iron fist at the time. Jesus was likely to have been actually found guilty of sedition under Roman Law by some Roman magistrate, which would have merited the crucifixion. But, adding Pilate to the story added spice, and gave the story greater importance. It should be noted that crucifixions were very common under the Romans so the crucifixion of Jesus would not have been special to the population at large. And, of course, the Christian used this story to persecute the Jews through most of the last two thousand years.  

     When one looks at the way the Christian Bible was put together, one wonders just how much God had to do with the final version and how much was the direct influence of men with their own agenda. Probably with good intentions, but swayed by their own biases and prejudices.  
     Central the the Christian creed are a couple of things related to Jesus. First of all, did a man, we now call Jesus, actually exist? Some scholars believe that Jesus is really just a merger of the teachings of several Rabbis or philosophers that were brought together and attributed to a fictional person. That one is hard to swallow. Just too many people wrote about what he said and did in a relatively short time after his death. The Gospels were written in a period of 30 to maybe 150 years after the crucifixion. Also, Paul's letters probably started a bit earlier. There was time to spin and embellish the message the Rabbi was teaching, but not enough to invent him out of whole cloth. 
    One of the sticking points, if one tries to correlate the Bibles version of the birth of Jesus with known history, is that the story doesn't actually hold water. To start with, Mary and Joseph was said to have come to Bethlehem because the Romans demanded that everybody return to the place of their birth for a census. The problem is that there is no record of the Romans asking for a census at that time and, to add confusion to the story, that is not the way the Romans conducted their censuses. Remember, the Romans were very good at keeping records and census was always conducted in place. So, if they came to Bethlehem, they came for a far different reason than given in the Bible. 
    And why Bethlehem? It was necessary for the story that the Messiah to be born in the City of David. That was the prophecy. So whether Jesus was actually born in Bethlehem or not, the story required that he was when it was decided that he was the Messiah. Many scholars don't believe he ever saw Bethlehem as a young child, that the story was just an artifact to enhance the Messiah image. 
    It is probable that Mathew was the first Gospel actually written (although some scholars believe it was Mark) and whoever wrote the other Gospels merely copied it- sort of. What's interesting is that the two accounts of Jesus's birth in Mathew and Luke (the only two Gospels that address the subject) don't match. One has the shepherds visited by the Angels scene and the other has the Wise Men (Magi) scene. 
   We love our nativity plays which have the Wise Men, sometimes depicted as Kings, being drawn by a bright star to the baby Jesus as he lay in his manger.  The problem is the Bible doesn't support that scenario. According to the Bible Jesus was about 2 years old when the Wise Men, actually Astrologers, visited Herod and asked about the new King of the Jews. Herod then supposedly had all the male children under 2 years old in the city of Bethlehem slain. From all historical records Herod was certainly capable of that atrocity. The fact that there is no record of it, if it happened, isn't too surprising. After all Bethlehem was just a small village which probably had no more than 10 or so boys that fit that category. 
    Mary and Joseph fled Bethlehem to escape Herod and went to Egypt. They returned to Israel after the death of Herod about two years later. We heard little of Jesus until He had an epiphany at around the age of 30 years. Considering the average age of mankind at the time, that would make Him very mature. He then started moving though Israel/Judea to preach his message. 
     His main points were probably best expressed in the passage set as the Sermon on the Mount. It is likely that never really happened, but was a artifact used by the writer of Mathew to bring together the things that Jesus said over a period of time to his Disciples in a concise manner. It doesn't lessen the message, just how it was delivered. 
     From about the fourth century, for a long while, there was only one Christian Church of any consequence, the Catholics. But, there was disagreement between the western church centered in Rome and the Eastern Catholics, sometimes called the Eastern Orthodox, centered in Constantinople. This disagreement resulted in the east-west schism in 1054 CE which officially separated the eastern from the western church. Then Martin Luther wrote the "ninety-five theses",  got excommunicated from the church as a result and the Protestants were born.They in turn have splintered into a number of different denominations, all with a little different idea of what the Scriptures actually say and mean.
     While there is clearly no idea who actually wrote the books of the Hebrew Bible or the Gospels of the Christian New Testament, there is no doubt who wrote the Quran.
     Mohammad born in 560 CE often went a cave to pray and meditate. At about age 40 he had his first revelation from the Angel Gabriel informing him of God's laws and how the faithful should live.  He proclaimed himself the last Prophet of God following in the tradition going back to Adam. He gathered a small army about him, overrun the city of his birth, Mecca, in 622 CE and from there spread the faith of Islam over the middle east. It's really in interesting story. It's too bad the Muslims are so hung up about the use of Mohammad's image in almost any form, that the story is not well known. A movie was made about his life, but due to threats it was never released.
     As usual with visitations of Saints, Angels or God himself to some individual, there is no witnesses to the act. They are usually in a remote place to a single individual, sometimes a cave or grotto. Or on top of a mountain or in the desert. It's up to the individual to decide whether those events actually happened, were they the imagination of some person, a hallucination or even a fraud. 
   
      
         
         
    
 

The Looming Catastrophe

   I see a real problem facing mankind, especially those of us who live in the more advanced civilizations. In short it's the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics. And, it isn't the reason that science fiction writers love, where advanced machines try to take over the world. It's societies ever increasing use of advanced robotics to perform tasks that was once done by people.
    Think about it. Do you really need a waitress at a restaurant? Not if AI  advances much more than it is right now. You can certainly place your order using some kind of interface, such as a touch screen display. Your order could be prepared by an AI controlled robot and delivered to you table by an AI controlled cart. Even the clean up will be controlled by machines.
    Self driving cars are already in the pipeline and will become common pretty soon. What will follow is self driving trucks and buses. How about self piloting planes? That certainly is a technical possibility.
    Warehouses, already heavy in automation will become more so with the advance of AI and robotics. Pretty soon there will be no need for humans in that profession at all.
    How about medicine?  It is in the foreseeable future that machines controlled by advanced AI can do diagnostics and treatment better than any human doctor because of the ability to draw on vast medical data bases, and the ability to correlate all the information it can gather about your health.  Machines will perform complex operations that no human can manage because of the precision of the AI controlled movement. In the not too distant future you may never actually need to see a live doctor at all to get the best medical care. Misdiagnosis will be a thing of the past. Something that happens all to often now. I know personally about that problem. You can get all your checkups and other examinations at home, along with necessary prescriptions filled and delivered to your door within one hour by machine. If you need more extensive examinations or procedures you visit a local clinic where you check in and then let a AI controlled robot perform those tasks. No waiting.
     Dental care will be performed completely by AI controlled machines. Examinations  and necessary corrective procedures can and will be performed without the interaction with a dentist or dental technician.
    The number of humans necessary to build a car or truck, or for that matter any product that we use, has already been reduced by the reliance on automation. With advanced AI the need for people to build anything in a factory may nearly disappear all together. 
    To make matters worse, with advanced AI the machines will become self repairing. So the need for humans to maintain the machines will be significantly reduced. 
   Farming, already highly mechanized will move further into that direction so the need for humans to grow, tend to and harvest our food will be significantly reduced. 
   And, the list goes on. 
   AI controlled automation will make all the things we use cheaper, far better made with higher reliability and more available. That's the good side. 
    The problem is--where are all the people, put out of work by the prolific use of automation that is sure to come, go? How do they live?  It seems like the trend that is beginning to become evident even today will accelerate. There will be the highly educated, highly trained people who are very well paid and live a very good life. Then there will be all the large number others who's jobs disappear due to automation. 
     We have faced this type of problem many times in our history and each time the system has adjusted over a fairly short time and things have improved for everybody. Maybe that will happen in the future. That is because, in the past,  the new products that displaced the old and obsoleted the old skills, demanded more people to produce the increased demand for the new product. But, in the past the new product, such as the automobile replacing the horse and buggy, was still fairly labor intensive. That will not be so in the future. New products will be produced by automation and will require little usage of manual labor.
     Not every thing that could automated will be. Some tasks will be more cost effective to perform manually because of the cost of a robot to perform them. 
     The dilemma is, that with the increased production capability to turn out products at a prodigious rate, we need consumers. But, if automation replaces workers on a large scale, then where are the consumers?  That's a good question. Frankly I have no answer. Just wondering. 
    
  
     
    

English, a little fun

     Look Dear, I said, "Is that a deer I see down by the sea? I wonder if it would wait while I guess it's weight. I know that here is no way I could weigh it. It looks like it is tough standing on that tuff with the ruff on it's neck, though it may be because it is looking through some bushes where there is a bee".  
 I threw a small stone through the air, but I missed. It brought up a tear as I watched it tear across the mountain tier after tier. Although, of course, it might be a hare with coarse red hair that I have read about and intend to read more. They're certain of the their footing over there. If a knight, who usually comes out a night, would show up it would help. Look at the man running bare chased by a bear that seems to bear down on him. I think he's the wright from the village on the right side of the river who was right when he did write about the bear market. I wonder if he can kick that can that is in his path. I think I knew him when he was new.  I know that he should have said no before coming out.  I think that I had seen him at another scene.

Trump and Comey, an interesting tale

     What is going on in Washington? The Democrats are going ape shit trying to tie Trump to either an obstruction of justice charge or colluding with the Russians to throw the 2016 election into Trumps lap. Or, anything else they can come up with. 
       All this actually started back during the primaries with Trump charging through the process like a bull in a china shop. He insulted everybody in sight and left a trail of blood behind him. A lot of that ill will was directed at members of congress and the Republican establishment.  Groups that he would need later to govern effectively. 
       He was caught on a recording making some disparaging jokes about women. It actually wasn't anything that  hasn't been said in a thousand locker rooms when the boys get together to brag about their real and fictional conquests. But, his remarks were not helpful to him or his image. He became a man who hates women and holds them in low regard. In spite of the fact that he has hired women to high positions in his company and his daughter is one of his closets advisers. 
    Central to his campaign was his position on illegal immigrants coming over our southern border. Of course he didn't just say that he was going to build a wall, but more than implied that the illegals coming into this country were mostly rapists and criminals. That didn't do him any favors with a majority of the Latinos living in this country who were the children and grandchildren of illegals themselves. The platform of securing our borders would probably have been enough for the vast American heartland and Rust Belt folks who sensed that we were loosing our heritage and jobs with the huge influx of foreigners into the country.  As a result Trump was labeled a racist and bigot.  
      To add fuel to the fire he announced that he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the country for a period of time until the vetting process could be strengthened due to the rash of terrorist acts that had happened around the world by radical Islamist in recent history. Of course the mainstream media and the liberals only heard the ban part and immediately labeled Trump as a religious bigot. He later modified that to just seven countries, but that isn't flying either. When Hillary trotted out the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in action, Trump couldn't just keep his mouth shut. He felt he needed to insult the parents. Not a good move.
    He was very critical of the trade deals and agreements reached by the Obama administration with Iran, Cuba, Mexico, China and other countries.  He contended that Obama had weakened America and cost American jobs in middle America while the cats on the coasts were getting rich on the backs of the middle class's sacrifices to the global economic and political philosophy. In that argument he had the position that appealed to the great swath of working people in the so called rust belt and the people of middle America. Of course the people living well of global trade and fraternization with China and other foreign nations didn't much like this approach. That of included the media which are almost universally liberals and Democrats. 
    So candidate Trump had little in the way of friends in the main stream media or even among the traditional Republican Party members.
     As we all know he won the election against all odds and the polls which assured the Democrats of a victory. They still haven't got over that defeat and many of them still will not accept the results of the election. They are motivated to bring Trump and his administration down, no matter the harm to the constitution in doing so. They love to trot out the popular vote as proof that the American people favored Clinton. But, because of a number of reasons, including the Constitution,  the popular vote isn't what elects a President. Why that particular statistic is mostly meaningless under the current conditions is something I might address in another posting on my blog.
     Trump is not free of royal foo paws in all of this.  In many ways he has only himself to blame. All one has to do is follow his pronouncements and tweets to understand that fact. He never saw or heard of a negative remark that he doesn't feel the need to fire off a quick reply, many of them ill thought out before sending. He also tends to say whatever comes into his head when asked a question, no matter how ill conceived the answer might be. He's even been known to  contradict himself because on any given day he may feel different about something.
    When Trump entered the White House (figuratively) he came in with huge ego and the same attitude he had as the head of Trump Enterprises. I believe that he thought he was now the CEO of the new Trump Enterprises, otherwise known as the US government.  I don't think he quite understood, at first, that he was entering the snake pit of Washington politics, which is a far different animal from business. He came in with a promise to drain the swamp and is finding out that the swamp is full of very angry alligators that they love their swamp just the way it is.
    Now let's get to Comey. It is clear to me that Trump considered the head of the FBI as part of his team and he expected a certain degree of loyalty from all his department heads.  That's what he demanded from his business employees and he expected the same thing here. It's the only way to run a large business successfully. It did not seem to occur to him that the law enforcement branches of his government must be seen to remain independent of politics and influences from other government bodies. After all the head of the FBI worked for him and served at his pleasure. 
     The FBI had opened an investigation into two charges that involved Trump and his team. One was concerning the involvement of the Russians into our election and the other the situation of the National Security Advisor. 
      Members of his team, including his son in law, who he greatly admired, attempted to tell him that meeting with Comey in a private session, considering everything that was going on at the time, was a bad idea. But Trump, being Trump, thought he needed that meeting. This was only a few days after the President was sworn into office. It is reported that Trump stated to Comey that he hoped the he could see his way to close out the investigation into General Flynn. That the general was a good man who had served his country and he had been fired anyway due to lying about meeting with the Russian Ambassador to Vice President Pence and that he, Trump, would appreciate it. Comey apparently made no response in that conversation at time but took no further action because he didn't feel that Trump was bringing undo pressure on him to actually end the investigation. The Democrats, of course, have jumped all over the firing and Comey's statements as reason for a charge of obstruction. But, Trump had the right to fire the head of the FBI for any reason. Something the Dem's don't want to admit.
     The Russian investigation was moving forward and Trump felt it was being directed at him. The Democrats were using this investigation to bolster their claim that the election had been stolen from them by nefarious actions and collusion by the Trump team with the Russians. This in spite of there being absolutely no evidence that there was any collusion between the Trump team and Russians about the 2016 election. But, that isn't stopping the Democrats and the left wing media from throwing charges around at random. If you turn in to CNN you would think that there isn't anything going on in the world except Trump's collusion with the Russians to steal the election from Clinton. 
     The investigation was not only an embarrassment to Trump but he felt that it was interfering with the ability to pass his agenda. He met with Comey and asked him about the Russian investigation and if he was a loyal member of the team, or words to that effect. Apparently Comey only answered that he would be honest.  Apparently Trump never asked for Comey to squelch the Russian investigation. It's clear now that from that point Trump considered Comey as not loyal and not to be trusted. But, again Comey didn't feel, at the time, that Trump had crossed the line into obstruction. I think that in Trumps mind you are either with him or against him, and Comey wasn't with him.
     Then Trump fired Comey. It is clear to me that there were several reasons for the firing, among other things, the Russian investigation. But probably the main thing was his feeling that Comey was not his friend. The best thing that Trump could have done at the time was keep his mouth shut and let his team spin the firing as best they could. But no. Trump stated in an interview on television that Comey was fired because of the Russian investigation. Not smart at all.  In other tweets and interviews he gave different reasons. But, he had fired Comey and in a way that wasn't very respectful. Now Comey felt free to release his notes and recollections on the meeting with the President. It was payback time. 
     Immediately congress, which was already involved in hearings concerning the Russian hacking of the election material and it's release through Wikileaks, opened up the investigation into possibility of the an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.
      So now we have a special counsel who has opened up a can of worms for Trump. The rumors have been floated that he would like to fire the special counsel but, he really doesn't have authority to do that. Those rumors have been denied a number of times, but the media, especially CNN, love the story to much to let it pass. To make matters worse, he can't stay off the social network. He continues to tweet, insulting the new special counsel, along with everybody else he senses is against him. He just can't back off and let his legal team handle the issues. They must be tearing their hair out as Trump makes their job harder and harder. He is really digging his own grave deeper and deeper. In the mean time Mueller is stacking his investigation team with people that contributed to the Obama and Clinton campaigns and are Democrat supporters. 
     I'm afraid, unless the special counsel gives Trump a clean bill of health on all counts, and considering the makeup of the special counsel staff, that is seeming more and more unlikely, the Senate Democrats could very well try to open up impeachment proceedings. Maybe they will to that even before the investigation is even complete. The Democrats certainly want his scalp and I'm afraid he has gored enough Republican Senators that an impeachment might carry. I can think of a couple of Republican Senators that might be tempted to have Trumps scalp. I doubt that it would happen, but you never know.
      It isn't clear that the President has actually done anything wrong, except acted rather foolishly at times. He got caught up in a system that he didn't fully comprehend and made some moves and statements that left him open to criticism.  What has been said is all that happened was the Trump was being Trump. The things he is trying to do through Executive Orders and legislation are, for the most part, the things that needed to be done. He killed the pact with Iran, is retrenching in relationships with Cuba, is asking NATO members to pay  up their agreed to portion of member defenses, cutting some of the most bloated bureaucracies in Washington, submitted a budget to congress that moves the nation toward a balanced budget, is moving battle field decisions back to the soldiers on the ground and making positive moves to keep jobs in America. He's asked for a complete review of the massive set of regulations that are job killers. 
     Of course he's going to have a fight on his hands with entrenched special interests that control so many of the bureaus. One of Trumps problems, and a big one, is that the bureaucracies are riddled with people that a not his friends by any stretch. In fact they would work tirelessly to bring him down, to the point of damaging the country if they have to. 
     The frantic move toward  all the "green" initiatives and the environmental lobby has spawned a huge industry, with lot's of money. Of course the environmental lobby only exists with the help of huge investments of the taxpayers money. At this time and in the foreseeable future, it is not able to stand alone economically.
    There are whole industries tied up in keeping globalization of the economy alive and well. But, trade agreements negotiated by the Obama administration with the Pacific rim, Mexico and China among others, do not work in favor of the working classes of America.
     It isn't clear where all of this is going. Based on four special elections, it doesn't seem that the issues which are captivating Washington have any relevance outside of the beltway. Republicans just added to their majority in the congress. Not a single Democrat victory. 
    But, the future will be interesting, to say the least. And the band played on. 
   
        
     
    
     

Medical care and the Pipe Dream

     Donald and the other Republicans are all eager to strike Obamacare off the books and substitute some other plan which they say will be better and cheaper. But, Obama and Dems have saddled them with a real problem. In fact a couple. The Republicans say they will keep some of the things the ACA introduced, but that will make the avowed goal almost impossible to meet.
     The promise, at least by The Donald, to (1) not let previous conditions be the cause of rejection of insurance, (2) that the 20 million or so people that got coverage as a result of the ACA will still be covered and (3) letting a young adult stay on their parents policy until the age of 26 will part of the new, cheaper and better plan that the Republicans will submit.
    The biggest reason the ACA fell on it's face was simply that the young, healthy folks didn't sign up in droves. The only way to provide the lowest cost insurance for the masses is to spread the burden on paying for it to a large base of primarily healthy people that don't require much in the way of treatment. You need a large base of people who are paying in to the system much more than they're taking out of it. 
     The problem is, and will remain, that the Congress, especially the Republicans, want universal health care without instituting Universal Health care. They believe, by some fancy twist of their imagination, that they can achieve universal health care using the private sector.  They spout a mantra of  freedom of choice. They believe that if you presented the market place with a free market in the medical fields, the cost would go down due to competition and all would be right with the world.
    To large extent that would be true. If the market were actually free and the consumer was free to choose any insurance plan from any locale and that the insurance companies could propose any plan from the bare minimum catastrophic only type with a large range of deductibles, to full comprehensive coverage and anything in between. But, if the government steps in and dictates conditions that private insurance companies have to meet, as the ACA did, then the savings would largely fly out the window. When you dictate that an insurance company can't turn down a applicant because of previous conditions or they have to carry a young adult on their parents policy, then they have no choice but to anti up their rates to cover the significant costs associated with those requirements. After all insurance companies are in the business to make money. They are not philanthropic organizations. 
     Consumers are not exactly dummies. The smart thing, under these conditions,  is to buy limited coverage, or none at all, when you're young and healthy and then to buy or switch to more comprehensive policy if you come down with something bad. So the only way to spread the costs is make some level of  insurance coverage mandatory for every body. That, by its nature will kill any free market idea associated with health care. Sound familiar? Obama tried to get around this problem by forcing a "tax" on those that didn't purchase the minimum insurance as dictated by the law. I'm not sure what the present bill before congress will end up imposing, but it has to somehow rope in the total population or it will fall on it's face just like the ACA did.
    The Republicans love the idea of using tax credits to help lower income people buy private insurance. No matter how you look at it, this is another entitlement that would put into law if enacted.  Of course if the tax credit is applied to taxes owed, there won't be much impact on the 40 percent of lower income people anyway; they don't pay taxes. 
     The other favorite among the conservative ranks is the Medical Savings Account. That really is a great idea if you are part of the middle class, which does cover a great swath of the American citizenry. But, if you happen to be in the lower third of income earners, then you don't have the resources to set money aside for medical purposes. 
    The idea seems to be that if they open the market, which by the way isn't happening with the present version of the plan, that will allow more people to buy private insurance and the lowest wage earners and unemployed will be directly subsidized by the government in such a way that they can purchase some form of insurance. Sound familiar. Think California Cares, which pays so little to the doctors that many of them will not participate in the plan.  
    The other mantra sung by the conservatives is that they don't want some government bureaucrat deciding about what medical treatment that will be allowed and where the coverage is applied. But, wait a minute. If you carry any kind of private  insurance then you already have a bureaucrat deciding health care issues for you. They just work for the insurance company instead of for the government. And, those bureaucrats have a profit motive when considering whether to pay for some treatment that you might need.
      Private insurance also limits the doctors you are allowed to see and sometimes the medical facilities that you can use, depending on the type of insurance. HMO's are a big factor in private insurance participation and they are generally very restrictive in where and by whom you can get medical treatment.  
      If you want to review the current health care in the USA I would refer you to my Blog of January 2016, "Health Care in the United States". It is clear that the current system we have isn't any thing to be held up as a model. We have the highest infant mortality rate, the shortest average life span and rank behind such countries as Singapore and Morocco by the World Health Organization. The ranking at the time is a paltry 37th in health care by that organization.
    The argument is advanced that in those countries with Universal Health Care systems, that the wait to see a doctor is long, much longer than in the US. But, have you tried to get to see your doctor in a short time lately?  In fact, the timeliness of care in America is about average when compared to the 11 wealthiest countries  i.e. England, Germany, Canada, etc.  All of them having some form of universal health care. Canada however, with a one payer system, was ranked last in that category. The following chart shows the breakdown of the various categories that were used to judge the rankings among the wealthier nations. 
     




          We spend more per capita and get less than any of the 11th wealthiest countries. So why are we trying to defend our present system so vigorously? Good question. 
    The Republicans face a real problem. As far as I can see, the plan put forth by the Republicans doesn't do much for the very people who were Trumps biggest supports in the last election. As bad as Obama Care was, this plan may actually be worse for the mid-west worker who is hurting because of a lot of reasons. The disgust with the ACA was one of the main things that swept the Republicans into office in the last two elections. If the establishment Republicans don't do something better than what they seem to be doing, they may, and probably will, find themselves on the street in two years.  
     Medical care has become a major issue to the citizens of this country. They are serious about wanting something done. If the politicians continue to evade a comprehensive plan that will assure medical care for all Americans, I think they may not be in office very long.
     We'll see what happens over the next few months and what the fallout will be. I predict disaster myself. But, I've been wrong before. 

Pity the New President

     The new President is entering office with a mountain of foreign and domestic problems that would tackle the wisdom of Salomon.  A series of bad decisions over the last two administrations have led us into a mess in the middle east, a resurgent and expansionist Russia, a nuclear North Korea, a China that is growing more and more aggressive, and Iran that is on it's way to becoming nuclear. We seem to have made the wrong decision in most cases on the foreign front. We invaded Iraq and destabilized the middle east for, as it turned out, no good reason. Then, when we had taken on the job of nation building in that country, we elected a new President and promptly pulled out and left a vacuum that radical elements were quick to fill.  
    Syria is nothing but a mess with Russia and Iran now the leading figures in that area. The new President really has no good options opened to him. We stood by while Russia and Iran created a mammoth refugee problem and kept a brutal dictator in power. 
    China has weaponized islands, some of them man made, in territory that isn't theirs and seem to setting up the conditions where they will claim sovereignty. This really effects the trade of our allies and impacts on our desire to keep the seas open for free trade.  They recently captured an American drone that was mapping the ocean floor in clearly international waters. Now they are rattling their sabres over the situation concerning Taiwan. Again, no good options are open when the other guy gets belligerent short of force. 
    Russia has moved in and captured the Crimea, taking it from the Ukraine, who didn't have the power to oppose them. Still doesn't.  Following that they have moved troops and equipment into eastern Ukraine and are making moves to annex that territory into Russia. And what did we do? Nothing, except wring our hands. We refuse to equip the Ukraine with the means for them to defend their territory because it might offend Russia. What does our new President do now. No good options. 
     Iran signed an agreement with the west to restrain their nuclear program for lifting of sanctions. With that went the release of billions of dollars to Iran. The sanctions are supposed to be re-instated if Iran didn't adhere to the conditions of the agreement. Guess what? They have already broken some of the conditions. What was done about it? Nothing.  Our allies have too much of stake in selling arms to Iran to make them angry. So, nothing gets done. What does the new President do? No good options. 
    North Korea has developed the nuclear bomb and is far along in development of a missile that could reach the United States. They already can threaten our allies in the Pacific.  North Korea is being run by a psycho that doesn't like us or any of our friends. What's our options now? None that are good. 
   On the home front the new President is faced with real problems in trying to get the economy moving again. The goal is creation of REAL jobs that pay wages sufficient for a family to live on. But, a number of factors stand in his way. The manufacturing jobs that used to provide those kinds of benefits have either escaped the high labor and regulatory costs in the United States by fleeing to foreign lands or have been automated. Robots now do what people were once paid good money to accomplish. He has mentioned raising the tariffs on foreign produced products to level the playing field. Another thing he has mentioned is a punitive "tax" on goods manufactured by American Companies in foreign lands. I have no idea how will get any of these proposals through the congress. Most economists seem to thing they are very bad ideas. What is needed will not have an immediate impact. In fact, lowering taxes and significantly reducing regulations may not pay off until this Presidents first four years are up.  I pity the uproar when he can't deliver the jobs that he promised in the rust belt in a short time.
     He will also face the problems of a massive public debt, Social Security that is really already broke, and other entitlement programs that are sopping the nations wealth. 
     In addition we have a significant balance of trade deficit that is growing to unstainable  level.
     I pity the poor guy who moves into the White House and has to face the world that he has inherited.  
     

Capitalism and Socialism, a discussion.

        First, let's differentiate among the three basic economic models, Capitalism, Socialism and Communism.  Most people lump Socialism and Communism as being synonymous, but Karl Marx would beg to differ.
     True Communism, as defined by Marx, is an expansion of the commune approach to a national economic model whereby everything is shared, i.e " from each according to their ability and to each according to their need". There is no need for money in this system as everybody is selfless and contributes to society for the good of the whole.  (Lots of luck with that). Because some nation adopts the name of Communist, doesn't make them one by Marx and Engels definition.  Marx envisioned that mankind would go through an evolution, socially, and true communism would be achieved. He also believed that communism was inevitable, but we would have to go through a phase which he called, "The Dictatorship of the Proletariat". 
     Communist states such as China, the USSR, and others are really Socialist states run by dictators.What distinguishes the Communism we know and Socialism, is that Communism is a political position and Communist nations work to expand their influence into a world wide Communist state by any means necessary.  Socialism, taken by itself, is strictly an economic model. 
     Socialism is the model where the government either owns or directly controls the principle means of production. Most all services, including medical, are owned by the government, or at least controlled by government, and it's practitioners are paid directly by the government. Central planners decide on the needs of the population and shift resources as needed.  In general, private ownership and control of small businesses and even small farms are allowed but, are regulated by the government.  It is the system that college students in the liberal arts, their college professors and way too many public school teachers, think is the correct and proper form of government.  It espouses that all of societies ills are caused by evil capitalists who prey upon the working class and only government control of the economy can provide the benefits they so richly deserve. 
     It is a sirens song to the uninitiated. Everybody lives a life of comfort and free of nagging problems: lots of free stuff. A warm fuzzy safety blanket is wrapped around the whole population. You are taken care of from cradle to grave. What could be better than that?  A socialist system, in concept, provides benefits such as free medical care, paid retirement, free education through a university for those qualified and other perks, whether they are done well or not. There is no such thing as a private enterprise labor union, as that would be in conflict with the central planners.There is no unemployment in a socialist system as every one is given a job, whether there is a need or not. In the ideal system, for instance, one parent is paid to take care of a child, because that is defined as a job.There is no competition among producers of goods in this system, which by the way, is one it's biggest weaknesses.
     This economic system was tried by several large countries, with disastrous results. This system, by it's very nature, demands a tight control over the economy and therefore it's citizens. The government will decide where labor is needed, what is being produced and wages and other benefits of the workers. The prices of goods and services are also controlled by a central committee. The task of overseeing a vast economy results in a huge bureaucracy.        
     Socialism fails for a number of reasons, but mainly because human being are charged with running it. And, guess what, human beings are prone to get stupid, greedy, lazy, power hungry, and some of the other sins that hamstring a government and it's economy. Anyone who has ever come into conflict with a government bureaucracy can appreciate that a system that depends on the planning and control by a bureaucracy, will be a failure. Bureaucracies always degenerate into self sustaining organizations whose main goal is to expand their control and maintain their positions. If you think that the American bureaucracy is bad, image what a socialist economy would end up looking like.The EPA will never be satisfied that the environment is healthy enough. The endangered species folks will always find another species that needs their protection, be it a rat, butterfly, insect or something else. Each Bureaucracy will find a reason for their slice of the public pie to be continued and even to expand.  Their primary goal will be to stay in business.
      In a Socialist system there really is no motivation to succeed, except within the party structure. The resources to support the population within such a system is never large nor diverse enough to meet all the demands. Goods that are produced in this system are usually inferior, because the workers have no real motivation to be productive. Workers are hired where there is no need and can not be fired. Quotas for production are set and managers must meet them or face the consequences. Ergo, incomplete and inferior products are rushed out the door in order meet those quotas. In general the Socialist nations never export any consumer goods. The products just don't match up to the quality of goods produced by the capitalists.
     They don't draw talent  from other countries, as there is no motivation for top talent to enter such a system. (Except, of course, at the point of a gun as was done to the German scientists after WWII). And, there is no competition to spur improvements in currently produced products or the development of new ones.  An old Soviet workers saying "The pretend to pay me so I'll pretend to work" is emblematic of the attitude among the working class. A black market typically thrives in this type of system, as it is the only way to get some products that people want and even need; paradoxically from the Capitalist countries.
    Attempts at socialism has always been based on a central committee that exercises dictatorial power. China, the USSR, and Cuba are examples of the attempts to embrace a socialist system. Some South American countries have flirted with it with disastrous  results.  There really is no other way that the system can work. But, economic reality finally set in for China and Russia and they had to greatly modify their systems in order to survive. They still have an essential dictatorship, but they allow a limited free market to exist. They have adopted a form of Capitalism as their economic model.  China and Russia have a lot of millionaires today and a middle class of professionals. They, especially China, have stepped up their technology of war making and now surpass the United States in space capable warfare. And, at least, match the west in Cyber warfare. That makes China and Russia an ever growing threat to the west and the democracies.
   Capitalism is simply the model whereby the means of production and services are owned and managed by private capital. That can be a single individual or a group of investors having a small group of selected people perform the management function. There are many variations on this economic model, with government regulations and taxes interfering with the free trade of goods, services, and intellectual properties to a lesser of greater degree, but the essential theme of private ownership of the means of production holds.
     Of all the economic systems that have imposed on, or adopted by it's citizens, the one that generates the greatest wealth and national prosperity is the system of free market capitalism.. It produces the greatest exploitation of any national resources available, encourages the growth of new business and generates more, and higher paying jobs than any other system of economics. It produces the most advanced medical treatment by the best and most highly trained doctors. It  generates the greatest breakthroughs in medicine, drugs, and basic science. And why is that?  In the grosses terms--GREED. The engine that drives capitalism is the desire and pursuit of profit and higher incomes in critical professions. This system encourages that pursuit.
    It's the magnet that draws the best researchers in medicine and science. It encourages and rewards achievement. It's the reason that companies are formed and are expanded. It's the reason investors risk their own money to finance the start of a new business or to expand a current one. They hope for profit on their investment. It drives pharmaceutical companies to invest millions and even billions of dollars in the research of new drugs. It encourages the brightest minds to pursue higher education in all kinds of fields, because the rewards are great. Every advanced country in the world today has embraced some form of capitalism as it's basic economic system. The United States leads the way in free market capitalism. 
     A  free market will also produce a ever improving product in fields where the free market exists. Look at the performance and reliability of the automobile today compared to just a few years ago. Competition has driven the auto makers to constantly fight for market share and have forced them to invest billions of dollars into improving reliability and performance for their product. This is true for all kinds of products. Of course it means that the organizations that can't keep up fall by the wayside. Remember the Hudson, Nash and Packard Motor Companies. That's what happens in a free market if you can't compete.  Think of the TV of today as opposed to the CRT based systems. In fact, where the free market exists there has been a wave of improvements in all products. The freer the market, i.e. the less government regulation, the greater the incidence of entrepreneurship.  In addition, of course, new products have been introduced. Think about the personal computer, a product that likely would never have come about within a socialist system. After all, no one except the Apple founders saw any need for such a device. We have cell phones, fresh fruit and vegetables in the winter, the internet, social media and a mountain of other things available to us that we take for granted, because individuals conceived of the idea and invested their money and time to make it happen. It has been proven over and over that the free market is the best judge of what is needed and wanted by the population and is the best system for adjusting to that need.
     But: as one of our Presidents,  I think it was Harding, who said "the only problem with Capitalism is Capitalists".  When you think about it, all the depressions and recessions we have experienced, have been directly caused by out of control speculation in some critical market, driven by the desire to make a profit in that segment of the market. The stock market crash of 1929/1932, the housing bubble, driven by investment banks and loose credit requirements of the mortgage companies, are prime examples of what can happen.
      And, unregulated capitalism will not remain a "free" very long. Look at the history of our own country. Before Teddy Roosevelt came along, trusts and cartels abounded.  When a company gets large enough, or originates some product or service, it will take steps to block any competitor it see's that might threaten it's dominance of it's market.  There are many ways that can be achieved, not the least of which is to buy up the competition. Look what happened to Westinghouse when the Edison Company, with the backing of the J. P. Morgan banking empire, forced the sale of all the patents it held on alternating current devices and formed General Electric. Westinghouse just didn't have the resources to fight the banking empire.  Of course legislators can be "bought" to support the monopolies. Most of you don't remember the Tucker automobile. It was an innovative concept that pushed into new ideas of what a car could do. But, the big three, with their "bought" Senators got the government involved, held numerous hearings concerning a private enterprise and essentially killed the automaker and his concept. The big three didn't want the competition and had it squashed. And, if the market is controlled by just a few large corporations a little price fixing is not unheard of. 
      Industrialists will work to increase their profit and if left unchecked many actions they take will be unethical, even illegal. When the labor market, which after all is just a product, is driven only by supply and demand factors, and certain segments create a supply of labor that far exceeds the demand, labor can and will be exploited.  Companies will get rid of it's waste products the cheapest way it can in order to maximize profit. Rivers are polluted as waste products are dumped. Workers are injured, or even killed, because safety measures are expensive. The water supply is tainted, even poisoned, because there is no effort to control the contamination of the soil and subterranean water supplies. It's too expensive. All these things have happened in the past. Some of them were actually illegal, but far the most part they were not forbidden under the current laws at the time. Of course, these type of actions are not limited to capitalists. 
       Enter government. Here we have a dichotomy. To maintain a free market, government interference is actually necessary. Only the government has the power to prevent the establishment of monopolies and trusts, to monitor and prevent companies from merging and buying up competitors in an effort to control the market, and to prevent price fixing among the principle players within a given segment of the market. I.e. to keep the market free. 
      Government,on the other hand, is the principle player in maintaining some monopolies that would fail if not for the governments support by law and by regulations. Some of those monopolies are generally desired and beneficial to most of the public. As an example, the Medical profession is pretty much controlled by government by the severe restriction on who can practice in that field. The practice of law is restricted in the same way. Your utilities enjoy a monopoly on the products they deliver, protected by Government. Patents are registered with the government and the force of the government protects competition for a period of 17 years. This only a couple of examples, there are many government protected monopolies. Some are not questioned by the public at large, but many are purely political in nature.  
     But, government regulators have a tendency to believe that regulations are an end in themselves, and they often produce regulations that inhibit the free market and business in general, especially small business.  They have a history of turning out new regulations by the volumes every day. Those regulations are the greatest impediment to the establishment and growth of business, especially small business. Each bureaucracy feels it has a mandate to accomplish some task and they bull their way though to that end, no matter the consequences to the economy, or even to another bureaus agenda. Big business has the resources and capabilities to cope with the mound of regulations at a huge cost, but small business is simply overwhelmed. The only reason that Apple and Uber, for instance, got off the ground and running, was that the regulators hadn't caught up to them when they were launched.
      While a free market system opens the door for the achievers, by it's very nature it leaves a certain segment of the population out of the flow for a number of reasons.  This can be as the result of exporting the manufacturing of goods to a foreign country or, of late, the introduction of robotics to replace the human worker. In either case the worker now has no place to market whatever skills they have.This situation is not going to change. Even if you could bring back all the manufacturing that has been exported to foreign lands, only the labor intensive processes, which usually carry low wages, will supply significant jobs. Manufacturing opens up new jobs, but not in the old areas. The new jobs, that pay well, will require training, and a lot of it.
    Look at the auto industry. Detroit has laid off thousands of auto workers, but there are more American cars being built today than ever. Robotics are here to stay and will become more intrusive in the future.There really is no place for the worker, whose skills have been bypassed by the advancement of technology. He/she retrains to fit into the new market, or goes on welfare.
   New fields have been opened and those who have acquired the necessary skills to move into them make out like bandits, but those who haven't just sit around and wonder what happened.  The advance of technology has made the STEM occupations well paid  and the workers in high demand.The capitalist system is very dynamic. Change is constant and sometimes rapid. Of course it has made billionaires out of people who are are involved in the financial markets. It will always produce a market where almost all the wealth is concentrated in a very few people. Lately that has become a significant political issue as the wealth gap has become greater than any time in recent history.
     If one looks at the history of the United States there has always been about 10 to 15 percent of the population, at least, that live on the edge of minimum subsistence. That usually means that there is always a subset of people who have not, or can not, achieve the skills necessary to compete in the society at that time. That number grows and shrinks, depending on the conditions at the time. But, it's always there. And, the free market system allows no aid for the under achievers.
     Thus, the growth of government instituted welfare programs that purport to help those who get caught in the advance of technology, or other factors, beyond their knowledge.  Many people talk of the welfare state as being tied to Socialism, but it really is a product of the capitalist system and is financed by taxes drawn from the achievers. After all the ideal Socialist system has everybody working or being paid for some service to the state. But, welfare is a yoke that ties the recipient to the government. It stifles the desire to get ahead, to achieve, to work. Once welfare starts it has tied a portion of the population into never ending servitude to the welfare handouts that proceed through generations.
    The people are demanding and getting many of the perks of Socialism in a Capitalist system.  Especially in Europe. In a lot of developed countries medical services are essentially or completely free to the consumer. Canada has a one payer system whereas England has a government run medical system where the professionals are employees of the government. The universities are free, but it takes a bit to qualify for entry. They enjoy extended paternity leave, government paid vacations and various perks that smack of socialism. The price they pay for these types of perks are high tax rates on all it's citizens. In some countries as high as 80% of their income ends up going to taxes. 
    That seems to be the direction that the United States is headed. We have Social Security, Medicare, Medical, all Socialist ideas. One administration after another seems to be trying to tackle the problem of medical care, mostly unsuccessfully. Obamacare is the latest attempt. College tuition has become so expensive that students are graduating with student loans so large they will be paying on them for years. Many economists blame the huge rise in tuition on government sponsored loans. In effect the government is paying the tuition and the student is stuck with paying it back. Given this fountain of available money the colleges just keep raising their fees and paying themselves more. If you haven't noticed the increase in medical expenses over the last few decades, you haven't been paying attention. Here again government financed insurance has opened up a gold mine to the medical profession and they are mining it. And the beat goes on. 
 
    

Political Parties are Private Organizations

       The Donald is back at again, crying over the fact that the rules governing the Colorado method of selecting delegates to the Republic National Convention is rigged against him and that the powers in the party are trying to "steal" the nomination from him. That seems to be his common complaint when something doesn't go his way. The rules for the selection of delegates were well known before he ever entered the race and certainly before the delegate selection. The fact that he didn't know the rules, or knowing them didn't do the necessary work to put together the forces in that state to do better job is his fault.
    As far as stealing the nomination from him; you can't steal something from someone if they don't own it. And he doesn't own the parties nomination for President. No one owns it until they gain the necessary majority of the delegate votes as specified by the rules as laid down by the party before this race ever began. Can the party change the rules? Of course they can. If they see it to their advantage to do so, they might very well just change something. 
    For instance a rule in place at the moment would prevent anyone but Trump and Cruz from securing the nomination. When the rules committee meets, they may delete that rule, for obvious reasons.
    Let's be clear. Political parties are private organizations. They can select their candidates any way they want to. There is no constitutional right for the voters have any say in that selection at all. If the party wishes to hold primary voting to help in selection of that candidate that's up to the party. If they choose to select their delegates to the national convention by a caucus method, that's a choice the state party can make. If they wish to select their candidate in the proverbial smoke filled room, they can. The party can set up any rules they want to in order to present the candidate that they think has the best chance to win the election. They can even stack the convention by use of Super Delegates, as the Democrats have in order influence the outcome of the convention. 
     Those facts seems to be lost in the vitriol surrounding this years run for the White House. Some of the candidates understand the rules and are using that knowledge to put together an organization that can take advantage of them. Others are living in ignorance and crying foul when the results don't go their way. 
    Even some of the media, especially on the Fox News Channel seem to be ignorant of some of the facts and are joining in the chorus lamenting what that see as the voters will being thwarted. How they came to that position isn't clear to me, but some of the commentators seem to have some idea that there is some "right" involved with the candidate showing up at the convention with the plurality of the delegates. They seem to have the opinion that denying that candidate the nomination would be "stealing" nomination. 
     In any event, this a great year for the media and political junkies, but a sad year for the Republicans. In a year where capturing the White House, with a congressional majority, was a slam dunk, The Donald has entered the fray and literally torn the party apart. I don't know whether the party can salvage anything at the convention, but whatever happens it might not be enough.