2.27.2003
Clear Channel owns the world. I thought it was amusing... in Fairbanks, the station that plays Art Bell's show proudly declares itself part of "Clear Channel Radio" before putting Art on... Like trying to acheive the largest contrast between good and bad possible. It is going to be interesting to watch the demise of the music industry. I think the final nails have been pounded in already... it is just a matter of time now. I think that it will always function as kind of a background noise, vying for legitimacy, but nearly everyone who is anyone has found other outlets for their material. (read: MP3)
This was something I was going to ask about, that I have heard claimed many times, but have never heard a satisfactory answer (to my mind, anyway), of how anybody will profit from a war (Iraq, N. Korea or elsewhere). I read an estimate that war in Iraq would cost 85 Billion. War is the destruction and expediture of a lot of things. On both sides. I guess that I don't really see anything good in the way of profit coming from this. The only thing I can think of that would cause profit would be an increase in military spending which would profit those who do contract work for the military (by this I mean that military spending can be done peacefully, without destruction). And this is valid. I am one person of millions who derives their living from military spending. I built roads for the Army and the Air Force last summer, and things go well during peacetime, but money starts to dry up in the event of war in that fewer contracts are let because of the focus on a battle.
I think that military spending is one of the most efficient wealth redistributors available. it is far more effective than welfare for redistributing wealth because it goes to people who actually produce something. National infrastructure is grown, technology is created, new and important things are learned and discovered. Much of what we have in the way of technology is the result of space and defense spending. Nearly all of it, to be exact. I realize I am biased in this sense (all engineers are), and I don't endorse the idea that we should be a military state (we are not... a true miliary state in the political sense is N. Korea and its ilk), but the differences in economies and quality of life in areas that have a large military influence (ie, Fairbanks) and ones that don't (ie Brainerd) are striking. Brainerd is the absolute end of the freaking planet. The armpit of the heartland. I feel unclean for having contact with it. Fairbanks is different. I suppose I am biased here as well, but as I said before, objectivity is impossible.
oh well...
good night...
jeff
This was something I was going to ask about, that I have heard claimed many times, but have never heard a satisfactory answer (to my mind, anyway), of how anybody will profit from a war (Iraq, N. Korea or elsewhere). I read an estimate that war in Iraq would cost 85 Billion. War is the destruction and expediture of a lot of things. On both sides. I guess that I don't really see anything good in the way of profit coming from this. The only thing I can think of that would cause profit would be an increase in military spending which would profit those who do contract work for the military (by this I mean that military spending can be done peacefully, without destruction). And this is valid. I am one person of millions who derives their living from military spending. I built roads for the Army and the Air Force last summer, and things go well during peacetime, but money starts to dry up in the event of war in that fewer contracts are let because of the focus on a battle.
I think that military spending is one of the most efficient wealth redistributors available. it is far more effective than welfare for redistributing wealth because it goes to people who actually produce something. National infrastructure is grown, technology is created, new and important things are learned and discovered. Much of what we have in the way of technology is the result of space and defense spending. Nearly all of it, to be exact. I realize I am biased in this sense (all engineers are), and I don't endorse the idea that we should be a military state (we are not... a true miliary state in the political sense is N. Korea and its ilk), but the differences in economies and quality of life in areas that have a large military influence (ie, Fairbanks) and ones that don't (ie Brainerd) are striking. Brainerd is the absolute end of the freaking planet. The armpit of the heartland. I feel unclean for having contact with it. Fairbanks is different. I suppose I am biased here as well, but as I said before, objectivity is impossible.
oh well...
good night...
jeff
< 23:26 >< /j >
