Imaginary Numbers

Hopefully, like many fathers, I adore my daughter and while sitting on the kitchen floor drinking coffee one morning, M mentioned her math class and how she was working with imaginary numbers. While the parent in me thrilled at hearing about her success in realms of math that I could not imagine, the pragmatic in me was stuck at the idea of imaginary numbers in something as practical and cold and real as math. There are not imaginary 5’s and 7’s in the world and we know the binary world of ones and zeros permits no Pooka’s. Yet, in math according to M, these numbers exist real-life applications, such as electricity, as well as quadratic equations. It seems like the late mayor of Chicago, we must aspire to higher and higher platitudes, greater and greater abstractions to make sense of a world of nonsense that we seem to have created. At some point, accessible to attentive high school students, is the fact that we live in a world of greater and greater abstraction to the place where nothing has any connection to reality. While it would be pretty to think this is merely a pipe dream we have already seen the effects of this magical thinking- crypto currency backed by nothing suddenly looses value with no value in the real world, Facebook looses billions on a bet that we all want to escape into an electronic fantasy but isn’t there something lost when we all indulge in this life of abstraction?

 

 

 

Continued levels of abstraction farther and farther from reality

separation from means of producton and reality?

Its your time….

As Thanksgiving approaches, it is a sincere hope that everyone would take a moment to stop and reflect on the things in our life that we all have to be grateful for. We all have so much beyond our screens and phones, why not take a moment and realize our blessings. Remember, we have the power in our lives. You always have a choice. We decide what we do and what happens. Its your time and your life. If nothing else, you can change your attitude and  how we think about any situation. You are not a tree, if you don’t like your situation move from it- even how you think of it. Only you can.

Be grateful for that.

 

Shocked- SHOCKED!

If our age could have a patron saint, I would like to nominate Captain Renault, Claude Rains character in Casablanca. In his famous scene, Claude Rains, playing the role of Captain Louis Renault, jokingly suggested that gambling in the local Rick’s Café nightclub astonished him. In truth, Renault is fully in the know, corrupt and on the take. This seems to be the role that the media and many politicians seem to want to play during this presidency. While the idea that a twenty-four-hour media would not create a twenty-four-hour news cycle may still be news to some, it seems as though we can’t imagine that a reality star in the presidency would use the media as a reality star would- a tool to promote themselves and their brand. With the creation of a 24-hour news media, why should we be shocked when someone tweets at 5 in the morning? We have created a media wave yet ridicule people who surf it. (Please understand- I am speaking of the use of the media- not the content) I am reminded of the film “Frost/Nixon” Where David Frost, on hearing Nixon resigned was angered not by the act but that he had done it in the morning in the East coast while the major media on the west coast was still asleep and could not cover the event live. How could he pull off the greatest media stunt of his time while much of the country was not awake to see it? Frost knew the power of media and knew how to use it to his own advantage. Now we have the children of the media using these tools in their own playground. If the brand is what we value, why not use all the tools to increase its worth, I mean, you go to the zoo- expect to see the monkeys.

This is only a guess

This could all be a mistake. But perhaps not. Imagine if you were a business during the pandemic, you had to run with a skeleton crew- we all pitch in to make it work through these hard times. Later, as we being to come out of the medical and economic emergency we can begin to go back to “normal”, we can bring back the people we had let go of and begin to return to a previous level of service and engagement. But what if we don’t. What if you kept putting off hiring more people and kept those who were working during the pandemic- regardless of the long hours they needed to work or the drop in client satisfaction due to too much work for too few people. Well, your profits would go up- you are putting out less in payroll and as people return to normal purchasing, the sales would also increase. How long can you continue this trend, some people may notice  the lack of customer service and carts of product in the isle – if there is product at all but you can always say how no one wants to work anymore. People start quitting from being burned out or outraged at being used for others gain. We put out job postings but ghost them after no interview or a first interview as we really didn’t want to hire them in the first place. Lazy people is a better narrative never considering how do these people live who once had a salary that now don’t? Besides, as inflation sets in- how are those people supposed to live with one or even two salaries or is that even a concern of businesses any more.

Workers may quit from burnout after working ludicrous schedules with little or no recognition forming what may be know as a Great Resignation or if you prefer, millennials or which ever generation you choose, are unwilling to do what is required for survival. Perhaps they “quiet quit”- and treat their employers as they are treated, hoping that their bosses might come to their senses one day.

But whose survival- people who are fired? Now forced to look for work in an incredibly difficult economy or companies who have the hubris to decorate their offices with “ghosts” of employees who were laid off or expect them to come back after being disposed of due to a possible mistake. Perhaps they will learn from their mistakes, begin to treat employees like people and act responsibly or perhaps we will find a retooling of our economy to one that benefits all its participants.

But this is only a guess.

Corporate Welfare

Growing up, I was lucky enough to stumble into Chicago’s Pullman neighborhood, a planned company town south of Downtown Chicago. Built by George Pullman for the workers at his sleeping car factory the town was also part of the reason for the Pullman Strike a few years after the town was completed. It seems that the workers did not appreciate it when wages and hours were reduced but not the rent on the company houses. This seems strangely familiar in an age of what can only be looked at as corporate welfare. Companies regularly cover a large part of the health care insurance for people and now companies are also looking to develop housing for their workers who can not afford to live close enough to make a living.

It seems we are returning to a feudal age where we live at the whims of not governments but corporations who decide where or if we can live at all. There are those who wring their hands at the idea of government handouts but turn a blind eye to the corporate dole. These companies are too big to fail but hopefully they will continue to let us live.