My father was a golfer, at one point a scratch golfer, who loved the game. I played golf occasionally until I was in my late twenties and a few times after that with my father, but I never saw much point to it. The fewest strokes to get a small ball hundreds of yards into a small hole… and then do it again seventeen more times? Now, I can appreciate the considerable strength, skill, and concentration it takes to be good at golf, but for me it’s pointless.

On the other hand, I played tennis moderately well until I was in my fifties, and enjoyed it, but I have to admit that, on an intellectual level, tennis is as pointless as golf. You have to hit a ball over a net into a certain area and keep doing it until you or your opponent fails to keep the ball in the court. Then you start all over again. But it wasn’t pointless to me because I enjoyed it.

The “point” to all this is that for something not to be pointless, you have to understand whatever it is – a sport, a game, an occupation – and you have to like it and/or gain something from it.

The other day I saw a reader review of Isolate, calling it “Pointless,” and from what little the reviewer wrote, I’m sure the book seemed pointless and plotless to him, because he saw the descriptions and conversations as meaning nothing. For him, the “point” of a book is clearly action. That’s what he wants and likes.

But it was also clear that he had no understanding that the basis for “action” in the real world lies in the thoughts in the minds of people with power or people who wish to obtain power, wealth, or objects or people they covet – or possibly those who wish to deny, power, wealth, or objects… or even freedom.

The current war in Ukraine didn’t really start when Russian troops crossed the borders and started firing; it began when Vladimir Putin decided he wanted to “restore” the old USSR/Russian empire. World War II didn’t begin when Hitler invaded Poland; it began when the conservative German political aristocracy thought they could control Hitler and made him chancellor in an attempt to further their own ends.

To the action-lovers, the thoughts and conversations and political machinations that spur the actions are largely irrelevant and often “pointless.” For me, however, what’s pointless in a book are endless reactions to an undefined cause, or one not understood, possibly because I’ve seen how the failure to understand the “non-action” causes leads those reacting to make even worse mistakes.

The other day, Representative Tom Emmer – the House Majority Whip and the number three Republican in the House of Representatives – made a statement that, on the surface, doesn’t seem all that unreasonable, to the effect that the GOP budget/debt ceiling bill enacted by the House would impose exactly the same federal government spending levels next year as in this year. In addition, it would limit future spending growth to one percent per year.

Unhappily, if one actually thinks this through, which Emmer either did not or doesn’t want anyone else to, there are major economic and legal problems with such a spending cap.

First off, the federal government employs not quite three million people in civilian capacities and has 1.4 million service members on active duty. Pay raises have already been enacted for these people. In addition, the pay of military retirees is automatically indexed to inflation, as are all Social Security benefits. Active duty military pay and benefits last year ran over $51 billion, and military pay has been boosted by 4.7% for 2023 – which will require an additional $3.3 billion.

Likewise, the current annual civilian payroll for the federal government is roughly $200 billion, and the increase in payroll for this year will be $10 billion. Currently, 67 million Americans receive almost one trillion dollars in Social Security benefits annually, and benefits are automatically indexed to inflation, and next year’s mandated increase is roughly $90 billion.

The government also purchases hundreds of billions of goods and services, from paper clips to multi-billion-dollar aircraft carriers. If inflation stays even at 5%, holding the budget at the same level would result in an actual decrease in purchasing far more than just 5% because of the increases already mandated in pay and benefits will leave less funding for all other government programs. Then add in the need to replenish the amount of military equipment we’ve sent to Ukraine, and a wide range of other government programs will have to be decreased.

I could list budget category after budget category, but they’d all show the same thing.

Now, it’s true that inflation increases people’s incomes, but because federal income tax brackets are indexed, tax revenues don’t increase nearly as much as does the cost of government.

But the problems with the GOP proposal would only get worse every year. Why? Because for only three years out of the last 30 has inflation been below 1%, and the total inflation since 1993 has been 109%. All of that means that, under the Republican proposal, almost every federal program except Defense, Social Security, medicare, medicaid, and federal retiree benefits would face 15-20% cuts in less than five years, with greater cuts occurring each succeeding year.

So… the GOP proposal, if you think again, is far less reasonable than it sounds.

By the same token, Democrats can’t just keep everything as it is, because the mandated increases, and merely keeping up with inflation, will increase budget deficits. So they either have to cut back in some places or increase taxes, so some combination of both, to avoid even more inflation.

Personally, given that half of the current inflation was caused by increases in corporate profits, while the real incomes of more than half the population didn’t keep up with inflation. I’d favor higher corporate taxes, with no loopholes, and higher taxes on incomes above, say $2 million, and much higher taxes on incomes above $10 million.

Yet, from what I can see, neither side is looking at the problem rationally.

On average, the statistics would seem to indicate that the U.S. economy is doing better. Inflation dropped below 5%, the lowest rate in two years, and unemployment decreased to 3.5%, a fifty-year low. Wages are up overall, and housing prices are beginning to ease.

So why does a record sixty-nine percent of the American public hold negative views about the economy both now and in the future?

Because those optimistic figures don’t tell the whole story. While overall income in the U.S. has risen over twenty-five percent since 2000, median household income has risen only seven percent, and wages for working class earners have barely stayed ahead of inflation. Income for the top one tenth of one percent of earners, by contrast, has jumped forty-one percent, and corporate profit rates and revenues are at an all-time high, a factor that created more than half the current inflation. So, for the fortunate few, the economic situation is looking good.

As for the rest of the U.S., higher interest rates have reduced the ability of average Americans to afford rent or mortgage payments, to buy car, or to pay off credit card balances. The price of natural gas for home heating has more than doubled since this time last year. The average price of a home in the U.S. has increased by thirty-five percent in just the last five years, while the average mortgage rate has more than doubled since 2020, a combination that effectively increases the cost of buying a house by almost 2 ½ times.

The overall prices of goods in America have increased by 67% (even after adjustment for inflation) since 2000. Less than half of all Americans can afford to pay an unexpected cost (medical, car repair, etc.) without going further into debt or simply being unable to pay.

At the same time, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy of any high-income country in the world, the poorest access to health insurance, the longest working hours, and the least parental leave and paid vacation. Also, by the way, we have reached the point where firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers.

Those factors might just explain the disconnect between the favorable statistics and the way most people feel.

The “right-to-life” position of devout Catholics and extreme Evangelicals is a very real problem but is also symptomatic of a much deeper problem.

The Founding Fathers recognized that problem, which is the danger posed by making national laws based strictly on one given religion’s views and requirements, especially when there are different faiths with differing views.

Right now, the far right’s pro-life extreme position enshrines in law a belief that essentially a fetus’s right to life trumps the mother’s right to life and right to determine what to do with her own body. Put another way – the right-to-lifers believe that even a clump of undifferentiated cells has more rights than a living, breathing, thinking woman.

Jewish beliefs, from what I’ve read, state that the mother’s rights are paramount until birth. Neither represents the most widely held belief in the United States, that abortion should be allowed, roughly along the lines set forth in Roe v. Wade.

One of the essential underlying principles behind the founding of the United States and its Constitution was the goal, so far as possible, of self-determination. The far-right anti-abortion laws restrict and deny self-determination to women, despite all the explanation and apologia to the contrary.

Not only that, but the so-called “pro-life” position is in many ways “anti-life” because the ramifications of legal restrictions are destroying or reducing available pre-natal and maternity care in states and localities across the country. Some medications that can induce abortion are being banned, even for women with other conditions who need them to survive. Birth control methods are also being denied, restricting the ability of women to plan their families and their future.

All these restrictions don’t apply to men. So… enshrining the views of a religious minority creates a legal inequality between men and women. On the other hand, allowing women the right to choose does not restrict the personal rights of women who do not believe in abortion. If they don’t want an abortion, they don’t have to have one. If they find a particular kind of birth control objectionable, they don’t have to use it.

Why is this so hard a concept to understand?

The anti-abortion crew insists, in effect, that there’s something so special about their beliefs that the government should pass laws to override the beliefs held by the majority of Americans.

Not only that, but the same crew, using terms like the innocuous sounding Florida Citizens Alliance, Moms for Liberty, Families for Educational Freedom, or Utah Parents United, have effectively banned classic American novels (like Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird), books that even mention different gender identities, and histories that illuminate more fully the evils of 400 years of black oppression or of the Holocaust.

State, local, or federal repression of ideas or books you don’t like because goes hand in hand with political repression, and those actions are what define a theocracy – a land where one religion rules and imposes beliefs by law — and theocracy is what the Founding Fathers opposed, and what many of them fled from.

Is theocracy what really what you want?

We have pets. At one time we had five dogs and three cats. All the cats rescued themselves by finding us. So did three of the dogs. Ergo, we needed a carpet cleaner. Although we’re down to one cat and two dachshunds, we still have the occasional need for a carpet cleaner.

Last week the “old” carpet cleaning machine died. I’ve never gotten more than four years out of any cleaner, and this was no exception. So, over the weekend I trundled off and purchased a new version of the same brand – one that proved effective over the years.

The price was almost exactly double what I paid four years ago. The design was somewhat better and likely more functional, but essentially the same technology and design. When I checked other makes, the price increases were comparable.

Now, according to the BLS, overall inflation since 2019 has been 19%. So why is my carpet cleaner showing a 100% rise in prices? Most statistical reports I’ve been able to find show that U.S. manufacturers required, on average, price increases of 8% per year over the past few years to maintain profit margins.

Even the average price for new cars has “only” increased some 30% over the past four years. So why have carpet cleaners increased 100%?

I fear that the answer is quite simple. Because on certain product lines, those where the consumer really needs to buy the product now, the manufacturers can charge more, get more profit, and blame the increase on generic “inflation.”

According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, over the past four years, over half (54%) of inflation was caused by increased corporate profits, which makes sense since profits have increased at record rates, while, historically, corporate profit increases have only contributed 11% to inflation.

So let’s put the blame for high inflation where it really belongs – on greedy corporations – because those increased corporate revenues didn’t go to workers [except high paid executives], and the “supply chain” shortages or increased wages weren’t the principal cause of today’s inflation. Excessive profits were.

Which is why my carpet cleaner cost 60% more than it really should have… and why I have absolutely no sympathy for corporate executives opposing higher corporate taxes.