The flag says it all.

Executive Compensation

This is the most rational and just executive pay policy: Establish a maximum multiple of the average employee salary. Mandate that annual pay increases cannot be more than the increase of the average employee salary. Bonuses cannot be more than a maximum multiple of the average employee bonus. I know of no more just, reasonable, or effective pay policy. Can someone out there get this idea to someone who can do something about it?

Evil

I really can't add anything to these editorials other than to say: "If you fight evil with evil, evil wins."

The Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt by James Henry Breasted

This is a work that few would include in the curricula of secondary education. It should be put there. Its importance transcends Egyptology as it demonstrates how deeply the evolution of religion and that of society are intertwined. As Breasted presents the material, the reader has the opportunity to see his or her society and religion mirrored in those of Ancient Egypt. But, its most vital message is to be found in Breasted's demonstration of how the rise of religious literalism led to the stunting of the development of ethics. Priestly literalism - driven by greed - did great harm to the development of a system of ethics that began in the Middle Kingdom by turning the wrongly named "Books of the Dead" into the equivalent of cosmic "get out of jail cards" very similar to the infamous Papal Indulgences. A deep awareness of how this came about is essential to the ability to recognize the development of such nefarious trends in our own society.

S = k log w again

I just finished The Alchemy Key by Stuart Nettleton - it's a marvelous book that I recommend to anyone (especially if you have no interest in Alchemy). Nettletton's knowledge is encyclopaedic and he shares it in an extremely enjoyable way. I am still somewhat dizzy from the breakneck speed at which the concepts, symbols, cosmology, and history ire presented. Reading the book gives one a very good idea why people like Newton, Goethe, Graves, and Campbell were so entranced by the subject. But it has brought me around again to entropy. Seeing how many concepts, thoughts, beliefs, etc have been packed into Christianity, Judism, and Islam (not to mention the many other belief systems that lay behind western and eastern societies) makes me question how much these can hold. This is even more of a question when one realizes the conflicts and contradictions humanity has packed into these foundations. Just the conflicts between what Nettleton refers to as the "Afro-Asiatic" and the "Indo-Hittite" belief structures have blown whole regions apart in the past and time has increased, rather than lessened, these conflicts. When will our "S" value increase beyond our power to do something about it? What is the tipping point for cultural, economic, social, philosophical, and religious entropy? I would feel better if I knew that someone was thinking about this and I would feel even better if someone has considered this and can prove that it is not a problem. I don't think that anyone has thought or is thinking about it, though. And S = k log w, continues ticking away.

Entropy and Bright Eyes

My mind can't seem to stop mulling on entropy. As the S value of a closed system increases, the energy available to that system declines. At its core energy (or information for that matter) is nothing more than order and order means that any given group of discreet elements can only combine in a limited number of ways. My son introduced me to a singer who goes by the name of Bright Eyes and I thought that this kid should be the Bob Dylan or even Woody Guthrie of this generation, but as quickly as I thought that, I realized it was not possible. My son's generation won't have a Dylan or a Guthrie - there are too many possibilities, too many options, too many outlets, too many... It is fantastic that people can create their own sound tracks for their lives but... How many possible combinations can there be? When does a culture's, a society's, a nation's S value become too high? Can we continue to create more and more possible combinations of practically everything in our closed system and still survive? Oh, don't worry about it. Perhaps I'm just too old. But you really should listen to Bright Eyes sometime. You might even save our culture by doing so, who knows?

S = k log w

I cannot think of a more trenchant or pithy comment on life and the universe. E = mc2 pales by comparison and is meaningless without this statement. It transcends science and is truly religious in scope. The Ancient Egyptians would have treasured it and one can almost be forgiven for seeing some synchronicity between the use of the letter "S" as a symbol for entropy and as the first letter of the name of the lord of chaos, "Set". Shannon's insight - that entropy applies to information as well as energy - was almost as amazing as Boltzmann's original epiphany. Money (capital, monetary units, dollars, euros, etc.) - because it symbolizes energy and because it is a form of information - must be subject to entropy. Is it possible that financial system is collapsing because it's "S" value has become too high? Is it possible that the trillions of dollars being injected into the system will have no effect at all? Will these trillions of dollars (an amount that is meaningless because one cannot conceptualize it) hasten the decline by pushing the "S" value even closer to infinity. Have we reached the point where our current concept of money will no longer work because money represents too many things? I'm not sure that this even applies, but the thought won't leave me alone.

Mexico

I lived in Mexico for 12 years. My wife is from Mexico, my children were born there, and I love the country and its people. One was a huge guy who always gave me a big abrazo that took me off my feet. My wife and her brothers grew up with him, he was at almost every family function I remember and he was murdered by drug traffickers. Like my father-in-law and all but one of my brothers-in-law, he was a police officer. He was a Mexico City officer who volunteered to go north because he thought he was needed. He was and now he is no more. Most Americans seem to think that Mexico has become a Columbia - it has not and it will not. To see why, look at the op-ed piece in today's New York Times entitled "Mexican Evolution." Most Americans seem to think that Mexico is hopelessly corrupt and they are wrong. After 12 years, during which we lived through some of the worst things to happen to Mexico, I know how corrupt the country can be. I also know how honorable it can be. Manuel was honorable, very honorable and I cannot stand the idea that some seem to have about men like him. Yes, he was killed because he crossed the traffickers, but he crossed them by opposing them - he did not take money from them. Like cops everywhere, there are good and bad cops in Mexico, but most are like Manuel.

President seeks control over...

Executive compensation. I will continue to flog this particular horse everywhere and every time I can because this is the most just and effective way of controlling executive pay. Executive compensation must be linked to the salaries of everyone in the company. By legally linking top executives' compensation packages to a legally mandated multiple of the their companies' average salaries, we ensure that top executives will do well only when their companies and their companies' employees do well.

Trillions

I do not know why part of the trillions that the Government and the Federal Reserve are giving to financial institutions could not be given to the citizens instead. The funds that would be given to citizens who are minors would be put in trust funds for education and health care. Regulations could also ensure that the recipients use the funds to become solvent. Citizens could then use their remaining funds in any way they want. In this way, the people will decide which corporations survive and which do not. This will force corporations to offer truly competitive products at competitive prices. To those who cry "socialism"; how is giving funds to corporations any less socialistic? Furthermore, the giving of $250,000 to each citizen would barely make a dent in the amount of money the Government and the Fed have given and are planning to give financial institutions. Moreover, this would be a much more democratic bailout than that being implemented. Finally, if inflation becomes too much of a problem, then we should take a page from Nixon's play book and impose a price freeze.

Compensation?

We as a society must redefine this concept in legal, moral, and human terms. Too few receive too much while too many receive too little. It is painfully obvious that market forces alone will not regulate executive compensation. Just legal standards must be established and enforced by law. Every year I was told that no employee could receive more than a 3.5% raise and that my department's total salary could not increase by more than 2.5%. Every year, the CEO and top management received raises that exceeded the levels established by obscene margins. Executive salaries and incentives must be restricted to reasonable multiples of the company's average wage and their raises must be limited to the percentage increase of the company's average wage. That bonuses and options to top managers be granted only if the company does well must also be legally mandated. The pressing need to enact laws to ensure that a company's executives do well when, and only when, the company and its employees do well demonstrates to what extent our society has been corrupted by greed. In a fundamental way, this greed is no different than that that destroyed the Soviet Union and which, if unchecked, will destroy us as well.

Meltdown

We and the corporations who serve us have lost sight of what a corporation does. Everyone knows that a corporation takes raw materials, combines these with energy and creates a product. Where we have failed is in our definitions. All companies use the same raw material, the same energy, and produce the same product. Corporations are failing because management is unaware of this. The only raw material is people (employees, providers, customers, investors). The only real energy is information. The product is a culture - the Chrysler culture, the Bank of America culture, the Apple culture, the Viagra culture, etc. If management has a strong idea of what their company's and their products' cultures are and if all decisions are made based on how they affect the cultures, companies will prosper and shareholder value will increase. If the companies continue to treat their products as commodities, if they continue in their failure to watch over their cultures, the corporations will fail. If managers do not establish the culture and commit themselves and the company completely to it, they and their companies will fail. Chrysler will never rise again unless it truly means something to be Chrysler.