Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

Knowing a person is in terrible pain, emotional or physical, and not being able to do anything about it, distresses me, as it does most people.

I am sitting in exam room 5 of Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, watching my grandfather bear with pain he says is worse than any broken rib or surgery he's had,, including for anyeurisms and a hernia. He has been in pain since two days ago, Friday, after a fall.

Together, we told Congress to act. They listened. Thanks in large part to you and the other soon-to-be investors that signed our petition, crowd investing has been legalized. Starting in January 2013, everyone will have the opportunity to invest in startups they believe in.

http://wefunder.wefunder.com

While the Founders accepted outcome inequality, they emphasized -- over and over -- that its legitimacy hinged on subjecting everyone to the law’s mandates on an equal basis.

William Alder reports:

Americans vastly underestimate the degree of wealth inequality in America, and we believe that the distribution should be far more equitable than it actually is, according to a new study.

Or, as the study's authors put it: "All demographic groups -- even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy -- desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo."

* Notes and thoughts on the non-profit behind the essay competition The Morality of Profit, http://www.sevenfund.org/morality-of-profit/index.php

Regis Dale and Reverend Peter Gori are on the Form 990 (tax return that 501c3 and other nonprofits have to file) and not on the site that I noticed but the people on the site (Widmer, Brennan, and Fairbanks are on the board in the filing also) are probably who has an active hand in selecting (the selectors) anyway. Widmer and Fairbank's essays are cited as examples; i would believe them when they say they like their own work!

People with a (relatively) intelligent opposition to equality, and how (not?) to respond.

There is a problem-- I do identify emotionally with the left, even if my very simple economic theory is the most minor logical extension of normal and basically right-wing classical and even neoclassical economics.

If I'm to talk persuasively to all those who place themselves as libertarian and conservative, I need to get out of that headspace a little. It really has nothing to do with the actual economic facts or even much with the moral standpoint.

[Sprung from the Facebook prison]

Wall Street on the Tundra | vanityfair.com
Source: www.vanityfair.com
Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness. ...
Great writing. Pay attention to the author's numerous cues about the parallels between the U.S. and Iceland.

Reposted from Nina Smolyar: http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=91560595311&h=v2Fa3&u=p0UXr&re...

Summary to a friend:

The first one was quite good. In addition to presenting how messed up things are and the need for radical change in a really good way to talk about, to continue the conversation with just anyone -- how the reaction to squeezed profits is to shift costs onto all of us (less pay for more work, but also tax subsidies, services cuts, so that you can come up with examples forever), the parts that were new to me:

- top 50 hedge fund managers paying themselves an average of $588 million

A couple quick thoughts relevant to ye old grande thesis which will be written, ten years after it could have had a useful impact on the world. (Nah, i'm kidding, if i have an underlying life philosophy it's that it is never too late.)

Here is the larger fact, which undergirds any other claims.
Power differences matter.

It's pretty weird to have to make this claim, but much of economic theory is based on imagining power differences away. This lunacy allows – or rather requires – F. A. Hayek to argue that a man in a hole is as free as a man outside.

Andrew Grice on the Greater Economic Equality leads to greater economic growth thesis.

These words leaped out to me last night.

EQUALITY ENGINE

Equality is the engine of economic growth.

Equality IS the engine.

Equality Engine.

Only the engine of equality can restore economic growth and prosperity.

EQUALITY ENGINE.

Does this program have an equality engine?

Will this program run on a non-polluting prosperity generating equality engine?