Definitely a case where some businessmen have decided to use political muscle to deal with a competition. Crony Capitalism.
Closing Generating Plants to Manipulate the Market
Closing Generating Plants to Manipulate the Market
I remember when Enron closed generating plants for “maintenance” back in the good old days of extorting money from the citizens. These maintenance periods coincided with peak demand in California and helped Enron generate billions in profits. And I remember that many public officials were shocked that anyone would think something suspicious was going on.*(see below)
An ethical businessman makes money by selling a service or a product. An unethical businessman manipulates the market to make money. Making money the ethical way is too slow when you can lobby regulators to look the other way while you cut the supplies of electricity to raise the price. It is fast profits, a high return on an investment, good results for the next quarter, and it leaves in the dust the ethical businessman.
If this process is not regulated, then the unethical manipulators will drive the ethical producers out of the electrical business. This is a kind of Social Darwinism in which the unprincipled and immoral displace their competitors producing a mediocracy of the ethicless. A society that values simply making money by whatever means necessary will embrace such mediocracy since only a fool would act ethically when money can be made. So in time, all producers will act to manipulate and cheat as opposed to making an honest dollar.
The dishonest profit destroys the moral fabric of a society?
Probably not the best place to raise children?
James Pilant
Enron-style price gouging is making a comeback | Al Jazeera America
The price of electricity would soar under the latest scheme by Wall Street financial engineers to game the electricity markets.
If regulators side with Wall Street — and indications are that they will — expect the cost of electricity to rise from Maine to California as others duplicate this scheme to manipulate the markets, as Enron did on the West Coast 14 years ago, before the electricity-trading company collapsed under allegations of accounting fraud and corruption.
The test case is playing out in New England. Energy Capital Partners, an investment group that uses tax-avoiding offshore investing techniques and has deep ties to Goldman Sachs, paid $650 million last year to acquire three generating plant complexes, including the second largest electric power plant in New England, Brayton Point in Massachusetts.
Five weeks after the deal closed, Energy partners moved to shutter Brayton Point. Why would anyone spend hundreds of millions of dollars to buy the second largest electric power plant in New England and then quickly take steps to shut it down?
Energy partners says in regulatory filings that the plant is so old and prone to breakdowns that it is not worth operating, raising the question of why such sophisticated energy-industry investors bought it.
The real answer is simple: Under the rules of the electricity markets, the best way to earn huge profits is by reducing the supply of power. That creates a shortage during peak demand periods, such as hot summer evenings and cold winter days, causing prices to rise. Under the rules of the electricity markets, even a tiny shortfall between the available supply of electricity and the demand from customers results in enormous price spikes.
With Brayton Point closed, New England consumers and businesses will spend as much as $2.6 billion more per year for electricity, critics of the deal suggest in documents filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
That estimate will turn out to be conservative, I expect, based on what Enron traders did to California, Oregon and Washington electricity customers starting in 2000. In California alone the short-term market manipulations cost each resident more than $1,300, a total burden of about $45 billion.
via Enron-style price gouging is making a comeback | Al Jazeera America.
From Around the Web.
From the web site, CBS News.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-jpmorgan-owes-410m-for-energy-price-manipulation/
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) agreed to pay $410 million in penalties on Tuesday to settle accusations by U.S. energy regulators that it manipulated electricity prices.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said the bank used improper bidding strategies to squeeze excessive payments from the agencies that run the power grids in California and the Midwest in 2010 and 2011.
The penalty includes $285 million for the federal government, and $125 million for ratepayers.
FERC’s enforcement staff said its investigation had found improper trading practices were used at Houston-based JPMorgan Ventures Energy Corp.
JPMorgan said in a written statement that it’s “pleased to have reached an agreement with FERC to put this matter behind it.” JPMorgan didn’t admit or deny any violations.
FERC recently levied a $453 million penalty on Barclays, Britain’s second-largest bank, for manipulating electricity prices in California and other Western states. Barclays is disputing the allegations.
FERC claimed JPMorgan’s energy unit used five “manipulative bidding strategies” in California between September 2010 and June 2011, and three in the Midwest from October 2010 to May 2011.
The Blogger from “Why We Are Screwed” Has a Comment!!
The Blogger from “Why We Are Screwed” Has a Comment!!
I am delighted to have found the blog, Why we are screwed. The owner/operator has very kindly given permission to use the comment below. It was made and is still attached to the blog post – https://southwerk.com/2014/05/08/higher-education-in-crisis/
Thank you for visiting my blog but please take an extra few seconds and visit my colleague at “Why we are screwed” and sign up as a follower
James Pilant
The Comment
Thanks for posting these two articles. Although I do realize that the scope of the articles were more on teaching, public funding for science and engineering research has steadily been declining for decades, but teaching and research go hand in hand. When looking at the National Science Foundation (USA) data; however, in terms of private research money available (adjusting for the Recession), things have never been better! And, job security and good salaries are in place for tenured professors in scientific domains. I’m talking about those who are typically male, 50-65ish.
The problem we have now is underemployment for scientists say, under 50 years old in specific domains that don’t ‘suit’ private interests, and with sparse public funding, professors at the top of the pay scale are skimming off the top, leaving less available for new tenure track positions. As such, these ‘younger’ scientists can’t find suitable employment and many are caught in a never ending postdoctoral cycle, of which older generation profs can easily take advantage now more than ever (cheap labor = more publications with better authorship opportunities for the tenured prof). Not all older generation professors have the skills necessary as it is to provide students with the technology skills needed for future employment because the amount of knowledge required and technology available in computing has really been exploding in the past 10 years or so. Yet students are paying more than ever for education.
I wonder what will happen to quality of post secondary education when the older generation of professors retires in effect at the same time? There will be ever more students demanding a quality education in a breadth of subjects which is necessary to maintain a quality education (not just those that are of interest to the private sector) and there will be generally fewer top-notch academic folks around to fill the shoes of these professors.
I suspect at some point the tenure and publicly funded postsecondary systems as we know them will have to be revamped, but this is going to take years.
The language of political denigration: Kevin Andrews and disability pensioners.
We see the same games played in the United States.
Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews’ recent announcement that eligibility for the disability pension was to be tightened was a masterful demonstration of political weasel words.
Full marks to the speechwriter, it was a textbook example.
The first thing that Andrews did was to reclassify those on disability pensions. He did this by saying young people on the disability pension sat on couch all the watching television. The reclassification or label that comes with this description is “lazy” and this combines very nicely with “young”. So the new label is now “young and lazy.” It’s very easy for the idea of “young and lazy” to morph into the idea of “dole-bludger.” It’s also interesting to understand that and that the new labelling stresses the young and lazy idea and de-emphasises the idea of disability.
Once the re-labelling has been done it is necessary to construct a narrative to support it. This…
View original post 299 more words
Higher Education in Crisis
Higher Education in Crisis
College and University eduction is under attack while at the same time beset by internal crises. The dramatic changes in society over the last decades have changed our class makeups. The economic changes have made colleges more expensive while state and federal aid has declined. And most bizarrely, we are engaged in a debate on whether or not liberal arts education is worthwhile.
Below are two different points of view. Please visit their web sites and read their posts in full.
James Pilant
Leadership From the Ranks
http://facultydevelopmentdesign.com/2014/04/28/leadership-from-the-ranks/
Higher education also is in the midst of a crisis. Both citizenry and a growing number of work environments require the skills to navigate an increasingly rhetorical- and statistics-based world. But the social insistence on more college has expanded the number of student bodies with different needs, as well as redirected higher education’s focus to student retention and graduation rates. On one side, faculty now struggle not merely to deliver course content for diverse learning habits, but also to ensure diverse student engagement and in-depth content assimilation for an improved likelihood of continued student success. On the other side, academic professionals struggle to identify and resolve bottlenecks in the system and reach-out to previously ignored populations who could benefit from more education.
This re-imagining of higher education coincides with an economic crisis in which people need jobs and employers want higher-quality job candidates. In the face of rising student debt, students and their parents, legislators, and potential employers now question the value of higher education. Meanwhile, our computer-infused work environment demands greater technological and critical-thinking skills for even entry-level jobs — yes, even the jobs that can’t pay back the resulting debt. This conflict has resulted in new entrants in the market who then compete with at least the public colleges and universities, which have had to raise tuition to replace diminishing state funds.
From Around the Web.
From the web site, subtext2.
http://subtext2.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/higher-education-is-in-crisis/
Higher Education has, over the last year, been steadily and increasingly heading toward utter crisis. It is clear that this point has now been reached. Total cuts to university budgets will be over £1.5 billion. It is clear that the disaster set in motion by New Labour is being accelerated by the Conservative Coalition.
The Effects:
These are all stories reported by the BBC during the last five days:
Due to underfunding by Government, it is estimated that at least 250,000 university applicants will be refused a place for economic reasons. Spending cuts have reduced extra university places at a time when there has been a huge surge in demand. The number of applicants not getting a place will have doubled in two years.
Meanwhile, Colleges across Britain are suffering from the huge cuts to funding, from decreased student numbers (due in part to cuts), and from competition from new academies. Why the Conservative Coalition are investing in new buildings and new school colleges and not in exisiting facilities is certainly a cause for bafflement.
In response the Government has suggested (as did New Lab before them), condensing courses into two years. This from the party that, in recent memory, bemoaned “mickey mouse courses”. It seems, when the choice is between HE and big business, the Tories are happy to make fools of us all. UCU has emphatically voted against these “sweatshop” courses, but unfortunately that won’t stop a host of related trends, such as the move toward “distance learning”, “part-time” courses and other such thrift measures, which speak loudly of a lack of Government funding for Universities and of a lack of financial support for increasingly beleaguered students.*
As a result primarily of the financial meltdown, but also of other smaller factors – increased competition, for example – the Golden Promise that HE guarantees better employment has dissolved. At the same time that tuition fees have massively increased (and are set to increase more this year), students are finding that they are unable to find jobs. …
The Ethics Sage Discusses the Sterling Scandal
The Ethics Sage Discusses the Sterling Scandal
Steven Mintz also known as The Ethics Sage has some thoughts on Sterling’s racial comments and their origin. As always, please go to his site and read the whole entry, stay for a time and enjoy some of his many other posts and then sign up as a follower to get first notice of new posts.
James Pilant
Does Sterling’s Punishment fit the Crime? – Ethics Sage
I grew up in the 1960s and recall many arguments with my parents over the treatment of African-Americans in the U.S. The differences were not whether schools should be segregated or blacks should sit in the back of the bus or that businesses could refuse to serve black people. It wasn’t that blatant an offense that we disagreed about. It was the more subtle issues such as whether blacks were as capable as whites to make a success out of their lives and be contributing members of society or whether they could learn as well as whites or whether they have the same work ethic as whites. I tried my best to convince my parents that the differences they perceived which, in their minds, made blacks an inferior race were born out of a time when blacks were blatantly discriminated against. In other words, the mistreatment of blacks in America for so many years was the basis for thinking they could not accomplish what whites could. How could they at that time given their ability to progress and accomplish what whites had done was held down for such a long period of time.
The legacy of white folk treatment of blacks is marked by years of slavery in America. I believe discrimination still exists today and goes cuts deep into the very core of how we treat others. When I was growing up I remember some of my friends looked downward when a black person passed by or crossed to the other side of the street. This is the essence of racism and, today, we see it in stupid comments made by people such as Donald Sterling, the owner of the NBA franchise Los Angeles Clippers. …
via Does Sterling’s Punishment fit the Crime? – Ethics Sage.
From Around the Web.
From the web site, Lizzy P. Beauty.
http://lizzypbeauty.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/donald-sterling-racism-and-the-clippers/
I have personally been a Clippers fan for years now. Win or loss the Clippers are my team. One thing I have known for sometime is that Donald Sterling is a racist, I look back at the day that Baron Davis was the lead star of the team. Sterling would sit on the sidelines and harass him. Yep that’s right harass his own star player with racial slurs. Even when Davis said something it was swept under the rug. There have been numerous other accounts as well. Including settlements outside of court to keep things hush, hush.
This recent audio that has surfaced is truly saddening but there is a wider issue as a whole with the NBA owners in general. Anybody remember when Lebron James left Cleveland and his owner wrote a letter that stated he felt like he owned him personally. As if to imply he was his slave, oh yeah you all let that one pass because you were mad at Lebron. Right???
I Will Miss Bob Hoskins
I Will Miss Bob Hoskins
It was the movie, The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish, that made me a Bob Hoskins fan. Through comic circumstances his character winds up dubbing pornographic films. His female counterpart, making the “other sounds,” is played by Natasha Richardson. Through this unlikely partnership, he falls in love with her. The comic situation had me laughing until tears came to my eyes. There is something delightfully bizarre in two people making the sounds of sex and then falling in love.
I always look for actors who I think would be likable in real life. I always sensed a genuineness in him. I would have like to have met him. I’m sure he would have said something funny.
I saw him in a lot of movies. The first time I became aware of him was as the crusty sergeant in Zulu Dawn. Whatever he played he always stood out, a real individual.
He’s going to be missed. I’m going to miss him.
James Pilant
R.I.P. Bob Hoskins 1942-2014 – Salon.com
Bob Hoskins made Hollywood movies at the peak of his fame in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, but that wasn’t really who he was. As every obituary of the English actor published this week will note, Hoskins’ most widely seen role was probably Eddie Valiant, the toon-hating L.A. private eye in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” Robert Zemeckis’ influential hybrid of live action and animation. But Hoskins drawling his way through an American role never felt (or sounded) right to me. As a man and an actor, Hoskins was a Cockney down to his soul, a product of a bygone working-class London who grew up to become a key figure in the British film renaissance of the ‘80s.
If you look at Hoskins’ bio it will inform you he was born in the country, in the agricultural county of Suffolk, northeast of London. But the year was 1942, and any British person above a certain age will understand the context immediately. London was being bombed daily by the Luftwaffe, and a German invasion still seemed imminent. Pregnant women were routinely evacuated to small towns to give birth, and at the age of 2 weeks, infant Bob returned to the north London neighborhood of Finsbury Park (which, somewhat later, would produce John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten).
Hoskins’ dad was a truck driver (and reportedly a member of the British Communist Party) and his mom taught nursery school; like most working-class British kids of his generation, Hoskins received only a very basic formal education and left school at age 15 to go to work. According to his own hyperbolic-sounding tales, he picked fruit on an Israeli kibbutz and took care of camels in Syria. An English teacher had apparently implanted a passion for the theater, and in 1972, at age 26, Hoskins accompanied an actor friend to an audition and wound up getting the leading part. He had never acted before in any context and had no training; the method acting so beloved by professionals, he would say later, was “a load of bollocks.”
via R.I.P. Bob Hoskins 1942-2014 – Salon.com.
Watch a short scene with Bob Hoskins!
From Around the Web.
From the web site, Pensive Digression.
http://pensivedigression.wordpress.com/2014/04/30/bob-hoskins-passing/
A great actor has passed away at the age of 71 from complications brought on by Pneumonia. I’m serious by the way. Bob Hoskins may not have been appeared in as many films as Christopher Lee or be able to lay claim to the same level of fame as the great classical actors, Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff for example but I have fond memories of his movies from my youth. I want to talk about two in particular here. An ode to you Mr. Hoskins.
The first of his films that I loved as a child was the semi-animated, semi-live action comedy “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”. This films was and still s hilarious. Bob plays the role of a surly investigator with a grudge against cartoons. This proves to be quite a problem when he lives in a world where the “toons” co-exist with real life people every day. He is the only hope of a cartoon rabbit called Roger to prove his innocence after being accused of murder.
What I loved about this film was the humour, which wasn’t afraid to go dark, the lighting, the music, the way the actors blended seamlessly with the animated characters, but most of all it was probably just the animated characters themselves. All the famous animated characters from way back made appearances, Buggs Bunny and Mickey Mouse even shared the screen for a scene, it was awesome! Now that I’m older I still find myself easily watching it anytime I need a laugh. Appreciation for a certain character in particular increased as I matured. Ohh Jessica Rabbit… Damn!
“Talking Ethics” Discusses the Sterling Affair
“Talking Ethics” Discusses the Sterling Affair
Mark Willen’s Blog, “Talking Ethics” has a new post about the basketball team owner, Donald Sterling. He lists five ethics failures associated with the scandal. As you can see with a quick glance at the quote from his blog below, I have only included the first two. That’s because I want you to go to his blog for the other three. I want you to visit, look around and maybe sign up as a follower or read some of his other postings.
He writes essays that I find interesting and enjoyable.
James Pilant
Five Ethical Failures in the Sterling Affair | Talking Ethics
The NBA’s decision to ban Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, is a reasonable first step, but it doesn’t begin to deal effectively with the underlying problems – or even address some of the ethical failures by the too-many actors involved.
Five separate failures immediately come to mind.
1. Sterling’s comments. Now that Sterling has acknowledged that it really is his voice on the tape, there can be no explaining or excusing his views, nor any separate ethical acts he committed be used to mitigate the harm. Racism is inherently unethical, and we’re all obliged to help limit its harm.
2. The NBA’s past actions. While the lifetime ban announced today and the move to end Sterling’s ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers is a big step in the right direction, one has to wonder why the NBA didn’t act a lot earlier. Sterling’s long history of racism was no secret to the league and the other owners. A string of lawsuits for sexual harassment and housing discrimination, including one that led to a $2.76 million settlement with the federal government, provided plenty of reasons to act a long time ago. …
via Five Ethical Failures in the Sterling Affair | Talking Ethics.
From Around the Web.
From the web site, You Call It Gossip.
http://youcallitgossip.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/donald-sterling/
These are sad days in the NBA playoffs this year,
and not just because the Knicks did not make it (Knickstape).
I’m sure by now everyone who is a fan of basketball and even those who are not, have heard the comments made by LA clipper owner Donald Sterling.
Sterling told his Black and Mexican girlfriend he does NOT want her bringing black people to his games including Magic Johnson in whom she took a Instagram photo with. This statement was recorded and is now being broadcasted all over. No action has been taken yet in any suspension or fine against Sterling. (Yet they will fine JR smith in a hurry for blinking too hard). Apparently they are running a full investigation. Which to me is pointless, it is him and we all know it. He has a very distinct voice so what are we investigating? Hopefully action will be taken sooner than later, as Adam Silver announces “it will move quickly”. Sterling has also been caught in the past making other racist like gestures.
I am positive there are many racist around us daily but as a owner of a NBA team, you should at least try to curve your hatred toward African Americans. The NBA is 78% black. It is horrifying to know that you can say such horrible things to a black woman about black people, when you work with and root for them everyday. What kind of person is Donald Sterling? I say the kind of person that needs to be not suspended, not fined but fired from his position as owner of the LA clippers. There is no room for racist in basketball. This is the one place everyone can come together and forget about color forget about anything. In this game you aren’t judged by who you are but how you can handle a ball. It’s a team.
1.2 Trillion Corporate Welfare 2000-2012
1.2 Trillion Corporate Welfare 2000-2012
There is a new organization called Open the Books (this is their Facebook page) which is providing dollar amounts in expenditures in state and federal governments. I will be watching the development of their organization with interest. This first publication that I am aware of, is pretty striking. (It’s the one specifying the 1.2 trillion dollar corporate welfare and that number appears to be only partial.) Certainly, this amount dwarfs the amount spent on education or aid to the poor. And yet while those things are the subject of continuous debate, this kind of expenditure seems by comparison to be little considered.
Maybe that will change now with these new reports.
James Pilant
New Report: Fortune 100 Companies Have Received $1.2 Trillion in Corporate Welfare Recently
Posted by talesfromthelou on March 21, 2014
By Aaron Cantu
AlterNet
Bank of America.(Photo: Stefan Georgi / Flickr)Military contractors, oil companies and banks are the biggest ‘welfare queens’ around.
Most of us are aware that the government gives mountains of cash to powerful corporations in the form of tax breaks, grants, loans and subsidies–what some have called “corporate welfare.” However, little has been revealed about exactly how much money Washington is forking over to mega businesses.
Until now.
A new venture called Open the Books, based in Illinois, was founded with a mission to bring transparency to how the federal budget is spent. And what they found is shocking: between 2000 and 2012, the top Fortune 100 companies received $1.2 trillion from the government. That doesn’t include all the billions of dollars doled out to housing, auto and banking enterprises in 2008-2009, nor does it include ethanol subsidies to agribusiness or tax breaks for wind turbine makers.
What Open the Book’s forthcoming report does reveal is that the most valuable contracts between the government and private firms were for military procrument deals, including Lockheed Martin ($392 billion), General Dynamics ($170 billion), and United Technologies ($73 billion).
From Around the Web.
From the web site, Class War in America.
http://classwarinamerica.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/the-12-trillion-welfare-ripoff/
The $12-Trillion Welfare Ripoff
It is a primary item of faith among conservatives that the reason we must not have a social system that helps the poor is that poverty is caused by inner-city blacks who refuse to work, belong to gangs, sell and use drugs, are unwed mothers, and so on. All they want to do is live in luxury on the welfare checks we pay for. This is presumed to be because they are naturally inferior and lazy, an argument that is older than slavery. (Every single one of these beliefs is provably false, of course.)
One thing never seems to be discussed: The entire cost to support poor people comes to about $58 billion, most of which would go away if it were possible for the poor to earn a living wage.
This is what the twelve trillion
corporate welfare looks like:
$12,000,000,000,000.
It seems unreasonable that anyone should receive undeserved money from the government, and the righteous right has been ranting about it since the dawn of time. All this ranting, however, doesn’t prevent the red states from using more federal aid than they contribute, which sounds like undeserved welfare to me.
Plus, for unknown reasons, the right doesn’t rant about the $12 trillion in corporate welfare that the 100 wealthiest companies and their very wealthy officers have received recently. It was handed to rich corporations gratis over the past twelve years, a trillion a year. The $58 billion social welfare cost they object to is 0.06% of one year’s worth of corporate welfare. That’s six hundredths of one percent, an amount that’s less than a typical rounding error.
One of the Tragedies of Our Time
One of the Tragedies of Our Time
David Yamada touches upon one of the great tragedies of our time. The new generation is facing a wold in which doing vital, meaningful, satisfying work is not possible. We live in a time where any employment is difficult to find, where job security is a joke and where casual cruelty often substitutes for leadership.
I often wonder how people can seriously talk about an entitlement generation when we live in such times. The new generation faces a future beset by underemployment, high student debt and economic stagnation. Is that what they are entitled to?
Please read Yamada’s work and sign up as a follower on his excellent blog.
James Pilant
For many, the economic meltdown means shelving the idea of a true vocation « Minding the Workplace
In The Four Purposes of Life (2011), Dan Millman identifies a cluster of key criteria for developing a career:
“Do I find the work satisfying?”
“Can I make good money?”
“Does it provide a useful service?”
Some might add factors such as work-life balance, geographic location, and the like, but overall, I’d say that Millman’s three criteria are useful guideposts for most people. And during much of the last half of the 20th century, as America’s post-WWII economy went into high gear and fueled the nation’s growing middle class, having some choice over one’s vocation became a realistic option. Against the backdrop of a robust economy and labor market, people could start thinking about work as being more than a source of income.
Today, however, the scarcity of good jobs is limiting our vistas considerably. Especially for those who have struggled with layoffs and unemployment, finding work that “merely” pays the bills understandably outpaces job satisfaction and notions of service as individual priorities. Millions are just trying to get by.
via For many, the economic meltdown means shelving the idea of a true vocation « Minding the Workplace.
From Around the Web.
From the web site, Word Journey.
Is the cliché that all good things, or bad things, come in threes? Never mind, I can’t dictate it for you and you’re likely to take my question as rhetorical. Beginning a blog post with a cliché aside, I figured it was time to update my journey through joblessness. This will be my third and hopefully final post on the subject, unless you count my Gold Coast amendment post made after some criticism I received in relation to comments I made about my dear city in The Year of Living Idly – The Negatives. It will also, which I thought was appropriate, be my third and final, for a while at least, phone blog (or “phlog”). And I’ll presume any criticism of those previous two to be either withheld or still pending.
I have actually worked since initially becoming unemployed in July 2012, but have remained on the dole ever since early in 2013 – after I returned from three months’ glorious yet aimless travelling. Technically, I am now working but I don’t count it because it is only for two days per week, and it is work for the dole. I spend my Wednesdays and Thursdays or Thursdays and Fridays helping cook crisis meals for the disadvantaged and maintaining an about an acre property run by a Christian church. With other unemployed people. Depending on my mood, I either think it’s great or loathe it – just like real work. And my best prospect for some paid employment at the moment is blueberry picking, which was mentioned as an opportunity by my work for the dole supervisor. The system works. Or at least, it might. Such is life.
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