Do All Roads Lead to Athens, Rather Than Rome?

So it seems Greece is rapidly going down the toilet, and a number of other European nations aren't far behind.  After decades of extravagant expenditures on social services, the tipping point has been reached.  Greek lawmakers rushed through legislation to prevent total insolvency, cutting the minimum wage by 20% and dissolving roughly one out of every five civil service jobs.  That still may not enough to save the capsizing country, and rumors were circulating that at least one of German Chancellor Merkel's advisors were calling for Greece to get the boot from the EU.  If that happens, would it be the beginning of a run of falling dominos, with Portugal and other economically deficit nations next to be expelled?  Could it spell the end of the EU experiment?  How Greece manages to recover - or not - may lay out the roadmap for things to come.

Sadly, the Greek people seem unwilling to accept reality, having looted and rioted across the nation, and burned over 40 businesses.  But while residents of other nations - including my own - stare at the news feeds and shake their heads, I have to ask, when social security runs out of funds in the US in about six years, will things be any different here (aside from perhaps the median age of the rioters, and the fact that most of ours will need their glucosamine and Geritol to rush the police)?

After all, Americans epitomize the term entitlement.  While most have never actually read the Constitution and Bill of Rights, they insist on their "rights" to drive, have a job brought to them, live in a house without paying the mortgage, and burn police cars when they're unhappy with the outcome of a major sporting event.  Basically, Americans seem to think they have the right to get away with whatever they can, and scream about the injustices when they're caught.

While I lean to the left on some views and to the right on others, I'm pretty firmly with the right's philosophy on being responsible for your actions (notice I cite their philosophy, not their practices).  Sometimes things are someone else's fault, and sometimes people do need a hand or a bailout, but not always, and certainly not permanently.  Unfortunately, neither side tends to practice what they preach, and Republican lawmakers are no different in how they're pulling their weight in government.  This whole nation - its people, its federal, state and local governments, its entire attitude - seems to espouse both the "it's someone else's fault" and "let someone else fix it - preferably a few years down the road" viewpoints.  Sadly, that's not going to cut it any more.  Unless we're ready to follow Greece's path, drastic measures need to be taken, and soon.  And yeah, it's gonna hurt.

Residents of Jefferson County, Alabama - home of the major city of Birmingham - already know how it feels.  The county is in bankruptcy, and the people are feeling the impact.  All satellite county courthouses have been closed, leaving huge lines snaking out of the sole remaining courthouse in downtown Birmingham.  The remaining jail is horribly overcrowded with some imates sleeping on the floor, while a newly refurbished nearby prison sits empty, the county unable to afford running it.  The police department can't afford to pay overtime for its officers (I wonder if any enterprising criminals have hacked the police's rotation schedule to see when the fewest cops are on duty now?).  Roads are not being repaired and roadkill is not even being picked up (which seems trivial, until I read someone hit a cow a couple of weeks ago).  A few other cities and counties in the US have also declared bankruptcy and others are on the brink.

How long before ramifications of these localities are felt in the federal government?  How long, if our federal lawmakers don't take these examples to heart, before the federal government follows?

So Let's Step Away From Politics For Just A Moment...

...to discuss some aspects of US business practices and global competition.  At first this is going to seem like a product-placement ad, but bear with me.

What drives this sudden urge to change topic, you ask?  Well, Thursday I went to IKEA.  Yes, IKEA, the epitome of big box stores (although curiously, the one big box store that comes to mind that doesn't compete with mom-and-pops as much as other big boxes, since how many mom-and-pops generally carry Swedish furniture?).  I admit, their larger furniture pieces don't do much for me - not really my preferred style - but they have plenty of other stuff to catch my eye:  lighting, kitchenware, etc.  And let's not get started on the meatballs.  However, what gets me the most excited about IKEA is (sadly) not what they sell, but how they design what they sell, and how they design their stores.

Let's start with an example from their furniture:  bookcases.  You go to most any US-based furniture store and you can definitely find quality bookcases.  So what catches my eye about IKEA's?  Well, most US homes have base moulding around the edge of a room.  You know, that little strip of decorative wood at the base of the wall where it meets the floor.  If you buy a US-made bookcase (or dresser, or anything meant to go against a wall), the back is perfectly flat, so when you slide it up against the wall, there's always a quarter- to a half-inch of space behind it for stuff to fall into.  Not IKEA's bookcases!  After purchasing our first bookcase there, I was thrilled to see IKEA cuts a little notch out of the base of the bookcase, about 4 inches high and a half-inch deep.  Just enough to fit your moulding so the bookcase can fit flush against the wall.  So simple, and yet so sheer genius.  It's the little things... and we'll not even get into how well designed and illustrated their assembly instructions are and the overall quality, yet low prices of their products that keep customers coming back.

And now we'll move on to the stores themselves.  There have been a number of articles written about the psychology of the IKEA stores, such as here.  A marketing strategy so well comprised it's called the IKEA Effect:  well-laid-out, winding paths take you through the entire store, as though you're on an amusement park ride, ensuring you hit every department in an organized, orderly flow.  Of course there are shortcuts around the store, but they're not labelled, and they're placed behind you, so they're even harder to spot.  Of course, there's so much cool stuff there you may not want to.  But once again, like the bookcase cutout, even with the stores it's the little things.

For example, when exiting IKEA, unless you have giant pallets of merchandise and need the freight elevator, departing customers don't use escalators; instead there are shallow moving ramps, and you can wheel your shopping cart/trolley on to the ramp to take your goods down to your vehicle (most IKEAs have underground parking).  But wait, a wheeled cart on a moving ramp?  You might need your full body weight to hold it in place - but not at IKEA.  Instead, IKEA's designers (who I surmise to be on par with Disney's Imagineers) put grooved wheels on the shopping carts, and matching grooves on the moving ramps.  It means nothing to you when you're pushing your cart around the store, put as soon as you push on to one of those ramps, the wheels on your cart mesh into the grooves on the ramp and lock your cart in place for the trip down - you don't even need to hold it with a finger!  Once again, so simple, but so genius.

So where am I going with all this (aside for hoping from IKEA royalties for this post)?  At a time when US businesses and stores are struggling to get customers and keep repeat customers, why haven't we adopted not only IKEA's specific innovations, but the IKEA mindset, to make things easier, simpler, more common sense?  I don't think citing profit margins is a viable excuse, as IKEA is hugely profitable.  Are US companies not willing to take the leap of faith to execute such a plan?  Is it American arrogance or laziness?  I'm not sure, but I do know IKEA is a winning company that more US companies should be emulating, but they're not.

I wonder if we have any more of those meatballs left in the fridge...?

Politics in Colorado - To which a state of confusion is expressed

So currently I'm living (stationed) in Colorado, a state I've come to love and is very high on my retirement-possibilities list.  As the Republican primary wound down this week after all the hype, at first I confess I was quite surprised by the outcome, but after chewing on it a few days, maybe I'm not as surprised as I thought.

One of the things I like about Colorado and which makes it stand out from other states is it's truly a go-your-own-way, still-has-a-touch-of-the-wild-west state.  Yes, the far-right Focus on the Family is headquarted right here in Colorado Springs, but it's countered by nearby artsy-hipster Manitou Springs, and what's known as the "People's Republic of Boulder" northwest of Denver; the state is roughly one third each Republican, Democrat, and unaffiliated (source:  http://www.city-data.com/states/Colorado-Political-parties.html).   I've never really seen it broken down further, but based on my personal friends and acquaintances who are members of both parties and tend to be "conservative Democrats" and "liberal Republicans" (although I also have friends and relatives who are much farther out from the center) I made the mistake of assuming that, while there are certainly die-hards at both ends of the spectrum, a majority of affiliated party members here were more centrist.  Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if Colorado had become the only state taken by Ron Paul, who's got quite a bit of a "wild west" persona himself.  My error, as demonstrated by Rick Santorum's victory last week.

What I'm still trying to figure out is just why Santorum won.  It was just 40% to Romney's 35%, but over the past few weeks Santorum's been leaning more and more toward a more extremist right view, stating it's better to have one parent with the other in prison than have two loving gay parents (I was waiting for a "better to be an orphan than have gay parents" but it didn't happen).  He topped himself this week by first saying women aren't fit for combat, then backpedaling and saying it's the men who can't capably serve alongside them because we're unable to overcome a protective instinct (and today's quote from Mr Santorum:  "but women can fly small planes").  Even some conservative blogs were backing away from him as if he were channeling Sarah Palin and deliberately trying to lose the fence-sitters to the other candidates.

Which brings me to the dilemma, the unknown:  are Colorado's Republicans more right-leaning than I'm aware of, or were they voting more against Romney than for Santorum?

A lot of folks, blogs and media have been discussing Romney being Mormon, and what it may mean if he's elected - reflective of the JFK-Catholicism arguments of the 60s I believe (and, in my opinion, just as relevant).  Are evangelical Republicans really that afraid/aghast/wary of a Mormon candidate, that they'd vote for someone more extreme than the average, than their own political view?  I do not know.

At this point, I'll apologize to my readers:  normally, I like to wrap a post up with a nice little conclusion, maybe a well-supported opinion or even a hypothesis, but I can't on this one.  I'm still confused, and that worries me.  What worries me more is that a lot of Colorado Republicans seem to be confused about how Santorum won too...

I wonder if anyone's going through the same thing in Minnesota...

It’s been a slow news month…

So I haven't had much to say since we flipped over to 2012, but it's because I don't think there's been very much substantive material out there.  Read as:  no one's significantly annoyed or disgusted me lately.  Oh, don't get me wrong, the politicians and political candidates are still out there doing their stuff:  mudslinging, sound-biting, back-stabbing and generally trying to keep themselves in the spotlight, but nothing that really matters.  It's like watching our cats wrestle on the living room floor:  lots of screeching and hissing, and a few face-smacks; just enough to keep me mildly amused, but not enough to intervene.

Domestically, I'm disappointed Huntsman didn't go farther - according to the various news organization surveys I've played with his views were closest to my own (if ~53% can be considered "close"), and now we're seeing how Gingrich/Romney's going to turn out.  Prediction:  Romney.  Gingrich is much more out of touch with society, and I think it's starting to show.  Ron Paul continues to begin sentences with logic and common sense before springboarding off the deep end into a pool with no water.  As far as Santorum goes, he's gone more Ron Paul than Ron Paul himself.  Santorum, whether he's doing it on purpose or is being misadvised, either doesn't seem to realize he's courting a rather small segment of the very-far-right (even if I was against gay marriage, stating having a father in jail is better than having two fathers makes no logical sense; is he going to say next it's better to be an orphan than have two moms?) or he's standing on some very tight principles.  If it's the latter, I can respect that without agreeing with it, but I don't think he realizes how alone he is.  Still don't know who'll pull ahead between Obama and (my prediction of) Romney; still too much time for EVERYONE to screw things up... more.  Still hoping Stephen Colbert will seriously throw his hat in. :-)

Internationally, the news has been more disconcerting, but it seems everyone is still just moving their pawns around without bringing more significant pieces into play.  Things are probably worst in Syria, where many have died; there's talk of monitors and sanctions, but Assad is still hanging on, many countries are criticizing, and nothing's really happening.  Egyptian protesters are active again, and Israel and Iran are going at it as they do every few months.  I think there's potential in the possibility of Israel finally carrying out their ongoing threats to attack Iran in 2012, but I'm not sure if they'll really have the guts to do it, especially with the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt.  The Muslim Brotherhood is honoring the Egyptian treaty with Israel, but I believe Israel is worried an attack on Iran might push Egypt to fall off the wagon.  I'm also curious to see what happens in Egypt over the next few months.  The West had apoplexy when the Brotherhood took the majority in elections there, figuring a radical Islamic Republic was soon to follow, but things have stayed rather stable, and the Brotherhood has even publicly supported a Christian Coptic running for public office over a more radical Muslim contender.  There's hope for fairness there.  Whether or not it happens though, this is democracy in action:  the people will get what they voted for.  I've been rather optimistic on the Brotherhood since first studying them in school a few years ago:  they have their radical sects (just as our political parties do), but on the whole they're principled but balanced, and seem to go out of their way to stay within the boundaries of the law.  If they can hold on to that, as I said, there's hope.

The bigger question for the U.S., of course, is whether and/or how much the U.S. would get involved in an Israeli attack on Iran.  If Iran closed the Strait or let loose with a swarm of anti-ship missiles on our forces in the Persian Gulf, they could do significant damage to which I'm sure we'd fully retaliate, flattening much of Iran's military.  Hopefully we wouldn't go full Clausewitz on them, as there is a large moderate faction desiring greater democratic and Western values in the Iranian population, and if we could amputate the arms, there's a chance of a full revolution which could take off the head on its own.  If we started getting into civilian casualties, they would likely consolidate back into the government for self-preservation purposes, and any chance for effecting anything more than wholesale destruction would be lost.

On the other hand, if Iran can manage restraint under an Israeli strike and focus solely on counterattacking the Jewish state, they stand to win a huge moral victory.  The U.S. would have no solid basis to join in the fray, under the fear of international backlash such as after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  In this case, the U.S. would be most wise to limit their involvement to diplomatic, logistic and intelligence support for the Israelis, and keep us the hell out of it.  Frankly, our ships and bases in the Persian Gulf are sitting ducks for Iranian missiles and suicide speedboats, and I feel we'd lose international and domestic public support in days if not hours after the first airstrike on Bushehr or Qom.

So that's it for the moment:  lots of posturing, lots of hot air, but in the large scale, everyone's still just circling the ring and waiting to see who, if anyone, is going to throw the first real punch.  Frankly, I'd be fine if everyone just picked up their marbles and went home.