Bankruptcy is Better

General Motors is better off having declared bankruptcy than being kept alive by the American government's money defibrillator. Multiple bailouts would have only prolonged the inevitable.

The company is now in the process of doing what it has needed for awhile – trimming excesses, organizing priorities, and re-establishing their focus. Bankruptcy has forced them to take action in streamlining their activities that wouldn't be immediately necessary with a steady flow of government crutch money.

Further, 80% of Americans were against giving them any kind of bailout in the first place. I have no idea how accurate that number is, but it does pretty clearly indicate which option society is more in favour of and how they would like to see their tax money spent (or, at least, how they would not like it spent).

So the government now has all of this money that they didn't use to bail out car companies just sitting around collecting dust, right? (Not true at all, the bailout would have been a huge debt to future taxpayers, but the idea is that they were prepared to spend this money and they haven't.) They still can and should spend it, or at least some of it, to help this situation. The people who are going to face the major impacts here are the workers, and the government should be doing everything they can to help and protect them. The company itself is rightfully on its own right now, but its employees should in no way have to face the same fate. It isn't their fault this happened.

Canadian taxpayers have ended up filling part of the void in American support. We all now own a portion of General Motors. Exciting, right? It might be, if the company is successful in restructuring itself into a viable and competitive entity. That's where our support now is both crucial and risky. Having GM rebuild itself without our involvement early would mean that we would also have to accept not being a part of any future success they may have. We might just need them to help get us out of our own economic troubles.

Nolan's next topic: C.S. Lewis

Filling Ourselves

I do not know much about Ida.  I know she is a fossilized primate from the Eocene epoch, which, if I am not mistaken, was a while ago.  There are two issues surrounding Ida, from what I gather.  First is the initial supposition that she is a missing link in the early stages of human evolution, and second is the idea of buying/selling artifacts so historically significant. 

The second thing – the buying and selling – is a bit ridiculous.  I dare anyone to tell me there is no market for this kind of thing and that it is not legitimate, at least in part. If the amateur collector who found it first back in 1983 had simply held on to it forever and was buried with it in some sort of impenetrable underground fortress, and so we lost some potentially massive piece of our own history, then I think some form of ire would be warranted.  But we have it, and we are not missing it.  Our Norwegian friend who purchased Ida for a paltry $750 000 made her accessible and open; this should be a non-issue.

The real source of the hype surrounding Ida, I think, is this “missing link” talk.  We humans are obstinate things.  We constantly and without fail believe we are missing something, that there is a gap in our both our individual and collective spirits, and that it must must must be filled – with anything.  We are on high alert for this, so it consumes us.  And so phrases like “missing link” cause waves, and kindly people such as yourself are forced to read absurd musings like this.  I think I sound more cynical than I mean to be, though.  Our dramatization of events like the discovery of Ida and her potential fit into our version of history is not necessarily a negative thing.  Yes, we tend to glorify things that may not ultimately matter, and yes, that seems to me a flaw in our own individual conditions, but there is nothing wrong with this.  In fact, I am writing for much the same reason.  These little “flaws” make us interesting. 

When I started this, I intended on railing against anyone who kicked up dust over the unearthing of Ida, but that seems backward now.  This sort of thing is our whetstone.  It keeps us going, keeps us sharp, and the day we have nothing so trivial to overvalue is the day we all lose something vital.  Maybe not fatal, but it may as well be.

Dana’s next topic: Why GM and Chrysler having no money may be a good thing.

Saving the environment can be easy.

Everyone can and should be an environmentalist. There are countless things that anyone can do to minimize the amount of waste they produce and the amount of energy they consume that are relatively simple and easy to implement; shut electronics off when you aren't using them (or, even better, unplug them completely), recycle anything you can, shop locally as often as possible, or compost your organic waste and you'll eventually achieve a noticeably smaller carbon footprint.

Not everyone, however, takes the time to do these things. The David Suzuki Foundation recently released an article that mentioned a woman who would rather drive to the next state to buy detergent with phosphates in it than comply with the environmental standards established by her region, which had banned the environmentally harmful substance. She otherwise considered herself to be environmentally conscious.

The logic there is just kind of baffling. She's burning an entire state's worth of fuel to get something that hurts the environment surrounding her home. Even if she's driving the most modern of hybrid vehicles, it's to buy something that she could get at her local corner store. This type of behaviour is inexcusable.

We need “the Three R's” reinforced back into daily behaviour somehow. A lot of us seem to have lost this kindergarten level concept in the frantic and pressured transition that is the onset of adulthood. They are in a specific order for a reason; Reducing your overall consumption and waste production is the most effective way to make a difference, Reusing materials keeps society's overall waste levels manageable, and Recycling is a great way to deal with everything else. Recycling is awesome, and I'm very happy to see more and more people doing it, but, in the long run, it's not enough.

Society, for the most part, seems to be increasingly aware of these things. There is a paradigm shift afoot, however subtle. I know, I know, I'm a foolish optimist, but I really do have faith in humanity. My optimistic nature has taken blows in the past, sure, but still it persists. There will always be terrible people in positions of power who are able to influence things for their personal gain, but, collectively, we have far more power than they can ever have. If even half the population consciously shifts towards a more sustainable way of life, the result will be extraordinary.

Nolan's next post: the mythology of Quebec

Premise:

Motivation is a difficult thing. Our society is full of distractions; the internet, chores, friends, work, projects, toys, ideas. This blog is our attempt to reclaim something we lose every time we don't sit down to write despite having the time to do so. Nolan and I both enjoy writing and we both vow to do it more often almost yearly (to similar effect). Well... no more of that.

The premise is pretty simple; I've given Nolan a topic to write on, and he's given me one. We'll each post our entries later tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on how things go (it is Friday night, after all). The next week's topic ideas will be tacked on to the end of the entries and we'll post those the following Friday, and this cycle will continue until we decide we don't want to do it any longer.