We had a bit of snow overnight--just a bit. Enough to put a thin layer on roofs, cars, and grass. It. won't last long after the sun comes up.
Robert Reich has a good piece on our "zero sum economy." Sometime ago another blogger said some of the same thing in slightly different terms. For years now the economy has been dominated, in terms of the share and "value" of economic activity, has been the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) which simply moves money from one group of pockets to others (usually from the pockets of those lower on the economic pyramid to those at the top.) The blogger used the term "tertiary economy" meaning that it did not actually handle physical things. The primary economy is extractive: farming, mining, fishing etc.). The secondary economy takes the products of the primary economy and either moves it to where it is sold directly to consumers or used in further production which is then moved to sale.)
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Well, so much for weather reports. We never got the sun and slightly warmer temps yesterday that would have melted the thin layer snow we had early. Then we had off and on snow showers--nothing severe. For the next week we are not likely to get out of the 20s with some more bouts of snow. I really do need to take down my fall wreath and put up the winter wreath.
David Kaiser had an interesting article this morning. I am always skeptical of statistics. Your results depend on which numbers you use or exclude and on your perspective. I remember an article concerning a rising fear of crime in the 1990s which noted that most people were actually very safe but a large percentage were afraid of being victimized by criminals. That article related the fear to how much news people watched: the more news watched the more likely the viewer would be afraid. I can see the statistics Kaiser uses to show that crime is often concentrated into compact localities but how the political and law enforcement use the statistics can be both exacerbate the problem and spread it. New York City introduced its notorious "stop and frisk" policy which didn't stop any appreciable crime and pissed off law abiding people who would normally have supported the police. I remember an a couple of decades ago which noted that 45% of illegal drug traffic was in the ethnic or racial neighborhood of inner cities and asked where the other 55% happened. The answer, of course, was in the white suburbs. If you follow the link notice also Kaiser's observation that two things, seemingly opposed, can be true at the same time.
Another thought: we are such a mobile society that a criminal act in one location doesn't mean the criminals were from that location (or even nearby). About ten years ago we had a series of smash and grab thefts of, mostly, electronics. One of the affected businesses closed after it suffered a third such robbery in less than two months. The local Target and Walmart took their merchandise off the sales floor and would only show them on request from customers. Several businesses, including our local butcher shop which was also robbed, put in barriers to stop criminals who used cars to break the entry doors. The robbers were not caught but were traced to Chicago--50 miles away. As I watch the news this morning, a story details how car jackers stole three cars from people miles apart and used in other crimes.
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The weather predictions have changed yet again. Surprise 😣. As the saying goes: making predictions are hard especially about the future.
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