Hammer Mill Days

Don't suppose I ever thanked you for that, right? Well ... thanks, man. Thanks a heap. Now get the hell out of my sight. Oh, hi. Hey ... no worries. Just practicing. This, as you know, is the time of year when you show gratitude to all and sundry, even your worst enemy. I was just practicing what that would look like in real life. Say, for instance, my worst enemy (whoever that may turn out to be) should pound on the hammer mill door one cold morning, maybe the day after a long, hard gig on the planet Aldebaran 12, where the bars are open until #$@ o'clock (which, for the record, is pretty late). After dragging myself out of bed, limping downstairs, and pulling the door open wide, how would I properly express my thankfulness for the many gifts of microaggression my worst enemy has bestowed upon me? Suffice to say, it takes thought and practice. That said, I am thankful for many things. For the leaky hammer mill roof over our heads, for one. I'm thankful for the fact tha...

At the beginning of this year, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos was worth about $100 billion. By May, his fortune had reportedly ballooned to somewhere in the neighborhood of $130 billion. Now it appears to fluctuate between $137 and $160 billion, this last number from CNBC in October. So, it sounds like he won't be hungry for the holidays. That's more than can be said about the growing number of structurally unemployed and food-insecure Americans who have fallen through our inadequate and now badly shredded federal safety net. This Pharaoh-like magnitude of personal wealth reflects a failing economy - more specifically, an economy that fails to serve a large swath of the population. It is about more than personal wealth. Any dude with $137 billion dollars (and there's only one, so yes, it's a dude) possesses $136 billion more than he could ever hope to spend on himself. The accumulation of untold billions is all about power - the power to affect the lives of millions o...