Return of the Archons

Anyone older than 40 should be somewhat familiar with the Star Trek episode that shares the title of this blog entry.

The crew of the Enterprise visit a planet that is totally controlled by computer. A fascinating and "outrageous" plot back in the late sixties when radios still used tubes, but one which unknown to the masses of Earth - had already come to pass.



Tula invites the "visitors from the valley" to rest at her daddy's house after festival. Festival is a 12 hour combination riot/orgy orchestrated on cue by the planet's computer. The computer's name is Landru.



The mindless masses going about like robots is occurring right now as you read these words. Every day is a bizarre blend of robotization and festival. From 9-5 we work and perform repetitive tasks like automatons and our reward is to treat the next 6 hours like "festival" and immerse oneself in materialistic delights including food, sex and violence.

Yes there are very few who are not engaged in this manner of robotized and unproductive living. It doesn't matter what they do or where on Earth they do it, the repetitive cycle of toil/reward is much the same.

And just as in the episode there is suspicion placed upon all those who do not conform.



To even question the status quo brings down upon oneself the scorn of those who are "of the body" and they will do their best to reabsorb you into the body via brainwashing.



In our world the "lawgivers" look different:



Materialism is a huge cult. Toil for reward is pursued by billions.

Landru was the master architect of the robotized world and he designed the computer control to maintain peace and to keep the inhabitants occupied, albeit mindlessly occupied:



Today the role of Landru is played by many:



These Landrus want your money, time and most of all, your unquestioned devotion to the cult of materialism.

In an earlier posting I mentioned FOFOFU. (Google it if you missed that posting) This is still the sane alternative to the cult of materialism.

Today's Landrus reach out towards the children, trying to hook them before they are even ten years old to be good materialists - to be "of the body". By the time these children are 18 they will be die-hard materialists seeking the acquisition of all sorts of goods and products and they will, like robots, follow every new trend and material item that Landru tells you, you should acquire and use.

The media will condition them well. Their teachers will help Landru turn out millions who shout "I'm unique and special!" simultaneously and teach them that it doesn't matter how they look on the outside so long as they all think the same on the inside.

We already live in a world that mirrors Landru's idea of "paradise".

Yes, if reading this particular blog entry irritates the living heck out of you - you can assume you have already been "absorbed into the body" and will need a miracle to escape the cult of materialism that occupies billions on this world from around age 5 till their death.

Peace be with you friend, joy and tranquility...are you of the body?

Mortgage Bubbles and a Solution for the US Economy

If you've been paying any attention, you are aware many mortgage banks are in a bit of a tight spot. Defaults are through the roof, the money just is not flowing back into the coffers as expected. Lots of refinancing and speculation on house values has turned this equity into vapor$.

The government is bailing out these companies and injecting liquidity. Such are the nice golden parachutes made for bankers whose greed and business practices are questionable. And yet without the government assistance surely more people would end up hurting.

It's tough out there.

I wish I had all the answers for folks who are struggling, but I do not.

Growing up, I was taught loyalty to a company was a positive trait. Now folks use companies like stepping stones and each job is viewed as a stair step to a higher paying job, likely with another firm.

This is swell and fine as far as it goes, but eventually it means companies are filled to the brim with opportunists who are just waiting for their chance to get ahead. It's hard to run a tight ship and get much accomplished when your crew is eyeing other passing vessels to see if their sails are larger and the crow's nest is higher.

This opportunism and self-interest over all, leads to corporate decay. Who can you trust? How do you know your VP won't go work for your competition next year? How does a troubled company's board know if the CEO they import is just getting ready to loot the remaining company equity on a short-term stock price building spree and bail before the stock tumbles again?

Like I said, it's tough out there.

Generating wealth is the key to increasing the global economy. But the wealth can't be vapor$, such as inflated stock prices or adjustments to the market that simply shift existing wealth.

Folks like George Soros live to play Robin Hood and shift western wealth and equity to 3rd world nations - nations where he has his special connections set up with the local governments and he becomes a de facto Prime Minister. Does this help the world? Not at all. It doesn't generate new wealth! It's an escape mechanism for those who get very rich and then feel guilty about it.

New products, new technologies and new ideas are where wealth is generated and where jobs are made. It is important to realize that even the Chinese labor and companies painting toys with leaded paint and working in horrible conditions - are still earning more than they were before the US firms sent manufacturing jobs overseas.

Many, and actually most of these employees, are happy they have a job at all. Many farmers who earned next to nothing and lived a week or two away from starvation are actually much better off financially than they used to be.

It will be up to China to enact laws that prevent their masses from being exploited. However, like the greedy mortgage companies, they make hay when the sun shines and because of a certain insensitivity developed in a nation with well over a billion mouths to feed, a Chinese can exploit his fellow Chinese and not blink an eye.

When Chinese labor wages increase enough so as to make manufacturing there, with the added expenses of shipping the goods here, on par with using Mexican labor, we will see Mexico's economy boom. As China gets richer, more folks have cars and expect larger salaries - we will see China's wages grow slowly. For the next twenty years or so they will still be some of the cheapest labor on Earth.

It's not a pretty picture - all this exploitation, selfishness and corporate warfare. Yet, I shouldn't delude any readers that today is much worse than say 1910, when the robber barons and the monopolies controlled whole markets and when child labor was considered acceptable cheap labor.

Everything comes with a repercussion. The child labor laws we have here and the minimum wage backfired somewhat on the US worker. When a company can't afford to pay minimum US wage - they go overseas. So even the paltry sums they pay these folks, is shipped out of the US economy and as a result - US wealth declines. US buying power is diminished.

Liberals often wonder why the minimum wage shouldn't be increased to enrich the working man. The reality is the last minimum wage hike just spiked the demand for illegal Mexican labor and has led to the enormous exodus of overseas manufacturing jobs.

Even cartoons, for networks like Nickelodeon are drawn with Chinese labor after model sheets are sent overseas (ever wonder why cartoon art looks so lame these days?) and used for Chinese artists to imitate.

Would we be better off scrapping the minimum wage? No. Would we be better off revising it? Yes.

Here's my proposal - pay attention legislators! - add a provision that for folks with less than 2 years labor experience - they can be paid less than the minimum wage.

Brilliant, isn't it?

This way kids in high school, folks with no experience what so ever can be employed at less than minimum wage!

What's the benefit? Bingo...manufacturing jobs come back from overseas. Folks who would not qualify for a normal job find employment for 2 years and build up their resume and skills.

It allows for a legal "slave labor class" here in the USA - however limited to just two years time, completely gets rid of the need for illegal Mexican labor and keeps billions of dollars here in America - what's not to like?

Sure, the concern is that companies will never hire ANYONE at minimum wage or over again. Bingo...another provision! Companies may only have a maximum of let's say 8% of their workforce working under minimum wage.

See how that works? Companies could now stop using illegal or overseas labor and still cut manufacturing costs to make American labor competitive again.

Sure lots of folks won't want to work at below minimum wage, but there are A LOT of young folks, new to the job market, who would - especially if it was only for two years.

Well for now, that's it. Think about the pros and cons. If US corporations have no alternatives almost ALL manufacturing will be done overseas and this is not good for our economy.

Corporate Mergers = Global Decline

We live in a material world. A world where each person must feed off of their environment for survival. Each man/woman must take money from others to sustain themselves and their family members until they too start grabbing for dollars, euros or whatever the local currency is called.

This grand scale materialism naturally shifts the focus of the masses from the earliest age. We educate our children so that they become useful, productive members of society - so they can get a job, buy things, start a family and create some replacements to repeat the performance for as long as humanity lasts on the Earth. This seems a sort of dismal, repetitive performance and is an incomplete interpretation of life.

Living life just to make money, reproduce and keep busy for X number of years until one dies seems like a description of hell. At this time, the capitalist system is the best at providing for the masses and giving each an opportunity to manipulate their environment.

Unfortunately capitalism itself requires a blend of small entrepreneurs and large corporations. When either become too dominant, the masses suffer and individual wealth potential is stifled.

Over the past two decades, in the USA, we have witnessed a deficit of small entrepreneurs and small businesses and we are watching the corporate sector grow exponentially. Smaller corporations are bought up and consumed by larger ones, shrinking the job market with each swallow as employees are pruned from the corporate branches.

Unemployment is the direct result of unchecked corporate mergers.

This has a long-term damning effect on the economy because this unemployment destroys the consumer-base.

Let's paint the picture to the extreme: One company produces everything used on Earth, has no competition and employs 1 billion people.

The 5-1/2 billion that are unemployed can't afford the wares produced by the company and sales are made solely to their employees. However, because they have no competition, they pay terrible wages and their prices are high. So even their own employees can't afford much of what they produce. The result? A De facto communist monarchy disguised as capitalism. In such an environment with that many unemployed the government takes over and socialism/communism is the result. For evidence one only need to look at FDR's response to the great depression. Socialism is mandated, price controls emerge and corporations are despised and face complete regulation.

That's the worst case scenario of continued corporate mergers and already we can see it's very real potential on the distant horizon. Corporate CEOs unfortunately, more often than not, think short term these days. They are not thinking about anyone but themselves and it shows. In a sea of sharks, soon all that are left is sharks.

Corporate decline can occur in many ways, but these are some of the most obvious routes of decline:

A) A company with a board, or largest stockholder that is now only concerned with boosting stock, selling it and cashing out the wealth of the company. That is how many venerable old companies, like Sears Roebuck, were destroyed.

B) A company with a board, or largest stockholders, that plan to bail out wealthy after making their company attractive to a buyout by a larger company.

C) A company that looks at the mergers around them, panics and cuts corners, fires employees and hires only 3rd world labor - all instead of focusing on delivering a better product/service.

D) A company that, in its desire to unfairly compete, consumes its competition, puts x number of folks out of work and then wonders why sales are slowing down as their product/service is less than stellar, priced higher and less wealth is generated.

Those are the A-D corporate decline routes of the past twenty odd years. There are many more, but most companies today fit within these four patterns.

If folks lived 10,000 years instead of 100, or even 1,000 years - they would see the folly of short term, selfish thinking in both their personal life - and personal life's mirror - actions in the corporate world. Eventually one realizes short term excess leads to long term suffering.

Corporate irresponsibility yesterday created the global market of today and today's excesses and selfishness will bring capitalism down a notch and ever closer to the day when socialism rears its ugly head and the party will be over - permanently.

Vegansexuals, Pet Owners and Other Freaks!

Yeah, I know.

Boy this is an unusual blog entry, even by SDAI-Tech1 standards! Stumbling upon such a title here is sort of like seeing the bearded lady at the circus and you find she now can sing in latin - backwards.

Well it's sweeps week for my Japanese syndicate and I have to pick up my ratings a bit. And this little news item caught my attention, and I figured was worthy of a bit of comment.

First off, let me say I'm not a Vegan. A Vegan used to be a plot device in a bad science fiction movie:

"The star system Vega has sent ships to invade the Earth! The Vegans are here! Aaaaagh!"



Most vegans look similar after shunning meat for a for few years. Yeah, I know - cruel. But the pale, malnourished, string haired look of a meat-protein starved vegan is immediately recognizable to yours truly.

And what is a vegansexual? A vegansexual is a vegan who limits sexual relations to other vegans because "meat eaters' bodies are a graveyard for dead animals".

Ok. Let's take a look at the immense ignorance here.

ALL living things consume their environment.

Yes - all.

The plants greedily consume water and carbon dioxide -and as a matter of fact they grow faster when feeding on decomposing living organisms nutrients and the byproducts (such as manure) of living organisms. The plants are not "innocent of consuming the living things around them" - they do it all the time!

So a "vegansexual" can immediately be assumed to be both ignorant and prejudiced at the same time. Oh, and let's not forget the huge guilt/inferiority complexes that vegans share - the one that drives them to care more for animals than other humans. This is the real story behind the story. Vegansexualism is just part and parcel of something approaching bestiality - a bizarre love of animals.

Let me be real open and honest: people with pets, people who love animals and shower their affection on animals have emotional issues. Sure its most visible on the old lady with twenty cats who spends all here time in servitude to her cats - but it is just as true of the guy who buys a Pit Bull or the little girl with a cute kitten. All are treating certain emotional issues with a pet.

The animal is non-judgmental. If you feed the animal it "loves" you. It will come to you, rub against you and make noises at you. Humans who believe these animals have feelings or share some special relationship with their owner are engaging in a bit of self-delusion.

The self-delusion is an emotional escape mechanism, whereby the pet-owner can get very cheap ego-reinforcement. A whining animal that begs for food, seeks to be petted, makes the owner feel needed or loved.

I can see it now:

"SDAI-Tech1 offends MILLIONS & MILLIONS of pet owners & calls them mental cases!"

Well the Japanese syndicate wanted controversial - who am I to disappoint! And what's more, it's true. It was time somebody mentioned it. Sure the pet food industry will have hit-men out looking for me and many fellow pet-owning bloggers will take offense and I will not be invited to the special Blogabration Awards Ceremony like last year. But hey, ALL awards ceremonies are self-congratulatory fests for emotionally insecure folks anyway. Who needs it!

In fact, I suspect that discussing alien life, reincarnation and mind reading is not nearly as controversial as telling pet owners they are emotionally needy basket cases.

And let's face it - most vegans are pet owners. How many vegans do you know that treat their animals like children? It's disgusting. They shower more love on a dumb animal than they do on other human beings. Little "pookums" is hugged and stroked, spoken to like a human, eats gourmet pet food several times a day while Johnny down the street goes hungry to bed and hasn't anyone to talk to. They cry when they hear about some poor animals in a research lab and, ironically, are ready to harm the humans holding them in captivity!

So what have we clarified today:

A) "Vegansexuals" are seriously messed up and many are probably just a few steps away from bestiality. When you love ALL animals so much - except meat-eating humanity of course - you sort of limit your reproductive options.

B) Pet owners have affection issues - difficulty in expressing affection to other humans or receiving it from them.

C) Purina has paid Morris the Cat to come out of retirement and alongside Rin-Tin-Tin and Lassie are going to be waiting for me in a dark alley with sharpened claws somewhere.

D) Japanese Syndicates demand a lot from their talent.

Well for now all I can do is warn my readers to watch out for any partner (man/woman) who comes up and smells your body odor - they many very well be a vegansexual trying to "smell the dead meat" in you.

Oh and don't worry. Blog-sweep week will be over soon.

;-)