Humor Can Show a Bit of Truth

Often one hears that good humor needs to contain a kernal of truth to click. Today I'll turn that around to extract some truth from a very humorous Super Bowl ad. The ad that caught my attention is the one Audi made that features the Green Car and Green Police (courtesy of an environment-climate web site that Mrs. B reads) ->

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/07/the-superbowl-green-police-commercial/#more-16192

The ad is a parody, but is riveting in showing how the logical extension of extreme green rhetoric would lead to a gestapo-like "green police" intruding on all aspects of our lives. And it's true in parts: some communities DO search trash on occasion. The ad keeps its humor as the green gestapo works - the green cop on the Segway looks like the Mall Cop in the recent comedy movie. But California is installing have smog sensing devices roadside to ferret out "polluting" cars [see http://www.smogtips.com/remote_sensing.cfm]. Can stops to search be far away ?

But think about the ad: what does it finally show ? A fellow driving an Audi A3 TDI diesel getting a compliment and free pass, stepping out of the line for searches. What is the message ? Buy our car and you'll be exempt from the oppression. The car has a base price of about $30,000, meaning it will probably cost $35-40,000 when they add in the various option packages, charges, taxes, etc.

Did you know that the median disposable income for households is a bit under $45,000 in the US ? That is just a bit over the cost of the "green" car. It's obvious that the bulk of the people - the common man - can't afford this paragon of greenness for family transportation. It's even less affordable when you include the fact that two cars are necessary for a two-earner household that IS the median lifestyle in the US.

The upper middle class can. And of course the ruling class [aka the rich & powerful] can. The fanatical environmental movement doesn't care. They want to impose regulations that will prohibit and ban broad aspects of the life-style of the common man and require one to use expensive and time-consuming devices and practices. After all, to them, you're just a serf living on their manor. And they want the traditional "by your leave, master" humbly said before you do anything.

Watch that ad again and see the future as the fanatical green movement does. It's no joke. Someday if they get their way, you'll be using an outhouse in the backyard, freezing in winter and frying in summer, and riding to work on a bicycle in the rain; that is, IF you have a job. As for those electronic devices you like, such as games, TV, the Internet - forget them. They use power. The ruling classes like this: they can use their wealth to avoid all those impositions and it keeps the common man in his place.

The environmental movement needs to re-organize and add reason to its practices and proposals. Kick out the fanatics. Recognize the huge progress made since 1965. Cars are enormously cleaner now. Recognize the very high marginal costs of further improvements. Is that money wisely spent ? Lots of poor people need help. Education of the young in college is very expensive. Are scarce resources best spent extracting another milligram of pollution from cars ?

Most so-called "green jobs" are subsidized and not lasting. They produce something no one would freely buy at a fair price. They take scarce resources better spent elsewhere and direct them to the projects that are simply placebos.

Don't let the ruling class use environmental rules to impose aristocratic practices. As the commercial humorously shows, the ruling classes will use their money to get out of the queue. The human mind is the greatest tool. Let's use it to develop slowly green policies and practices that truly work. And maintain our fraternity with our fellow man.

Book of the Week

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold Story of English by John McWhorter. This very readable book goes far beyond the usual focus on similar words by looking at grammatical structures, too. Why does English NOT have inflections - endings - for most noun and verbs ? Why do we conjugate the verb, "drink" as drink, drank, drunk ? Why do we say, 'I am swimming' and not the simpler, 'I swim' for the present tense. The book shows how old Celtic, the Vikings, proto-Germanic and old Indo-European all had influence on our English. McWhorter also wrote "The Power of Babel" which covers all human language and for which there is also an excellent lecture series on CDs from the Teaching Company.

Markets

Ditto yesterday. Je ne fais rien. Ich machte nichts. Nic nie robię. Estoy haciendo nada. Non faccio nulla. Nihil facio. I am doing nothing.

Is GOOG morphing into Mister Softee ? They seem to trying to copy good products of others to get some income beyond the core business, as Microsoft has done for years, with little success. Playing catch-up ball usually fails in business. That's one reason I sold that stock around $620 a few months ago. They were just copying the iPhone. Now they are copying Facebook and Twitter. But why trust GOOG ? They just want your private info to sell you ads. Not for me.

PS: Ooops. Krypto wants me do buy some VWO to get the emerging markets allocation up to the standard. I shall obey this AM. Good doggie, Krypto, you are a super fund manager - here's your fee, a fine dog biscuit.

Word of the Day

"Solecism" - noun [$10]
Solecism means 1. a mistake of grammer or idiom; a blunder in the manner of speaking or writing; 2. a piece of bad manners or incorrect behavior.
Sentence: The fanatical greenies are trying to redefine the lifestyle of the common man as a solecism, just as the political correctness crowd has tried to control common speech.