I grew up in South Africa and loved my country. I moved back when I was 16.


Six weeks after I got back, I was treated to the sight of 4 of my fellow citizens being gunned down on the Kent State campus.


Things have gotten nothing but worse. To me, things have gotten off track.


What happened to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". This can be understood as ask not what people can do for you but what can you do for people.


We have lost our way. I look around and see so many people that seem to think I've got mine, I'm doing ok and the hell with the rest of you. And you know who epitomizes this point of view? The peanut in the white house. I'm sorry but he does not deserve the title of president.


The disturbing thing is that we elected him. To me this is the last draw.


If I can arrange it, I will once again become an expatriate.


In any event I have come to hate the country that I loved so much.


Please take a minute and read the preamble to the constitution. I once had lunch with a coworker and he asserted that welfare was unconstitutional because the constitution didn't mentioned welfare. He was flabbergasted, when I corrected him and pointed out the yes it was. It's right there in the preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."


So, if I can arrange it, I will once again become an expatriate until such time as this country finds its way again. Until such time that we become a shining city upon the hill again and lives up to the promises in the preamble.

Covid-19 Profiteers

This is despicable.

If you are working for a medical staffing firm that does this; there is a high demand for your skills, go work for another staffing firm that does not do this.

Regardless of whether or not you work for a staffing firm, we should all contact our congressmen and demand that firms that are engaging in this type of behavior should be sanctioned.

At a minimum they should not receive any more stimulus funds. We should claw back any funds that they have received, this can be accomplished with a tax surcharge.

I really think this should be criminal. We should jail the CEO of any company that does this (specifically, any company that tries to reduce employee compensation or benefits) should be imprisoned for a minimum of 5 years (not subject to any form of early release).

I know that there will be resistance from our congressmen to doing this. That is why I implore you to call your congressmen and insist that companies who do this be sanctioned.

I know that many of you think that calling congressmen is futile. Please understand that calls to congressmen are akin to water torture. Enough drops and you get compliance.our congressman.

If you don't know who your congressman is, you can find out here

So go be a drop and call your congressman

It's not just about off-shoring, structural unemployment is here to stay

In a blog post Robert Reich points out that we have permanently lost good paying skilled positions due to productivity as a result of the adoption of technology.

As technology came on line, workers were able to do more. It appears that the average worker can now accomplish over 2 times as much today as in the 1970's

Keep in mind that this is just the average. In some sectors (such as manufacturing or office work) the increase well may be by a factor of 10 or more. It is even worse then that, in some areas job's have been virtually eliminated. In the seventies, it was hard to visit a business and not see large rooms, filled with workers (mostly women) busily typing (typists) and doing accounting (bookkeepers). Word processing software has virtually eliminated the position of typist from the 21st Century office.  Similarly accounting software has achieved the same for bookkeepers.  Things are even worse.  Now computers are writing sports articles.

Stop and think of the implications of this. Writing a sports article is a creative act. The creative arena has traditionally be viewed as a safe haven from structural unemployment. No More. Granted, the articles written by software are not great Shakespearean works. One thing experience has taught us it that once a technological breakthrough takes place, the new technology will increase incrementally over time. At some point in the future, software may well be creating great works of literature on par with William Shakespeare (or at least Tom Clancy).

Writing is not the only creative area that is being impacted by this type of technology. Music is similarly being impacted. Again this is not a great work comparable to Mozart but it certainly my raise to the level of a competent amateur. With the recent advances in neural network programming (i.e. Watson), it is only a matter of time before the neural nets take feedback on computer generated compositions and start to generate better (or at least popular) compositions.

The Alamo of creativity, software, will not long withstand this assault. We already have standard methods in place to describe and document data that can be accessed and manipulated by software. What is lacking is a standard calculus that describes data manipulation. Once that comes about, it is only a matter of time before software will be generating software and then it will be Katie bar the door for software designers and implementors.

Bad enough as this is economically, there is a social aspect to this also. Structural unemployment is a major driver behind income inequality. Income also drives consumption. Consumption drives production.  It seems quite likely that as income falls, consumption will fall, triggering a reduction in production almost inevitably to increased layoffs. This type of systemic unemployment coupled with the structural unemployment identified here will result in an ever increasing amount of not only economic but social inequality (the elephant in the room is that sustained economic inequality may be inevitable).

History tells us that when the gap between the have's and the have not's becomes large enough social unrest follows.  Just consider:

• The labor / social unrest demonstrated in the 1920's and 30's (which by the way, gave us Fascism, WW2 and 60 million dead)
• The Russian Revolution of 1917 (resulting in Stalinism who killed between 20 and 60 million of his own people)
• The French revolution (end result; Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars - this butchers bill is estimated to be between 3.2 and 6.5 million).

Just consider with modern capabilities what the butcher bill could be if social unrest triggers another world holocaust. 300 million, a billion, more?

So, what to do?

We could:

• Do Nothing. Just Jim is nuts. This will never happen. This is to be hoped and prayed for. If we take no action though, this outcome is unlikely.
• Take the sky is falling approach (run around and scream and shout). Historically this has proven not to be an effective response and not very useful.
• Take the Luddite / SkyNet is coming approach. Seek to retard or restrict the adoption of technology.  Unfortunately, standing in the way of progress has been shown to be as successful as King Knute's attempt to hold back the sea.  At best, it will just retard things.
• Or, like the Marines say we can 'improvise, adapt and overcome'.  Adaption is the only way to address the changes we currently face and will face in the future. Biology tells us that a species that fails to adapt will fail to flourish. As will we, if we fail to act effectively.

Before we consider what actions we should take, it would behoove us to consider some fundamental principals.

To some in this country, the term 'entitlement' is a dirty word. When they use this term it is usually coupled with the idea that recipients of benefits of 'welfare' / 'social' programs are undeserving.

Got news for them.

They are not only deserving but they are ENTITLED!

It says so in the CONSTITUTION!

The preamble to the states "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Yes, there it is folks, in black and white.  We not only deserve and are entitled to, it is a fundamental duty of the government, to promote the general welfare. This is a fundamental part of our social contract and one that we have failed at miserably.

Important as this principle is (and it needs reiteration: "promote the general Welfare"), there is one that is more important.

"We the People" is the first phrase in the preamble and there is a reason for this. The constitution is a social contract between individuals. Let me reiterate between individuals.

Whatever action we undertake, if it does not promote the general welfare, we should not be doing it.  Stated as a principle:

"Every action we undertake will promote the general welfare of Individuals"

Every journey begins with a destination.  We need to know where we are going before we start planning or traveling. We should begin talking about:

• What do we mean by general welfare?
• What do we mean when we say Individuals (the plural of a single person versus groups of people)?

Once we have a consensus, we can then address how we are going to achieve our ends when it comes to:

• Politics
• Economics
• Society
• Technology
• ...

This is a clarion call.  The ongoing evolution of technology and its adoption will pose challenges far beyond the structural unemployment identified here.  The outcomes have the potential to radically change us and our society.  These outcomes run the gamut from extremely positive to the extremely negative. 

We can have a world in which nobody worries about: 

• Having enough food to eat, 
• Getting sick,
• Being decently clothed
• Not being able to put one's time to productive us
• ...

At the other end of the spectrum lies a Malthusian catastrophe of truly horrendous proportions.

We can hear the trumpets sounding. The time to act is now. If we do not, we will be overcome by events with probable poor outcomes.

Make the impact of technology change part of your every day dialogue. Over the course of history the human race has reached and acted on momentous consensuses; slavery, status of women, democracy just to mention a few. All of these started with reasoned dialog. Now is the time for us to step up and do our part.

The day after; perhaps now it is time to act.

Just got to weigh in here. I think that Tump's election is something that we need to be concerned about. While I won't try to recap all of his short comings here, I think it is worth while to reflect on what his election means and what we should do going forward

We should not think the sky is falling. Let us take a wait and see approach. Maybe it is the curse of us oldsters but we have great experience in seeing things come and go.

Numerous republicans in the last couple of weeks have pointed out that candidates come and go, You know what? there is something in American politics that is more enduring then a political party and that is the American people.

I know that it is somewhat ironic to be extolling the virtues of the populace the day after a majority of them elected such a person to the presidency.

At any given time we (da pipl) may get it wrong. Over the long haul we get do a good job of getting it right. At one time owning slaves was the law of the land (Dredd Scott case); consensual sex between 2 males was illegal (Alabama sodomy laws). Even though it sometimes takes us a long time; we (da pipl) seem to eventually get it right.  Have faith in our inherent common sense.

I don't mean that we should idly sit back and say this too will pass, Quite the opposite. I'd like to quote that famous politician, Winston Churchill (although in a much different context):

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

One of the things that we can take away from yesterday is that there is a significant portion of the populace that took the "Never Trump" position and I think more importantly took a position against the point of view that he and his supporters represent. 

Now is the time to be vigilant. Now is the time to be proactive. Now is the time to nurture and grow this sentiment against the point of view that Trump and his supporters represent. 

The traditional parties have not served us well.  They are the ones who created this current system of inequality; how can we look to them to fix it.  Join an alternative party or form one of your own.

Contact your Senators and insist that they initiate the Supreme Court confirmation process for Garland.

Let us reach out and join hands with like minded people and build a society that respects equality (of all types) and encourages courage rather then a society that encourages fear and divisiveness.

A Dialog Between Two Progressives

This began as a discussion about Bernie Sanders on Facebook and has been paraphrased here. Be advised the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Abbey: … The empirical data is correct. Rich people are not our friends. ALL of the "profit" involved in greater efficiencies caused by technological advances, all, had gone to the top one percent since 1981.

Abbey: From the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office:

Abbey: And from an apostle of Christ:

1 Timothy 6:10 

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

JustJim: Agreed but the inequality is just the tip of the ice berg. Technological change is eroding the old jobs (typist and bookkeeper for example) and new jobs are not replacing them (we get rid of 10 bookkeepers and replace them with one much lower paid categorization clerk that is probably working in India). 

The non-rich guy's boat is sinking as fast and the rich guy's boat is rising. This is something that is inescapable, economics just exacerbate the problem. No matter what we do on the economic front (wealth re-distribution etc) the gap will continue to grow. 

The solutions to this situation are not clear but we need to figure it out in all the different domains social, economic (at a very fundamental level), political (really I mean at a governance level) educational (again at a fundamental level).

Going forward we need some really really out of the box thinking leaders. Is Bernie the epitome of that? Maybe not, but he's a hell of a lot closer then anyone else I see out there. 

Abbey: No need to think "out-of-the-box," the solutions are well known. 

(1) Raise the minimum wage to $22 an hour and peg it to worker efficiency improvements, not inflation. Workers today are much more efficient than they were 30 years ago. The rise in minimum wage will also help increase wages of higher skilled workers too.

(2) Increase the MARGINAL tax rate for the ultra rich and anyone making more than $250,000 a year. 

(3) Eliminate the tax differential for unearned income.

(4) Pass laws that make unions stronger, repeal the Federal loophole for "right-to-work" states, allow "card check" organization, increase the fines for anti-unionization retribution. Allow for company-union collaboration like Germany does. 

(5) Break-up the "too big to fail" bank and investment firms.

(6) Change the tax code to force repatriation of corporate profits sitting in foreign nations.

(7) Eliminate tax write-offs for companies for foreign investments.

(8) Amend the constitution to overturn Citizens United.

(9) Reduce college tuition.

JustJim: Abbey, unfortunately these steps lead to a number of unintended consequences over time when you factor in technological change. Let's take a look how it really looks. 

Consider the following scenario:

An auto manufacturer has 2 workers and produces 2 cars a day. The auto CEO reworks the line installing the latest and greatest, whoop – whoop automation widgets and as a result the plant has the capability to produce 4 cars a day with only 2 workers. 

The technologists who came up with the widgets assumed that this was a good thing. The auto manufacturer would produce 4 cars a day with a 50% reduction in unit cost which would be passed along to the consumer. It's a win – win for every one, right? The workers (lets call them Joe and Bob) are gainfully employed (and who knows maybe the CEO uses some of the cost savings to give Joe and Bob a raise). The consumers are happy because they pay less for their cars. The CEO and shareholders is happy because profits are up. Everyone is smiling. Right?

Well …

It doesn't work that way.

You see the CEO likes being a CEO. He (yes generally a CEO is male), likes the perks, the salary, the bonuses, the respect. This makes him risk adverse. He looks at the impact of his automation effort (believe it or not he's not stupid) and asks himself what if I can't sell the extra 2 cars? Bad things will happen (at least from his standpoint). Being smart he realizes that he can still cut costs by half.

He shoots Joe in the head (metaphorically speaking; actually he lays Joe off).

Viola, the CEO is happy; 2 cars a day are being produced and purchased. If the demand raises, he can always hire somebody new and under the above at $22 per hour. He still saves money and has increased his profits even more (notice under the above he has every incentive to hire a lower paid new employee rather then rehire the ex-employee)

Bob is happy. He still got a job and under the above he's even gotten a raise! Heck, Bob thinks this a great deal.

The stockholders are not exactly ecstatic as under the above they've lost their capital gains but at least the stock price is going up and all in all that's a good thing (not great but good none the less).

Wait a minute, what about the victim here, lying prostrate on the ground in a pool of economic blood? 

What's Joe to do?

None of the other auto manufacturers will have anything to do with him. They are busy automating everything in sight and are taking the same kinds of actions as our CEO.

Well, Joe is pretty good with figures and pretty personable. How about becoming a bank teller? He goes to the local branch of Chase. Guess what? Not a teller in sight. The three tellers that had been there previously have been replaced by teller stations (by the way this is true, go check out the Chase branch located at 7301 Baymeadows Way Jacksonville, FL).

How about that great refuge of the economic displaced, Walmart?

They have replaced all of their stockers with robotic equipment similar to what they used in their distribution centers, laid a bunch of people off and are not hiring (This hasn't happen yet but you can bet that there are people in Bentonville who are giving this consideration. If the minimum wage goes up to $22 an hour you can double down on that bet that they will give it real serious consideration).

Well there's always McDonalds …

Let's quit beating a dead horse. We get the point.

Two of the biggest barriers to automation are:

• The decision makers are not comfortable with the technology
• The initial capital investment.

As time goes on new decision makers will arise who are comfortable with the technology. They will be willing to spend money on new technology and implement new technology at an even greater rate.

If we implement measures that drive costs up (such as some of the above), the initial capital investment becomes more attractive.

The measures that Abbey has proposed are good measures for addressing the problems we saw in the Eighties when we were encountering technological change at a much slower rate. In a way, it's a shame that they were not adopted back then, we may be in a better position today. 

The fact of the matter is that we didn't. Adopting these kinds of measures today does nothing but pour gasoline on the fire as the above scenario illustrates.

The impact of technological change is not science fiction. It's a serious issue being considered by serious people. For example see:

• Technology can have positive and negative impact on social interactions.
• What Impact Will Emerging Technologies Have on Society?
• Environmental and Societal Impact of Technology

The rate of technological change is rapidly increasing. The time that it takes for adoption is getting shorter. This issue is rapidly reaching the the point where it is a big challenge.

Big challenges require big responses.

This is why we need to think out of the box. What we are encountering, today is different then anything we've encountered in the past. Don't believe this? Go read 'Future Shock'. Given that this is different, we need a different response, an out of the box response.

So what would such a response look like?

Our response should seek to ensure that every person should:

• Be able to sustain a reasonable subsistence
• Live a long healthy productive life
• Spend their time productively on things they want to do, not things they have to do.
• Have their educational desires met. 

Having said that, we should:

• Repeal: 
• The current tax code in it's entirety.
• Welfare (TANF, SNAP etc.) as it currently exists.
• Social Security.
• Medicaid.
• Citizen's United
• Institute a flat tax on all income (individual and corporate).
• Extend the Medicare program to everyone.
• Cease engaging in perpetual warfare.
• Adopt a basic income guarantee. 
• Provide free access to educational resources.

Repeal the current tax code in it's entirety. 

Our current tax code is terminally broken. Everybody knows it, few are willing to address it in a serious fashion. As currently implemented, it merely confuses people, provides full time employment for literally legions of accountants and attorneys and serves as a wealth redistribution mechanism for the rich. In short, plain, earthy English: “let's shitcan it”.

Repeal Welfare (TANF, SNAP etc.) as it currently exists. 

As a safety net, to say that they are inadequate is being kind. Lets get rid of them and replace them with something that works (keep reading)

Repeal Social Security. 

See the comments on repeal welfare.

Repeal Medicaid. 

Ditto

Repeal Citizen's United. 

This should be a no brainer. The simple reality is that organizations (such as corporations and PAC's) are not people; they are groups of people. The only purpose this decision seems to serve is as evidence for requiring the honorable justices to undergo annual mental competency assessments. Seriously. Regan suffered from Alzheimers the last two years of his presidency. How do we know the one or more of the justices are not secretly drooling in their chambers? We are entitled to know. The job is far too important for us not to.

Institute a flat tax on all income (individual and corporate). 

Under the current setup individuals pay tax on every dollar they take in while corporations pay taxes on what they don't spend (profit = income – expenses). Taxing all income eliminates this. 

Citizenship is like a club and taxes are the membership fees. A flat tax is equitable. Warren Buffett and his secretary now pay the same percentage.

Extend the Medicare program to everyone. 

Currently this program seems to work quite well. It provides excellent coverage in return for a modest premium. It is much more efficient then the private insurers. We should improve it by getting private insurance out of parts C and D. Lets get rid of the means test and make it available to everyone, not just seniors.

Participation will be optional. Those who would turn to the private sector to cover their health expenditures are free to do so (and God have mercy on their souls). 

Cease engaging in perpetual warfare. 

According to the DoD, we had 662 bases on foreign soil in 2010. Once we back away from our policy of perpetual war, we should be able to substantially reduce this number. Ideally the only bases we should have are those necessary to pre-position material for rapid deployment purposes.

Adopt a basic income guarantee.

A basic income guarantee (BIG) is where “all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from elsewhere.” It would replace the current hodge-podge of social programes. Under a BIG program each man, woman and child would have resources that would be available for basic subsistence. This would be a root, hog or die approach. If one squanders this resource, so be it.

There will be no further funds forthcoming.

Under this approach people would be free to work on things they want to work on rather things they have to work in order to sustain a livelihood. Another potential benefit is that this may well result in a downward pressure when it comes to pay expectations resulting in a broad reduction in the cost of labor.

Provide free access to educational resources. 

In the 21st Century skill and experience is what is important. That is not to say the traditional structured presentation of information that occurs in a classroom is unimportant, it is merely less relevant. The number of wildly successful college dropouts includes such luminaries as

• Bill Gates
• Steve Jobs
• Mark Zuckerberg

There are hundreds of thousands of college dropouts whose success is more modest.

Access to the information presented in a course rather then classroom attendance is what matters. 

Rather then providing for free tuition with its attendant political friction, we should mandate that educational institutions make the course content available for free. A kind of open source education. We should require that any educational institution that directly or indirectly receives federal funds make their course content available for free.

Now we could take the time to debate the pros and cons of JustJim's proposal versus Abbey's proposal but that would miss the point.

This is just one out of the box proposal out of potentially thousands. 

Historically Americans have proved to be innovative. We are facing huge social, economic and political changes as a result of the rapidly increasing adoption of rapid technological change. This is a big challenge and big challenges require big responses. It is about time we applied our innovative spirit to these challenges.

Let the discussions begin.

Why voting for Grandpa Bernie might make sense

Who has ever heard of of Bernie Sanders?

Up until about 2 months ago, the answer for most people would have been something like 'Nobody' or 'Bernie who?'

Since then the right honorable Senator Bernie Sanders has garnered significant support. He is suddenly looking like a viable candidate and there are some reasons voting for him might make sense.

He is not a Democrat. Yes that's right.  Apparently there is a quirk in DNC rules that permits somebody who is not a registered democrat to run in Democratic presidential primaries. Yes, it is definitely weird and if he is successful he might make history. The only independent politician to win the presidency on a democratic ticket. Then there is the question of vice-president. How about Elizabeth Warren?  Wouldn't that be something - the first female vice-president. Many might find the idea intriguing.

He tells it like it is.  He doesn't pull punches punches:

• We are an oligarchy (he even hast the chutzpah to say so on the floor of the Senate) 
• Our bridges are falling down - lets fix them
• Climate change is real - we need to act now
• Education is important - lets fund it
• Everyone deserves access to affordable health care
• Everyone deserves access to respectable work.

He is not a Republican. He has solid progressive credentials.  Bernie never severed as a chapter president of the Young Republicans. In college he campaigned for civil rights.

Now here's some things that Grandpa Bernie needs to do to make voting for him make even more sense.

Conduct an out of the box campaign.  As he has noted, it is going to take a revolution to address the problems that face us in the 21st Century.  Actually, it will take a number of revolutions; social and economic as well as political.  If he runs a traditional campaign he will lose, it's is that simple.  He needs to run a campaign that retains the good aspects of the traditional campaign approach and discards the bad aspects. It is great that he has eschewed the traditional big money approach.  What he needs to do, is make a firm commitment to only accept individual contributions totaling $2000 or less per contributor.

More then eschewing the traditional big money sources he needs to distance himself from other traditional interests.  Cozy up to close to the traditional Union or the Democratic machines and he will at least be perceived as being beholden to them.

By all means do the traditional campaign appearances, voter registration drives, block canvassing, etc but use 21st Century approaches to enhance these traditional activities. His supporters should be more then a source of funds, They are resources, creative resources. Out there are people who are capable of writing speeches, shooting video spots, providing insight to his positions. Bernie needs to engage them closely. While his campaign has set up a web site, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, this is not enough. He needs to set up a mechanism where people can contribute easily, in a digital fashion and collaborate with the campaign. Have ongoing discussions with his supporters regarding things like strategy, his position etc. Be open about this - let anyone read these discussions, personally contribute to these discussions. Enlist people to write speeches, produce videos, join in public discussions.

Bernie purports to be a man of the people.  He needs to engage people as people and be seen doing so. Have a camera crew follow him around capturing him shaking hands, kissing babies but more importantly talking to people one on one and in small groups. Clips of this should be on his YouTube channel.

Embrace his age,  Bernie is 79 years old. This is not a handicap, its an advantage. With the advances currently being made in the medical labs Grandpa Bernie has a good chance of living to be a productive 100 or more. With age, comes experience. With experience comes wisdom.  When challenged on this, he should respond with something like:

"I'm glad I'm 79. It means that I have been a carpenter, a freelance journalist, a political organizer and activist, a salesman and oh yeah, I also found time to become a politician. I bring a wealth of experience; political, social, governance and real world to the issues and I'm proud of that."

Bernie has been referenced as 'Grandpa Bernie'. This is not meant to be facetious but rather more of the form of a suggestion. He should consider adopting it as a campaign moniker. It's folksy. Everyone has a grandpa (actually 2) that they identify with (usually positively).

One last piece of gratuitous advice:

Run Grandpa Bernie. RUN! 

Lets Make History

About six months ago I had a conversation with a coworker that went something like this:
'I'm worried about my kids, what kind of world will we be leaving them'
"I'm thinking that it will be one where governments have become irrelevant"you
'What do mean?'
"Well take the Ebola outbreak for example.  The quickest and most effective responders were the NGO's like Doctors Without Borders."
...

Here we are six months later. And guess what, we now have another example where the governments may well prove to be irrelevant. Thom Feeny, in what may have been a genius move, has started an Indiegogo project to crowd source a Greek bailout.  Just one guy taking action has sparked action by 84,731 people.

The European governments have been dithering over this for months.  This may be a historic opportunity to demonstrate once again the increasing irrelevance of government in the 21st Century,  I say may as it is going to take a much larger effort by an order of magnitude. It's going to take something on the order 540 million people donating their 3 Euros to raise 1.6 billion,

An impossible task!

No, not really. Merely difficult. It is estimated that there are over 3.7 billion users on the internet.  All we have to do is get 1 out of 6 to donate 3 Euros (~ $3.25).

Now at this point, one might ask 'Why should we bail out the Greeks'? There are a number of reasons:

• Who are we to throw stones?  
• The US national debt is over 18.3 Trillion dollars; while Greece is at 379 Billion euros.
• In 2013, the US federal deficit was 4% of the GDP while Greece's was 2.1%
• How can we castigate them for being irresponsible when they borrow less and spend less
• The Greek people have no more control over their politicians then we do.
• A sense of nationalism:
• We <nation name> can't let the Europeans hog all the glory of a successful crowd funded bailout.
• For communists it would be 'We can't let the capitalist, imperialist, warmongers do better at supporting the proletariat of Greece then we do'
• The Russians might take the position; 'What a neat way to stick our finger in Western Europe's eye'
• ...
• A sense of equity.  Many feel that all bailouts are bad and undeserved. Are not the Greek people just as deserving of a bailout as the 951 corporations that received $615 Billion as part of the of the 2009 financial system bailout? At 1.6 billion, the Greeks seem like mere pikers by comparison.
• A exercise in direct democracy, 21st century style.  Funding is one of the primary activities of a government.  Here we are, we, the people are doing what the governments can't or won't do.
• An opportunity to make history.  Imagine telling the grand kids how grandpa once helped save Greece.
• It's the right thing to do.  Plain and simple.  If we want to live in a world where people help other people, then we must help other people.  This a bailout for the Greek people not the government.  It will give them a second chance to get their house in order and is worth doing.

Still not convinced?  That's OK.  Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  Still, go ahead and share this with your friends, family and acquaintances.  Give them an opportunity to make up their own minds.

If you are convinced there are 2 things you can do:

1. Contribute.  Every Euro helps.
2. Get the word out. Post it and share it on your favorite social media site.  Email you friends. Make a YouTube video. Talk about it over dinner.  Use any and every way you can think of to communicate this idea.  It all helps build the buzz.

Besides with enough buzz, generating enough action we might be able to crash Indiegogo again.