My Fats Waller Project

[Updated 2026-08-13]
Latest recording, "(oh suzanna) dust off that old pianna", 1935.

In the fall of 1968, I met Delbert Lionel Hilgartner III. He was a sophomore at MIT, I was just starting. Pi Lambda Phi frat.

Del was cool: 6'1", cowboy boots. He had spent his senior year in Davis, CA. The 3 years before that, he had lived in Tangiers, Morocco. His dad was stationed there for VOA (CIA?).

In prolly late 1970, he started the band "Blue Eyed Boy, Mr. Death". (Yeats?). He played keys (Hammond B3 w Lesley), blues harp, tambourine, and sang lead, harmony, & backup. I played mostly lead guitar, a little pedal steel, and sang harmony, lead, & backup. Randolph Axel Nelson (Randy at 1st, later Axel) played mostly rhythm guitar, + bass, bongos, & sang harmony & backup. Barry I. Levine played bass & sax & sang harmony and backup. John Broderick (J. the D.) drummed. Barry was in Del's year at MIT, Randy had been in mine but dropped out. J. the D. was a Boston townie, he'd graduated college & taught grade school I think.

We weren't bad - John sent around some recordings early last year (linked to in this post, which also talks about BEBMD & the other 2 bands I played in in Boston.). We gigged pretty steady, frats, sororities, some high schools, clubs, spring of 1971. Del graduated w a Humanities degree & moved to the Village to teach film at Cooper's Union. That ended BEBMD.

Del turned me on to North African music - I haven't collected much of that.

He also turned me on to Fats Waller. The king of stride piano in the late 1920's & 1930's. Great tunes, great lyrics, very upbeat. My wife described some of the songs as "playful", I agree.

In the late 1960's, I bought 3 RCA Victor Vintage Fats Waller vinyl LPs:

1. Valentine Stomp 1935
2. Fractious Fingering 1936
3. Smashing Thirds 1937

These albums also have some Fats solo piano pieces, mostly recorded in 1929.

I also bought "Classic Jazz Piano Styles" which had 4 tracks by Fats, 4 by Jelly Roll Morton, 4 by Earl Hines?, & 4 by ?.

A few months ago I started working up the Fats songs off of the 3 albums. I took a picture of the 3 albums' track lists. I highlighted my current status, what fun! iPad drawing tool intuitive!

I have recorded 11 Fats songs so far. Here's the link to my YouTube Fats Waller Playlist.

These 6 (green highlight) on the Playlist are from the 3 albums:

1. you’ve got me under your thumb by fats waller; cleo brown in C
2. what will I do in the morning? by fats waller in Bb
3. i’d rather call you baby by fats waller in Bb
4. got a bran' new suit by fats waller in Eb
5. spring cleaning by fats waller in D
6. i got rhythm by george gershwin; fats waller in G

These 5 are from other sources:

1. i’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter by fats waller in Bb
2. two sleepy people by fats waller; hoagy carmichael; frank loesser in F
3. i can't give you anything but love by fats waller; willie nelson in G
4. ain’t misbehaving by fats waller in Bb
5. tea for two by doris day; fats waller in F

Note, "i got rhythm" I don't do Fats' version, I do Ella Fitzgerald's. Fats also does "tea for two", I do the 1950's movie version. "ain't misbehaving" I did with Steve (Fuzzy) Konopka in "Steve & Chris".

Next up for recording (yellow highlight), "how ya baby?" in C. In process, I just worked up the chords for "how can i?" in D (red highlight) this morning. The song has a a red flag on it in OnSong - not ready to go. Easier chords than the prior 1.

And also in the pic, 9 blue highlighted possibles! I've been working the right column of 1937 songs, I think I'll switch to the left column of 1935 songs for a while. Next up, "thief in the night".

I have 14 total songs in OnSong under Fats: the 11 recorded, the 2 in process, and "if you're a viper", which is not 1 of my favs of his. If I record it it will be after the 9 possibles.

Odd that I didn't seem to like the 1936 album??? The other highlighted tunes have been on the hit parade in my head for 5 decades, I don't think any of the 1936 tunes made the cut.

For the last few of the greens I have worked up, I have added my chart to Ultimate Guitar. I've also added lyrics to AZLyrics. Yay for me, I'm performing a public service, capturing these great songs for posterity!

I R contributing to The Commons, FTW!

[Updated 2021-03-11]
Added "how ya baby?" by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2021-03-15]
Added "how can i?" by fats waller in D.

[Updated 2021-04-14]
Added "thief in the night" by fats waller in Eb.

[Updated 2021-04-30]
Added "let's sing again" by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2021-05-04]
Added "sweet thing" by fats waller in D.

[Updated 2021-05-28]
Added "spreadin' rhythm around" by fats waller in F.

[Updated 2021-06-12]
I wanted to capture this listing of the ~300 songs recorded by Fats Waller and His Rhythm.
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/105612/Fats_Waller_and_his_Rhythm

[Updated 2021-07-19]
Added "i've got my fingers crossed" by fats waller in G.

[Updated 2021-10-05]
Added "i've got a feeling i'm falling" by fats waller, billy rose, gene austin, annette hanshaw in D. I could not find a video of Fats singing this song, only of him performing it as a piano solo. I worked this version up from the Gene Austin 1929 recording.

[Updated 2021-10-07]
Probably Fats' best known collaborating lyricist was Andy Razaf (born Andriamanantena Paul Razafinkarefo). Is that not a great name? Say it, 7 syllables, 1 syllable, 6 syllables, it totally rolls off of your tongue. The Wikipedia article says that he was a nephew of Madgascar royalty - a dynasty of almost 400 years, they must have had a some decent genes ;-P

[Updated 2021-11-24]
Added "honeysuckle rose" by fats waller, louis armstrong, andy razaf in F.

[Updated 2021-12-18]
Added "i'm crazy 'bout my baby (and my baby's crazy 'bout me)" by fats waller, louis armstrong, leon redbone in D.

[Updated 2022-06-28]
Added "until the real thing comes along" by fats waller, dean martin, frank sinatra in Eb.

[Updated 2022-08-26]
Added "sweet heartache" by fats waller in G.

[Updated 2022-09-21]
Added "you're my dish" by fats waller, jimmy mchugh in C.

[Updated 2022-10-07]
Added "the girl i left behind me" by fats waller in G.

[Updated 2022-12-19]
Added "dream man (make me dream some more)" by fats waller in Bb.

[Updated 2023-03-12]
Added "sing an old fashioned song (to a young sophisticated lady)" by fats waller in G.

[Updated 2023-06-30]
Added "it's a sin to tell a lie" by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2023-08-12]
Added "have a little dream on me" by fats waller, phil baxter, billy rose in C.

[Updated 2023-12-04]
Added "when somebody thinks you're wonderful" by fats waller in Eb.

[Updated 2024-03-27]
Added "keepin' out of mischief now" by fats waller, andy razaf in G.

[Updated 2024-05-17]
Added "lulu's back in town" by harry warren, fats waller in Eb.

[Updated 2024-05-20]
Here's the link to an interesting article about Andy Razaf and Fats.

[Updated 2024-05-23]
Added "hold tight" by fats waller, sidney bechet in Eb.

[Updated 2024-06-06]
Added "truckin'" by fats waller, ted koehhler in C.

[Updated 2024-07-03]
Added "the joint is jumpin'" by fats waller, andy razaf in Bb.

[Updated 2024-07-10]
Added "whose honey are you?" by fats waller, ruth etting, leon redbone in F.

[Updated 2024-07-16]
Added "a hopeless love affair" by fats waller, andy razaf in Eb.

[Updated 2024-07-27]
Added "don't let it bother you" by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2024-08-02]
Added "up jumped you with love" by fats waller in D.

[Updated 2024-08-08]
Added "everybody loves my baby" by fats waller in F.

[Updated 2024-09-03]
Added "jealous of me" by fats waller, andy razaf in F.

[Updated 2024-09-20]
Added "la-de-de la-de-da" by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2024-10-08]
Published a review/summary of "Fats Waller", by Maurice Waller, 1977.

[Updated 2024-10-17]
Added "lost love" by fats waller, andy razaf in F.

[Updated 2024-10-31]
Published a review/summary of the Fats Waller bio "Ain't Misbehavin'" by Ed Kirkeby, 1966. Kirkeby was Fats' manager from 1938-1943. The bio by Fats' son Maurice is better.

[Updated 2024-11-01]
Added "i used to love you (but it's all over now)" by fats waller in Ab.

[Updated 2024-12-11]
Added "did anyone ever tell you?", by fats waller, jimmy mchugh in C.

[Updated 2024-12-29]
Added "why do i lie to myself about you?", by fats waller, j. fred coots in Eb.

[Updated 2025-01-15]
Added "there'll be some changes made", by ethel waters, fats waller, una mae carlisle in Bb.

[Updated 2025-01-26]
Added "romance à la mode", by fats waller, the deep river boys in F.

[Updated 2025-03-11]
Added "a porter's love song to a chambermaid", by fats waller, james p. johnson, andy razaf in F.

[Updated 2025-03-26]
Added "sweet and slow", by fats waller, harry warren, al dubin in C.

[Updated 2025-04-10]
Added "don't try your jive on me", by una mae carlisle, fats waller in Ab.

[Updated 2025-04-25]
Added "you meet the nicest people in your dreams", by fats waller in Bb.

[Updated 2025-05-08]
Added "i wish i were twins", by fats waller, frank loesser, joseph meyer in Eb.

[Updated 2025-05-24]
Added "do me a favor", by fats waller in F.

[Updated 2025-06-11]
Re-recorded "ain't misbehavin'", by fats waller, andy razaf in F, to use the looper & play an improved solo.

[Updated 2025-07-04]
Added "then i'll be tired of you", by fats waller, yip harburg in C.

[Updated 2025-07-13]
Added "the more i know you (the more I love you)", by fats waller, j. fred coots, benny davis in Eb.

[Updated 2025-08-01]
Added "how can you face me?", by fats waller, andy razaf in C.

[Updated 2025-08-15]
Added "armful o' sweetness", by fats waller, alexander hill in Bb.

[Updated 2025-08-29]
Added "georgia may", by fats waller in F.

[Updated 2025-09-10]
Added "you're not the only oyster in the stew", by fats waller, harold spina, johnny burke in G.

[Updated 2025-09-27]
Added "night wind", by fats waller in F.

[Updated 2025-10-16]
Added "let's pretend there's a moon", by fats waller, russ palumbo in Ab.

[Updated 2025-11-01]
Added "i'm growing fonder of you", by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2025-11-13]
Added "believe it, beloved", by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2025-12-05]
Added "if it isn't love", by fats waller in F.

[Updated 2025-12-21]
Added "breakin' the ice", by fats waller in Eb.

[Updated 2026-01-09]
Added "i'm a hundred percent for you", by fats waller in Eb.

[Updated 2026-01-20]
Added "because of once upon a time", by fats waller in Ab.

[Updated 2026-01-28]
Added "i believe in miracles", by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2026-02-07]
Added "you fit into the picture", by fats waller in G.

[Updated 2026-03-06]
Added "nero", by fats waller, andy razaf in G.

[Updated 2026-03-29]
Added "i ain't got nobody", by fats waller, spencer williams in G.

[Updated 2026-04-15]
Added "blue turning grey over you", by fats waller, andy razaf in C.

[Updated 2026-05-18]
Added "what's the reason (i'm not pleasin' you)", by fats waller in C.

[Updated 2026-06-18]
Added "there's honey on the moon tonight", by fats waller, j. fred coots, haven gillespie, mack davis in Eb.

[Updated 2026-07-12]
Added "rosetta", by fats waller, earl hines in F.

[Updated 2026-08-03]
Added "pardon my love", by fats waller, oscar levant, milton drake in C.

[Updated 2026-08-13]
Added "(oh suzanna) dust off that old pianna", by fats waller in C.

---

An early Music In note, when I was looking for the video for "you got me under your thumb", I came across the Cleo Brown version - it had a very tasty intro. Cleo was known as the "female Fats Waller". She was 3 years younger, born 1907 (or 1909) vs 1904 for Fats. Her skimpy Wikipedia article says in 1935 she took over for Fats as pianist for the WABC orchestra in NYC.

It seems like most of her stuff is on this 27-track album, "Here Comes Cleo". Only $9.49 Amazon download, quel bargain! I've really enjoyed it. Favs: "you got me under your thumb", "my gal mezzanine", "when hollywood goes black and tan", "who's that knockin' at my heart?".

I found her the last week of African-American History Month & thought, "How appproiate & fortuitous!". Touted on Twitter, crickets :-(

Oooh, just found another album of hers, "1935-1951", 27 tracks, 18 in common w "Here Comes Cleo", only $3.99 !!! Snappin' that up right now! 9 new tracks for $3.99 a great bargain!

Slacking?

I finished reading a book a couple nights ago, I figured I had enough (4) to blog. I was surprised to see that the last time I blogged on books read was Dec 5. So only 4 books in just over 2 months? Where does the time go?

Well, lately, I sleep til 8-9am, out walking/biking by 10-11. Generally 2ish is the earliest that I am finished with the morning walk/bike ride, chores, showering, and lunching. I was up to practicing guitar & singing 3-4 hours a day. Some reading. I've started doing crossword puzzles again. If I'm cooking, I generally start 6-6:30. After supper, more reading, then lately 2-3 hours of TV/movies. starting 10ish. Finished bingeing "Lucifer" - surprisingly fun, although at times as trite as you would expect of a multi-year series. Then binged the end of "Vikings". Next up "The Expanse".

I've decided I'm only going to binge things. I still have 1/2 a season of "Peter Gunn" to watch and harvest jazz standards from. But Amazon has decided to start charging me $0.99/episode, which seems like too much for 1/2 hour episodes. Oh well, only like 15 to go, when I'm done working up the 60-70 songs currently in the queue and need more I'll cough up the dough.

I had an abfab couple of weeks Jan 16-29: my youngest daughter visited me here in Naples, FL with her husband and 3 sons aged 6, 3, and 1 YO. They were going to stay a week, I told them early on they could stay as long as they wanted, so they stayed an extra week. Her husband worked remote Mon-Fri, and the 6 YO did remote classwork Mon-Fri. They went to the beach 4x, the IslandWalk pool 3x, Vineyards Community Park splash park 2x, a nice walk in a rookery (alligators!), and on their last day the very nice little Naples zoo (more alligators! - and dozens of Lego animals?!?!?).

It was great getting to cook 9 days in a row. Normally I cook 2 nights in a row, 4 servings a night (or sometimes only 2 of protein), so I then eat (alternating) leftovers for the next 6 days. Their last night in Naples we ordered out for pizza; the 2 nights before that my son-in-law acquited himself most excellently in the kitchen, making fish tacos the 1st night and chicken kabobs with homemade tzatziki sauce the 2nd night.

My daughter (and her sons) worked a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle, and she started a 1000 piecer, and left it for me. So I've been spending some time on that too.

Well, not like it really matters. I am in my 9th year of being gloriously and happily retired, FTW!

---

1st book read: "Fleet Elements", by Walter Jon Williams, 2020, 454 pages, 123k words. The 2nd book in the 2nd trilogy in the Praxis meta-series, which also includes 2-3 short stories. Williams' writing is like an old friend to me. Good space battles, I guess. More plot regarding our star-crossed lovers. Slightly annoying cliff-hanger ending.

2nd book read: "Machine", by Elizabeth Bear, 2020, 495 pages. The 2nd book in her new "White Space" series. I was really psyched by the 1st book in this series, which seemed to have appointed itself the successor to Iain Banks' Culture series. So I was excited to get this 1. I don't think it is as good as the 1st, but still a page-turner. Characters include humans, aliens, and AIs, what's not to like?

3rd book read: "Perfidia", by James Ellroy, 2014, 705 pages, 204k words. This is the 1st book of "The Second L.A. Quartet" by Ellroy. I read several of his books decades ago, and have watched "L.A. Confidential" a few times. I think I got the 2nd book of the new quartet ("This Storm") on sale at Bookbub, and bought this 1 when I realized this fact. Ellroy considers himself the king of True Crime, there's plenty of that. The book starts the day before Pearl Harbor, after which things get pretty crazy in L.A. Most of the characters are cops or informants. Everyone stops sleeping, instead working all the time, doing drugs, and having sex with movie stars. I really wondered about that. Are Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in the public domain? Don't they have descendants or estates who might take exception to their being protrayed as lascivious individuals? Somewhat off-putting to me. I think I'm kind of over this genre, I think it will be a while before I read the 2nd one.

4th book read: "Some of the Best of Tor.com: 2020 Edition", various authors, 2020, 789 pages, 214k words. Tor publishes new stories online, a few a month, and at the end of the year creates a compilation of the best 30 or so stories and publishes them as a free eBook - yay! Generally a pretty good collection, and this year is no exception. This year's collection seems to skew heavily towards fantasy and horror, with very little science fiction. The collection was not as totally dominated by LGBTQA stories as I expected.

I totally forgot to clear the magazine stack in January, so I need to get that and February next.

100 Videos

As I described in this blog post, on September 27, 2020, I started posting 1 song/day to YouTube. I tagged them and tweeted them as #SongOfTheDay.

As of Monday, January 4, 2021, I had posted a song for 100 straight days! Time for a break I think.

80 jazz standards were posted to the Jaz Dumoz account:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-8G0QzZxDOB8cRk1-5n7lA

Currently 108 songs in my OnSong "Standards" book. Another 55 or so still in the list to be added. Still 2/3 of the final season of "Peter Gunn" to harvest. Wow, season 3/3, they got rid of "Mother's" and Edie Hart, Pete's girlfriend, has her own club "Edie's".

The Jim Dumas account currently has 20 songs:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs7QrCGIS2G_pgRvzKeqlSw

In late November I was running low on standards, so I added #BluesTuesday and posted a bluesy song to this channel on Tuesdays to pad things out.

From December 20 to Jan 2, I posted 14 holiday songs. Something that impressed me when I 1st met Ricky Howard, David Johnson, and some of the other professional musicians I get to play with in Naples FL was that when the holidays rolled around, they all had holiday songs. So I decided I'd be professional and add some too. No hymns. For #BluesTuesday, I did "Blue Christmas" and "Please Come Home For Christmas". For #SomethingNewerSaturday, I did "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" and "Jingle Bell Rock". These songs have both been covered by enough people to be considered standards, but I decided that any song with "rock" in the name was not a standard.

The 1st holiday song I worked up was "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". The 3rd verse starts:

Through the years we all will be together,
If the Fates allow.

Well, Fates allowed pretty much 0 this year. No family whatsoever for the holidays. My wife was unable to get off work & come to Florida for the 1st time in 11 years. I took me several tries before I could make it through that 3rd verse without tearing up.

As usual, this is way too many songs to work with. For a 3 hour gig, the most of these I could imagine using is 60. If I use the looper more and put some solos in, that goes down to 40-50. So I'm going to start creating some set lists of the ones I think would work best. But, I'll keep adding songs in case of requests, and also because I always get tired of playing the same stuff.

Here's some of my favs so far.

I have to put this one as #1, because my wife was home when I was working it up, and whenever I sang "Go on and kiss her, go on and kiss her", she would come in and lay a big ol' kiss on me. I'm thinking "Finally! That's how music is supposed to work!".

These 2 songs were off of Julie London's 1955 debut album. "Julie Is Her Name", with Barney Kessel on guitar & an upright bass player. That is a great album, I think I've gifted it to 3-4 people. These were the hardest songs I did, as I tried to get all of Barney's licks.

Barney did a similar album with Sarah Vaughan, "Sarah + 2" in 1962. I worked up Barney's licks on this next song from that album, but wound up mostly doing the arrangement by my teacher, the most excellent jazz guitarist Ricky Howard. What a pretty song!

A few weeks ago I realized I needed to start doing more of the Fats Waller songs that I have loved for 50 years. In college, the 2nd band I played in "Blue Eyed Boy Mr. Death" was led by Delbert Lionel Hilgartner III ("Del") who sang most of the leads and played organ (Hammond B3 with a Lesley) and tambourine. He turned me on to Fats. I bought these 3 albums then.

I've started to seriously harvest these tunes, targetting 1/week. I have posted 5 Fats tunes so far, 2 more in process. Here's the Fats playlist. Here's 1 of his many happy, upbeat songs. My wife described them as playful, I agree.

Here's video #100. Nice, this is a fav!

On the other channel, this was the most popular song. I tweeted thanks to David Crosby for writing it, maybe that gave it a boost - all the way up to 40 views (LOL)!

Note, the intonation problems seem to come and go. If I pay more attention to it I do better. So that means I need to make sure I have the guitar parts down cold so I have the bandwidth to pay attention to the vocal intonation.

4 + 2

1st up, "The Eden Tetrology" recommended to me by my son:

1. "The Eden Paradox", 2011, 392 pages.
2. "Eden's Trial", 2012, 318 pages.
3. "Eden's Revenge", 2013, 285 pages.
4. "Eden's Endgame", 2014, 368 pages.

Note, 1 of the 4 was not available on Kobo, so I bought "The Complete Series" on Amazon.

This was a fun read. My son said it reminded him of Herbert, i.e. evolution, I didn't get that much. It is a tale that escalates nicely, from involving just Earth to a full galactic civilization. I was not particularly pleased that the civilization was strongly heirarchical - 19 levels, with humans on level 3. Going up the levels is mostly about increased processing speed. The cast of characters is varied and strong.

Next up, "Fire & Blood", by George R. R. Martin, 2020, 971 pages, 264k words. Set 300 years before Game of Thrones, this book covers the Targaryen conquest of Westeros with dragons and the 1st 100-200 years of their rule. Guess what? Succession problems. Civil war. Dragons fighting dragons. Having read and watched all of Game of Thrones, I guess I had to read this. But, I found it annoying everytime he refered to "the smallfolk" - commoners, as opposed to feudal lords. I want to read novels that don't glorify feudalism. Feudalism is too much of a strange attractor for how to organize human civilization as is.

This wasn't particularly "Game of Thrones"-y - no really unexpected (mass) murders, etc. More of a history book feel. My son referred to it as "The Silmarillion for GOT". It's not nearly that bad.

It looks like there's going to be 1 more of these.

Finally, "Dead Lies Dreaming", Charles Stross, 2020, 409 pages, 111k words. Set in the current universe and chronology of the earlier Laundry Files novels, this 1 features a completely different cast of characters. Charlie is definitely keeping himself current - all the characters were some flavor of LGBTQA... some of them I was never sure which. Maybe that's the point. The story centers around a quest through time to retrieve a mystical book of great power. The plotting was good I guess. I'm back to thinking that Charlie is burned out on this series - this is book #10. I'll keep reading them, but I wish he'd go back to writing about bright shiny futures with things like cornucopia machines.

Still 80 unread books on my iPad - oops. #SongOfTheDay is eating into my reading time, like everything else. Well, maybe we'll have a vaccine soon & I can get out and play music in public & quit obsessively working up new songs.

Music In Is In Disarray

Last "music in" post was in June, when I was home in Lexington, KY for 10 days. Then I went back to Naples, FL until September 10.

My music collection, currently 21,509 tracks, lives on my PC in Lexington, administered by iTunes. New music stays in the _unrated smart playlist, which is my default home listening, until I have heard it enough to rate it. This can only happen in Lexington. So my prolonged stay in Naples this year has messed that up.

Plus, I think I am encountering Yet Another Case of "hey, we have a new business model, we're no longer particularly supporting how things used to work." Apple, Amazon, etc, all want you use their subscription streaming music services - something which I have no interest in doing. Amazon used to send me weekly emails of music suggestions. No more. Not even when an artist whose stuff I have purchased from them releases new material. No, they want me to buy a subscription to Prime Music or whatever.

But, I've really enjoyed curating my own music collection. I don't think I'm quite ready to give that up yet. It sure is annoying that this is what they are trying to make me do.

Also, I purchased a 2TB USB drive for $60. I formatted it 1/4 for my MacBook to use TimeMachine backups, the rest accessible by PC or max (exFAT). I have moved all the music there. Tomorrow, going to try to see if the metadata from my PC can be copied to the MacBook, after which I would set it to reference the music from the USB drive, to where both systems could work off the USB drive. Not hopeful at all that this might work. They so much all are gradually letting interoperability lapse and focusing on playing solely in their own sandboxes. Assholes ...

The only one helping out is Bandcamp. They put out an email every Friday with 5 new albums for my perusal. I have gotten some good music from them - they're like the main source of new stuff at this point - but, maybe 30% of the time, the music is below what I would consider professionally produced. Not that big a deal I guess, they still have good stuff.

Which reminds me, I am really cutting back on birding. My eyesight is not as good, and I really have trouble learning birdsongs. I have theorized that our brains have only so much plastic audio-processing neurons, and mine have been taken over by music-processing - so there is no hardware left for processing birdsongs. I could do a poll on Twitter, "Are you both a musician and a birder able to recognize lots of birdsongs?" - but my last Twitter poll got 2 votes. I'm not sure exactly why I'm such a non-entity on social media. I think I'm really smart, interesting, and insightful. But, I guess, OK boomer. 69 YO pretty old for social media. Despite the pressing need for it, I try to make sure and not mansplain - I'm sure the yunguns aren't up for that.

Well, let's try to process some of this music. The oldest stuff is from June, I don't remember much of it at this point ...

• EOB, "Earth", 2020, 9 tracks. EOB is Ed O'Brien, a member of Radiohead. This is his 1st solo album. Several of the tracks kind of sound like Radiohead, the rest don't. A good effort, 4 stars. Here's "Banksters".

• Fiona Apple, "Fetch The Bolt Cutters", 2020, 13 tracks. Ms. Apple is genuine. Ms. Apple is writing from her heart. Ms. Apple has 0 fucks to give. You gotta respect that. 4 stars. Ha ha, I love this lyric: "Kick me under the table all you want. I won't shut up. I won't shut up". Right on, Fiona!

• Superorder, "Excellent Systems", 2020, 12 tracks. This is a duo featuring a keyboard/synthesizer player and my nephew, most excellent drummer out of Portland, ME, Max Heinz, on drums & percussion. Very listenable, but not quite hooky enough, so 3 stars.
• School of Language, "I Could Have Loved U Better", 2020, 5 tracks. I continue to like this band's work. These tracks have more of an 80's disco/techno feel. 4 stars. Ah, here's a nice track. Nice rich chords. "Call U Up".

• RJD2, "The Fun Ones", 2020, 14 tracks. My daughter Erica introduced me via CD to RJD2 in 2002, his "Deadringer" album. Wow, I only gave that 2 stars - just upgraded to 3. Also changed from "Rap/Hip Hop" to "Electronica/Dance". Nice listenable stuff, plus, you can dance to it! 3 stars.
• Joey Guilones, "The World I Know", 2020, 2 tracks. Definitely Bandcamp. Nice neo-motown, 4 stars. Here's "Left With A Broken Heart".

• Coco Montoya, "Coming In Hot", 2019, 11 tracks. Someone (Greg Stone?) told me, you have to work up "Good Man Gone". So I got the album & worked that song up. Overall, the album is not bad, a blues album with not everything 1 4 5. 3 stars. I did work up "Good Man Gone", I think it will be a fun song to perform. I like this line: "If your phone don't ring, then you know it's me." LOL!
  Coco did journeyman's work, playing with Albert Collins, and then John Mayhall's Bluesbreakers for 10 years starting in the early 1980's.

• Nubiyan Twist, "24-7"+, 2020, 2 tracks. Really tasty Brit neo-Motown? Neo-techno? Neo-??? 4 stars. Here's 24-7.

• Moodyman, "TAKEN AWAY | KDJ-49", 2020, 10 tracks, Bandcamp. Very tasty, more Brit neo-Motown or whatever. 4 stars. Here's "Do Wrong", seriously channeling some Al Greene.

• NIIKA, "Close But Not Too Close", 2020, 9 tracks, Bandcamp. Very nice alternative tracks from Oz. Close, but 4 stars. Here's the last track, "For The Key".

• Norah Jones, "Begin Again", 2019, 7 tracks. This is what I mean. I have all of Ms. Jones' music, but she releases a new album last year and nobody tells me! Grrr! 4 stars. Here's the 1st track, "Just A Little Bit".

• Norah Jones, "Pick Me Up Off The Floor", 2020, 12 tracks. Purchased at the same time as the previous album. Grrr. This album has tracks "I'm Alive", "To Live", and "This Life" consecutively. A theme maybe? Life? 4 stars. Here's "This Life".

• Andrew Bird, 2020, "Panthology Songs I", 6 tracks; "Panthology Songs II", 6 tracks; "Panthology Songs III", 6 tracks. Our 1st pandemic music! Yay? Groan? I think this is mostly rereleases of older material, something to do while hunkered down. Bird has (obviously) chosen some of his best stuff, and that is some seriously good stuff. So I will give them all 4 stars, but not include a video. I guess the precedent is, I don't post a video for rereleased material.
• St. Paul & The Broken Bones, "Live From Wichita", 2020, 16 tracks. 8 piece white R&B band out of Birmingham AL. 2 horns. Live performance. Not a bad band - I'd enjoy playing in it - but I got tired of it. Maybe needed fewer tracks. 3 stars.
• Rough Trade Publishing/Bank Robber Music, "Talk - Action = Zero: A Compilation Benefitting Black Lives Matter", 2020, 100 tracks! 100 tracks! So this was put together as a fund raiser for BLM. I always pay a minimum of $1/track, so I paid Bandcamp $100 for this album. Well worth it, a great compilation of styles and tunes. Weird, only about 60 would import into iTunes?!?!? I'm presuming problems with unpopular characters in the song names. That's OK, I can listen to the whole thing in the Bandcamp app on my phone, and the app will bluetooth into my car, FTW!. This is a very good compilation, nothing obviously bad or obnoxious. But, due to the size, 3 stars. I got an email, their target was $30,000 to support BLM, they made their goal, FTW!
  Maybe a month later they came out with Volume 2, another 60 tracks. I presume I gave them another $60. This one did even worse with iTunes, it only liked 9 tracks.
• Julie London, "Julie Is Her Name", 1955, 13 tracks. What a great album! I found it thanks to Edie performing "Easy Street" on Peter Gunn. This was Ms. London's 1st album - she put out about 4/year for the next 10 years after this. Backed solely by Barney Kessel on guitar and Roy Leatherwood on upright bass. Both Ricky Howard my guitar teacher and internationally renowned guitarist the inimitable Ben Lacy said that they are big fans of Barney. 4 stars, 5 for "Cry Me A River", which is really fun to perform. Here's that track and "Easy Street".

  Oh, and, bonus! Here's me doing those 2 songs. "Cry Me A River" I transposed from G down to E to sing it. A few of the chord voicings changed, I think for the better, FTW! "Easy Street" I could sing in her key.

• Sarah Vaughan, "Sarah Plus Two", 1962, 11 tracks. Ricky Howard told me about this album. Following Julie London's lead in 1955, this album features Sarah backed solely by Barney Kessel on guitar and Joe Comfort on upright bass. Great stuff, 4 stars. Here's 2 tracks I worked up off of this album: "Just In Time", and "When Sunny Gets Blue". I posted both to Ultimate Guitar.

• Becca Mancari, "The Greatest Part", 2020, 12 tracks. Very strong alternative chick pop, I really liked this stuff. 4 stars. Here's "Lonely Boy".

• Tracey Thorn, "Record", 2018, 9 tracks. Again, I have everything Tracey Thorn has done solo, and all of Everything But The Girl, and I find out she has new material 2 years later? You suck, music distributors. Sadly, no standout tracks for me, as much as I love Ms. Thorn's voice. Plus track "Sisters" featured Corinne Bailey Rae! But, sadly, 3 stars.
• The Beths, "Jump Rope Gazers", 2020, 10 tracks. Very nice alternative music from New Zealand. Some a bit energetic, but, I'm not completely old yet! They seem to be getting some press/attention. 4 stars. Here's the title track.

• Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship, "Blows Against The Empire", 1970, 10 tracks. I think the transitional album between Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship? When they still were preaching a revolution? My guitar teacher Ricky Howard told me I needed to get it??? 4 stars, I guess. Here's "A Child Is Coming".

• Madeline Kenney, "Sucker's Lunch", 2020, 10 tracks. My 2nd album of Ms. Kenney. Very good music. 4 stars. Here's "Double Hearted".

• Jorge Elbrecht, "Presentable Corpse..", 2020, 2 tracks. My nephew the most excellent drummer loves this guy. I like these tracks better than his most recent stuff before this that I have. Much more approachable. 4 stars. Here's track 2/2, "Ancient Grief".

• Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, "Reunions", 2020, 10 tracks. I think Isbell has become the bard of Americana. Case in point, "Dreamsicle". 4 stars.

• Half Moon Run, "Look Me in the Eyes", 2020, 8 tracks. Nice power folk, guitar rock, whatever. Very listenable. 4 stars. Here's "Grow Into Love".

• Frank Zappa, "Shut Up And Play Your Guitar", 1981, 20 tracks. Originally a 3 disk albums. Great chance to listen to the underappreciated fabulous guitarist Frank Zappa. Looking forward to the authorized documenentary coming out any day now. But, I'm a lyrics kind of guy. 3 stars.
• Christelle Bofale, "Borderline (An Ode to Self Care)", 2020, 1 track. The guitar and the vocals go so well together. I really like this. Out of Austin, TX. 4 stars. Hmmm, no video available, here's the track on Bandcamp: https://christellebofale.bandcamp.com/track/borderline-an-ode-to-self-care
• Lianne La Havas, eponymous, 2020, 12 tracks. Again, I have this artist's previous work, she puts out a new album, I am forced to stumble upon it. Just like the previous artist, her guitar and voice work so well together. She has an interesting approach to guitar, playing much more on the lower strings than most people. Out of London, of course. 4 stars. Here's "Bittersweet", and also, her excellent cover of "Weird Fishes" by Radiohead.

• Easy Love, "Wander Feeler", 2020, 12 tracks. Chill alternative with laid-back female singers. Maybe a little too chill. Plus, I can't find any videos. 3 stars.
• B Fachada, "Regabofe d'Abertura", 2020, 16 tracks, Bandcamp. Well, I wasn't too impressed by Fado music, so when this contemporary Portuguese group came up on Bandcamp and sounded interesting, I went for it. Glad I did, interesting, edgy, energetic music. 4 stars. Here's "Canção de Rejeição".

• Market, "Inner Smile", 2020, 1 track, Bandcamp. Another group from Australia (Melbourne). A nice track, 4 stars.

• katie dey, "mydata", 2020, 12 tracks, Bandcamp. Nice alternative music, not particularly guitar oriented, different. 4 stars. Another ozzy (Australian, Melbourne). Here's "word". I'm a sucker for strings like this. Also, kudos to dey for eschewing the use of upper case.

• Kate Bollinger, "A word becomes a sound", 2020, 5 tracks, Bandcamp. More chill alternative, dreamy guitar. I liked her EP from last year. 4 stars. Here's the title track.

• Johnny Mathis, "Open Fire, Two Guitars", 1959, 12 tracks. Recommended by my guitar teacher Ricky Howard. A bit to schmaltzy for my taste. 3 stars.
• Rick Howard, "Trio - 4 Songs", 2013, 4 tracks. My guitar teacher. He is such a great jazz guitarist. 4 stars, but no video.
• katie dey, "solipsisters", 2019, 10 tracks. Apparently I liked dey's latest effort enough to backfill this earlier release. Interesting stuff, really eclectic vocals. 4 stars again. Here's "stuck". Holy crap, what an odd video! Plus, a handy technique for trimming long hair?!?!?

• Billie Holiday, "Lady in Satin", 1958, 16 tracks. I think this was recommended by Walter Tunis, the Lexington Herald-Leader's music critic for the last 40 years. I thought this was her last album - she died July 17, 1959, age 44 - but apparently this one was fairly successful, so she recorded another, "Last Recording" in 1959. I am very sorry that this is my introduction to her work. Her voice is mostly gone, weak, wavery - I know, I've got my nerve, I posted links to me singing above, not so great - but I'm 69 YO. I need to find something from earlier in her career that will let me appreciate her talent. 3 stars.

OK! Done. Patting myself on the back, _unrated is down from > 500 to 84. FTW! I did yeoman's work yesterday and today: 4-5 hours maybe? 41 albums/EPs processed! It's good to be retired! Now to work on the mac/windows interoperabilty issue - oops! Wish me luck!

The Ministry for the Future

[Last Updated 2020-12-17 4:34pm]

"The Ministry for the Future", 2020, 673 pages, 183k words, 106 chapters, is the latest from the bard of climate fiction, Kim Stanley Robinson.

It follows in the vein of "2312", 2012; "Green Earth", 2015; "New York 2140", 2017; and "Red Moon", 2018.

As I read this book, I thought of many recent posts I had done, and think, "Damn, KSR & I are on the same page." So are we on the same page, or am I just appropriating his ideas? My 1st post (of 60) tagged "economy of plenty", aka "post scarcity utopia", was September 25, 2012. My post on "2312" was November 28, 2012. But, the Green Earth novel was originally the Science in the Capital trilogy, published 2004-2008. Oops. Way ahead of when I started blogging on Economy of Plenty. But you know, I think, with the economics reading I've done, I am not just borrowing KSR's ideas. I think we are indeed fellow travelers. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I strongly recommend that you purchase "The Ministry for the Future" and read it right now. It addresses strategies for defeating the .01% and getting through the climate crisis on our way to a post scarcity utopia. Plus it's an enjoyable, well-written novel, with good plotting, an interesting variety of characters, a satisfactory conclusion without any deus-ex-machina, and a very important moral point to ponder. When you have finished reading it yourself, you can come back here and share my spoiler-filled thoughts on the book. If you are not going to read it yourself, then by all means just forge ahead.

*********************** SPOILER ALERT ***********************

What will it take to make people take the climate crisis seriously? This novel answers that question by opening with 20 million Indians dying in a heat wave. India then unilaterally jumps into a massive geoengineering project, flying 1000s of flights to release sun-reflecting aerosols into the upper atmosphere. And it seems to work, 5 years later, no more deaths from heat waves.

As the Chinese seemed to be the heroes of "Red Moon", the Indians seem to be the heroes of this book.

I have noticed how most of Climate Fiction seems to be taking geoengineering as a given. I still remember Naomi Klein, in "This Changes Everything", describing geoengineering as "fighting pollution with pollution". But, in a recent KSR blog post about this novel, Klein is listed as someone who participated in positive discussions of this novel. So, maybe her thinking has evolved?

This event leads to the establishment by the UN of The Ministry for the Future - an agency who represents the interest of future generations. I think the 1st time I was exposed to this concept, of future generations (and non-human species) as stakeholders, was in "Capitalism 3.0", by Peter Barnes, 2006. It is a completely valid concept, and a good way to start trying to break modern capitalism's myopic pursuit of quarterly reports.

The ministry is headed by a plucky mid-50's Irishwoman - chosen, I think, because KSR believes that the Irish are the most bluntly speaking people on earth. She survives a kidnapping, bonds with her kidnapper - a survivor of the Indian heat wave - and does not engage in romantic side plots until after she has retired and the good guys have mostly won.

My pinned tweet for a while has been a George Orwell quote: "Either we all live in a decent world, or no one does." To me, this kind of defines decency. And, surely, for rational people of good will, decency is high on the list of our goals. KSR reformulates this several times:

• Chapter 4, “No one is safe until all are secure."
• Chapter 69, Either everyone’s happy or no one is safe.
• Chapter 69, Either every culture is respected, or no one is safe.
• Chapter 69, Either everyone has dignity or no one has it.
• Chapter 74, It’s all of us succeed or none of us is safe.

There are several chapters where we are addressed by seriously anthopomorphised entities: Chapter 43, blockchain. Chapter 46, the market. Chapter 53, a photon. Chapter 66, carbon dioxide. Chapter 88, herd animals.

Definitely felt kinship as KSR vents his frustration, which I totally share, re economics as a science:

The whole field and discipline of economics, by which we plan and justify what we do as a society, is simply riddled with absences, contradictions, logical flaws, and most important of all, false axioms and false goals.

...

Extinctions and ocean warming can’t be fixed no matter how much money future people have, so economics as practiced misses a fundamental aspect of reality.

...

the neoliberal order was all about efficiency, in its purest economic definition: the speed and frictionlessness with which money moved from the poor to the rich.

...

mainstream economists everywhere were fearful that this sudden flood of new currency was going to cause massive deflation. Or perhaps inflation: macroeconomics was no longer so very clear on the ultimate effects of quantitative easing, given that the evidence from the past half century could be interpreted either way. That this debate was a clear sign that macroeconomics as a field was ideological to the point of astrology was often asserted by people in all the other social sciences, but economists were still very skilled at ignoring outside criticisms of their field, and now they forged on contradicting themselves as confidently as ever.

...

Either a huge boon, a complete calamity, or a non-event. Thus the economists, faced with explaining the biggest economic event of their time. What a science!

...

Macroeconomics had thus long ago entered a zone of confusion, either early in the century or perhaps from the moment of its birth, and now was revealed for the pseudoscience it had always been.

KSR also calls out financialization, aka financial engineering, financial capitalism, as we encountered in "Foundational Economy".

These were not economists, but speculators. Finance in that late moment of capitalism’s exhaustion meant gamblers, sure, but more than that, the casino in which people gambled. And the house always won.

I thought it was freaky in Chapter 60, when KSR uses the "economy as sailing ship" metaphor that I arrived at so painfully in my MMT conclusion [my bold]:

the better to keep the financial ship of the world steadily sailing on into the great west of universal prosperity— for the elites first, and everyone else if they could be accommodated without endangering the elites on the first-class deck.

I liked Chapter 64, an in-depth exploration of Keynes' "Euthanasia of the Rentier" - one of my favorite phrases, remarked upon in this blog whenever it is encountered.

Now, it could be argued that the rentier class is not suffering, and in fact is happily engaged in eating up everything. A parasite killing its host by overindulgence is not suffering. In which case, really the rentier class needs to be executed.

...

“The rentier class.” Keynes meant by this the people who made money simply by owning something that others needed, and charging for the use of it: this is rent in its economic meaning. Rent goes to people who are not creators of value, but predators on the creation and exchange of value.

...

The rentier class will not help in that project. They are not interested in that project. Indeed that project will be forwarded in the face of their vigorous resistance. Over their dead bodies, some of them will say. In which case, euthanasia may be just the thing.

Chapter 67 is on Taxes, 1 of my fav subjects! KSR quotes some of my favs:

In the early 1950s, a time when many people felt that wealthy individuals had helped to cause and then profit from World War Two, the top tax bracket in the United States had earners paying in income tax 91 percent of all earnings over $400,000 (current value, four million dollars). This rate was approved by a Republican Congress and a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower

...

Capital asset taxes, sometimes called Piketty taxes, tax the assessed value of whomever or whatever is being taxed. [I think the term "wealth taxes" is the most understandable.]

...

Land taxes, sometimes called Georgist taxes, after an economist named Henry George, are taxes on property, meaning in this case specifically land itself as an asset.

Chapter 69 is a notable chapter. After a heat wave in the US south & southwest kills a few 100 1000s, KSR talks about an old favorite of mine, cognitive errors - blogged here as "cognitive illusions".

This was yet another manifestation of racism and contempt for the South, yes, but also of a universal cognitive disability, in that people had a very hard time imagining that catastrophe could happen to them, until it did. So until the climate was actually killing them, people had a tendency to deny it could happen. To others, yes; to them, no. This was a cognitive error that, like most cognitive errors, kept happening even when you knew of its existence and prevalence. It was some kind of evolutionary survival mechanism, some speculated, a way to help people carry on even when it was pointless to carry on.

Chapter 71 gives us, as mentioned above, the rehabilitation of geoengineering. Rightfully so, IMO, these points totally make sense.

This is part of why geoengineering no longer a useful word or concept. Everything people do at scale is geoengineering.

...

All geoengineering, all good. The word itself needs to be rehabilitated.

Chapter 102 continues:

Geoengineering? Yes. Ugly? Very much so. Dangerous? Possibly.
Necessary? Yes. Or put it this way; the international community had decided through their international treaty system to do it. Yet another intervention, yet another experiment in managing the Earth system, in finessing Gaia. Geobegging.

Chapter 73 was a pleasant surprise. For the 1st time, KSR includes Modern Money Theory, aka #MMT, FTW!, in the tool box for fixing the world. I was a little bemused that he led with JG/ELR, the universal job guarantee, prescriptive MMT, weak tea IMO, rather than descriptive MMT, money is imaginary, money is software. He does wind up stating 1 of my conclusions re how MMT gets implemented: most governments must embrace it, or there will be problems.

Enough governments were convinced by MMT to try it.

Chapter 75 so has KSR doing more mind-reading on me - I should start working on a tinfoil hat. He has the Kurds form Kurdistan, FTW! This is just 1 of those things, for the last 10 years or so, I'm thinking, "Damn, the Kurds surely deserve Kurdistan!".

KSR also advances his musings about money:

And when definitions of value shifted from talking about interest rates to talking about social trust— when finance and theories of money fell through a trapdoor in daily normality, down into the free fall of philosophy’s bottomless pit

...

Money was made of social trust. Which meant, in this spasmophilic moment, with everything changing and the ground falling under one’s feet in immense tectonic jolts, that money itself was therefore in limbo.

Chapter 76 is a really nice discussion of economic inequality. The US Navy is a completely well run and respected organization. A large organization (> 600,000 employees). Top salary, $200k, 8x the lowest salary. Corporate world, top salaries, 500x lowest. Hmmm. Who would have thought that the US Navy would be such an illuminating example? We of course hear more about the inspirational Mondragon Cooperative, but who knew that the US Navy would be so instructive? KSR proposes a nice round number 10x, for the legal limit of highest paid to lowest paid employee in any company.

Chapter 81 had something really interesting. Following the lead of Kate Raworth in "Doughnut Economics", I kick "Homo Economicus" in the nuts every time I encounter him. He's just so lame, he is nothing like a normal human being!

But, oops, KSR has a killer point here: the very rich are actually pretty much like Homo Economicus.

Maybe it’s the rich who are most like homo economicus was supposed to be. They have all the information, they pursue rational self-interest, they try to maximize their wealth.

That's really scary!

Chapter 82 introduces 1 of our favs from the other KSR books listed above, the Householder's Union. This is a good plan, and fits in with the rent/mortgage payment strike postulated in the other KSR books:

the Householders’ Union backed the Student Debt Resistance in support of its payment strike.

This chapter also eloquently extols the Foundational Economy:

The necessities are food, water, shelter, clothing, electricity, health care, and education. All these are human rights, all are public goods, all are never to be subjected to appropriation, exploitation, and profit. It’s as simple as that.

...

The Zurich plan, the Mondragón system, Albert and Hahnel’s participatory economics, communism, the Public Trust plan, the What’s Good Is What’s Good for the Land plan, the various post-capitalisms, and so on and so forth; there are lots of versions of a Plan B, but they all share basic features. It’s not rocket science. The necessities are not for sale and not for profit.

Ha ha, I loved this line, I tweeted it to @TomTomorrow:

One thing that happens over and over in the 2nd 1/2 of the book: our plucky Irish heroine Mary winds up having serious head-to-head meetings with ... bankers. And more bankers. And more bankers. We really, really need to get people thinking MMT and realizing that money is imaginary. At this point, money mostly exists to keep rich people rich. Resources are what is real.

It is funny and sad when Mary convinces some reserve bank that they needed to fight climate change because if they didn't then western civilization would end and they wouldn't be able to make their inflation and unemployment goals. Sadly, it seemed to work.

They were securing money’s value, they still told themselves; which in this moment of history required that the world get saved.

Chapter 87 had some poignancy:

All these sad little towns, the backbone of rural civilization, tossed into the trash bin of history.

But, paying attention to history, what, in the early 1900s, 90% of people worked on farms? When I was a kid in the 1950s, most people (>80%) still had a tie to a farm. [From when I was 7 or so until my mid-teens, I would spend a week or 2 every summer on my grandma's farm outside LaGrange, KY: milking, feeding, and herding cows; feeding chickens and collecting eggs; repairing fence lines; etc. I think my fav thing ever was when I was maybe 12 and my grandpa (George William Boemker aka Pop) and I tore down a small barn. I learned The Way Of The Crowbar.] How many people now have a tie to a farm? 5%? 2%? And with the passing of small-to-medium-sized family farms goes "rural civilization".

Chapter 89 introduces blockchain and cryptocurrencies into the mix.

As significantly, money itself was now almost completely blockchained, thus recorded unit by unit in the consolidated central banks and through the digital world, such that any real fiat money now traveled within a panopticon that was in itself a global state of sorts, unspoken as yet, emerging from the fact of money itself. Another brick in the controlocracy

This is really a stretch for me. That the rich would really allow us to track their money. Well ...

Chapter 94 was surprisingly inspirational.

Indeed it can never be emphasized enough how important the Paris Agreement had been; weak though it might have been at its start, it was perhaps like the moment the tide turns: first barely perceptible, then unstoppable. The greatest turning point in human history, what some called the first big spark of planetary mind. The birth of a good Anthropocene.

I did not know it was called the Keeling Curve. Now I do.

The Jevons Parados is mentioned. We have seen that before here and here. Totally new to me was Red Plenty algorithms. Man, that is a wordy damn post. Makes sense, tho. Markets worked better than communist 5 year plans because markets were far superior as computational engines. With improved modelling and 100,000x faster computers, maybe we can accurately model our economy. Hmmm, I seem to think so here: I talk about having a working model of the economy.

Chapter 101 really had me knocking wood. The basic theme is, Hong Kong successfully avoids being pithed by the mainland Chinese government. Well, good luck and godspeed.

Chapter 103 is inspirational. Mother Ocean is invoked - but not Mother Earth. "We live inside our mothers forever." Nice linguistic-foo, riffing on "Mama Mia" - apparently universal across many languages. And this is a wonderful piece of evolutionary biology/psychology speculation:

We turned wolves into dogs and they turned us into humans— we were something like orangutans before, solitaries who didn’t know how to work together, it was the wolves who taught us that, who taught us the idea of friendship and cooperation.

And finally, a fab piece of genetic trivia:

We are all family, as the new religion was telling us, and as every living thing on Earth shares a crucial 938 base pairs of DNA, I guess it’s really true.

New words:

• usufruct: The right to the use and profits of something belonging to another.

Chapter 69 1st introduced us to our "very important moral point to ponder".

A private jet owned by a rich man— boom.
A coal-fired power plant in China— boom.
A cement factory in Turkey, boom. A mine in Angola, boom. A yacht in the Aegean, boom. A police station in Egypt, boom. The Hotel Belvedere in Davos, boom. An oil executive walking down the street, boom. The Ministry for the Future’s offices— boom.

Who is doing this? In Chapter 78, Mary's 2nd in command, who she put in charge of black ops at his suggestion, is talking to the Children of Kali in India:

So now if you keep killing, it’s just to kill. Even Kali didn’t kill just to kill, and certainly no human should. Children of Kali should listen to their mother.
We listen to her, but not you.
He said, I am Kali.
Suddenly he felt the enormous weight of that, the truth of it. They stared at him and saw it crushing him. The War for the Earth had lasted years, his hands were bloody to the elbows. For a moment he couldn’t speak; and there was nothing more to say.

KSR's earlier climate books seemed to be generally happening later, when climate catastrophes have happened and people are ready to fix our broken (economic) system as a result. Ideas like a Householder's Union rent strike to induce Yet Another Banking Crisis, and then nationalizing the financial industry rather than bailing them out - nice! Elegant!.

[But, so we nationalize the financial industry - so what? If it still pursues financialization, so what if 50% of its ill-gotten gains go into the public coffers? I guess the idea is that if we own it, we keep it focused on the things that were originally its focus: creating capital to fund companies that create jobs and products, rather than creating Yet Another Derivative Investment to skim even more wealth out of the system.]

But in this book, people get all proactive, and it appears that we stave off the worst of the climate crisis. But, via lots of booms as noted above.

So, our "important moral point to ponder". The climate crisis unchecked could conceivably lead to the end of human civilization as we know it. Dithering as we are now, it will probably kill a minimum of 1 billion people, maybe several x that, and lead to equal numbers of climate refugees.

On the other hand, the .01% represent (8,000,000,000 x 0.0001 = ) 800,000 people. < 0.1% of 1 billion. So maybe losing the .01% is a small price to pay for the rest of us? Euthanasia of the Rentier, with a vengeance? I'm not sure how I feel about that. Clearly a point to ponder. #EatTheRich #BeforeTheyEatUs

One thing I liked towards the end of the book, as airplanes are replaced by airships. If we ever do realize, we've done it, capitalism is done, we've got all the capital we could ever need, we have arrived, can we then slow down and enjoy and savor life? So going to Europe on an airship takes a few days as opposed to a few hours on a supersonic jet, so what? Enjoy the journey, enjoy the view!

Yay, that does it! Thanks KSR for another hopeful book pointing us on our way to a post-scarcity utopia. FTW!

[Updated 2020-12-13 2:54pm]

Here's the Rolling Stone interview with KSR on the book.

[Updated 2020-12-17 4:34pm] Locus has an interview with KSR behind their paywall. Here's some excerpts.

Here's an article by KSR in Bloomberg.

Tamir Rice

Rolling Stone today published an article titled "I voted, for Tamil Rice", by Jamil Smith. I posted this comment:

Tamir Rice's killing stuck a knife in my gut. 12 YO, playing w a toy gun, cop shows up, 20 seconds later, the kid's dead!?!?!? Fuck fuck fuck!
A little bit after that, I was playing at a jam in a black nightclub, I was outside smoking, a 10 YO black kid comes by playing with a cap gun, I start yelling at him: "If you see the police, throw that toy gun away! They will kill you if they see that toy gun!" Poor kid, crazy old whitey yelling at him.
And just after that, I was driving home from playing at a jam on KY 4, New Circle Rd, Lexington, KY's beltway, & a sporty car passes me doing 80-90 mph. Normally, I would call 911 & report that. But, maybe driven by black men. They get pulled over, who knows, they may wind up dead. So I didn't call it in. Lawless police breed lawlessness.

I get an email response from Rolling Stone:

Your comment on I Voted, For Tamir Rice has been rejected as it seems to contain content that is not in line with our community guidelines.

OK. Science! Let's take out "Fuck fuck fuck!", see if that flies.

Nope, rejected again. OK, let's replace "whitey" w "white men".

Tamir Rice's killing stuck a knife in my gut. 12 YO, playing w a toy gun, cop shows up, 20 seconds later, the kid's dead!?!?!? Fuck fuck fuck!
A little bit after that, I was playing at a jam in a black nightclub, I was outside smoking, a 10 YO black kid comes by playing with a cap gun, I start yelling at him: "If you see the police, throw that toy gun away! They will kill you if they see that toy gun!" Poor kid, crazy old white man yelling at him.
And just after that, I was driving home from playing at a jam. On KY 4, New Circle Rd, Lexington, KY's beltway. A sporty car passes me doing 80-90 mph. Normally, I would call 911 & report that. But, maybe driven by black men. They get pulled over, who knows, they may wind up dead. So I didn't call it in. Lawless police breed lawlessness.

OK! Looks like their AI is happy now, FTW! I think the comment is now posted? A confimatory email would have been nice ...

Email to Paul Krugman

My name is Chris Heinz. I was born June, 1951, Louisville, KY. Grew up in Jeffersonville, IN. MIT BS Physics 1972. I was a staff scientist astronomer at the MIT Center for Space Research 72-74. Married (still) 1975. We had 2 children born in Louisville & 2 born in Lexington KY where we moved for a job in 1981. My kids are now aged 44-37. 4 grandkids aged 9-1. I retired Sep 2012, after 40 years as a software developer/manager/executive.

In my retirement, I decided to study economics.

I had earlier done a lot of reading in evolutionary psychology & cognitive science and gave it up when I concluded that all of human civilization - mind, language, big brains - came about primarily from sexual selection. Yes, mind, language, ... have some species selection value. But they were primarily sexually selected - the traits thrived because chick's dug 'em. We grew big brains, mind, language so that guys could say "Oh baby, baby, you so fine." & women could reply "Daddy, you so full of shit." Pecking order in 7th grade was indeed what it was all about. This crushed my spirit & led me to quit reading cognitive science books.

I tried the MIT Economics 101 class, downloaded the PDF of the free curriculum reference book. I didn't get much traction with it. [Why are textbooks such a rip off? Do the authors see much in the way of royalties, or is The Man hoovering the $$$ up?]

So I decided to start reading random economics books. Since 2012 I have read/reviewed/summarized 27 economics books.

Link: http://portraitofthedumbass.blogspot.com/2016/08/summary-of-economics-reading.html

You were #4:

June 12, 2013, 1K words, "End This Depression Now", Paul Krugman, 2012.

Link: http://portraitofthedumbass.blogspot.com/2013/06/end-this-depression-now.html

Only 1K words, my worst was the recent review/summary (May 1) of Wray's "Modern Money Theory", 24k words.

In my conclusion on that book, I proposed that MMT should broken into 2 pieces: descriptive MMT and prescriptive MMT.

Descriptive MMT talks about how all money is created by the Fed when congress tells it to, and how taxes destroy wealth. Governments with sovereign currencies do not have to collect taxes to spend money - they create money.

Descriptive MMT I proposed calling MMT.

Prescriptive MMT consists mostly of JG/ELR. The best feature of JG/ELR is that it is counter-cyclic with the economy. But Wray kept describing JG/ELR as an "anchor". I was like, what does that mean?

My conclusions on Wray MMT - you wind up being mentioned in there on 2x different topics. 3 minutes to read total: http://portraitofthedumbass.blogspot.com/2020/05/modern-money-theory.html#myconclusion

After failing to think of a metaphor that encompassed safety nets and anchors,

My subconscious came through at 4:33 this morning (2020-04-30). The metaphor that encompasses anchors and safety nets is a sailing ship.

I realized that the best metaphor for JG/ELR is ballast. If you don't have enough cargo (non-JG jobs), then JG jobs make up the difference. They are counter-cyclic with the economy.

But "ballast" == "dead weight". So, "Ballast Economics".

Foundational Economics sounded good. But, "Foundational Economy" already taken by a Manchester UK group. The latest economics book I read/reviewed was:

July 21, 2020, 6.5k words, "Foundational Economy", the Foundational Economy Collective, 2018.

Link: https://portraitofthedumbass.blogspot.com/2020/07/foundational-economy.html

I read/reviewed that book June/July 2020. OMG, the pandemic totally defined the Foundational Economy: anything that wasn't closed. They also defined the "overlooked economy", which were all the businesses that it totally ticked people off when the pandemic closed them: beauty parlors, barber shops, gyms, pedicure/manicure spas. Their insight totally confirmed by the pandemic is astonishing. IMO, anytime someone predicts the future that accurately, pay attention to them.

I settled on Stability Economics for that to call Prescriptive MMT. I propose it should include, as the things that it studies:

• The Foundational and Overlooked Economies, as a starter.
• JG/ELR (Job Guarantee, US government as Employer of Last Resort).
• Informal caregiving as a JG job.
• Universal Basic Income.
• Permanent stimulus programs, as proposed by Paul Krugman.

With all of these, you are trying to stabilize the amount of demand in the economy. Then maybe Wall Street's swings (if those ever happen again) or a pandemic won't mess things up so much.

I was corporate for 40 yrs. It is totally bad manners to attempt to write into someone else's todo list. But, whatever, here's 3 for you:

1. If you have not already, read "Foundational Economy". It is a quick read.
2. Think about your permanent stimulus program in the context of Stability Economics. In some ways your idea seems to me to be a cousin to UBI. I know you are not a UBI fan.
3. Open your mind to MMT. I was so excited when on Oct 13, Piketty proposed just setting some of the Fed/ECB balance sheet entries to 0. Debt? What debt?
   Link: http://portraitofthedumbass.blogspot.com/2020/10/show-me-national-debt.html

Done with econ. 2 more things:

1. Thank you so much for your music recommendations, particularly Lucius & Lake Street Dive, I have all their stuff. I curate 22,000 tracks of music in my iTunes collection. Lately, all the big players who formerly would send me emails of new releases of artists I had purchased from them no longer do so. Instead, they want me to buy into their subscription streaming service, in which I have no interest. I'm lately getting most new music from Bandcamp. Any ideas? I blog new music as Music In. I would bet you can find some interesting new music there. Lately tho, Music In is suffering from the overhead of #SongOfTheDay in Music Out.

2. In my retirement, I am a semi-professional musician. I've played guitar 55 yrs, sung 62 or so. March-September in pandemic hunker-down, I averaged adding 9 new songs/week to my book. (OnSong app on my iPad, currently at 1048 songs). Towards the end, 2/3 of those were standards. My Standards book is currently at 81. Playing a gig, you do 10-15 songs/hour, depending on availability of solo instruments.
   Sep 10 I came north to Lexington from Naples FL. Time to let things settle in & not ingest new music so vigorously. So I started doing #SongOfTheDay Sep 27.
   6 days/week, #standards here, Jaz Dumoz channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC-8G0QzZxDOB8cRk1-5n7lA
   Saturday, something newer, Jim Dumas channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCs7QrCGIS2G_pgRvzKeqlSw
   My vocal intonation started out horrible, maybe from not singing into a mic for 6 months, or not using my voice in lockdown, or recording the songs mid-afternoon pre-bourbon. It may be getting better, maybe not. Still, I make sure my guitar is always in great tune, & these jazz standards have such beautiful chords. So, check out a few. "Easy Street" I got ~85% of most excellent jazz guitarist Barney Kessel's licks. Next up "Cry Me A River" off of the same album, "Julie is her name", 1955, Julie London's premier album, Barney on guitar, Ray Leatherwood on upright bass. Fabulous album.

Best regards, stay healthy.

Why I Hate Libertarianism

This was the last paragraph of the last post. But, it is off topic and worthy of its own post. Voila.

Oh, 1 final point rant: fuck Libertarianism. I mean, seriously, the "I got mine, fuck you" philosophy. Are there any Libertarians anywhere in the world who are not well-off white people? I seriously doubt it. So many economics books try to justify themselves to Libertarians, I say, fuck Libertarianism. When we have a 100% level playing field, without 1000s of years of privileged groups accumulating capital, when he have a socialist, anarchist, post-scarcity utopia, then Libertarianism will I think be somewhat of a moot point. Until then, fuck it.

I really dislike libertarianism. And these recent explanations put forward by Whitehouse in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing, that the Koch brothers are behind the GOP court packing, and are looking forward to "friendlier government, fewer regulations, a Libertarian outlook".

David Koch ran for Vice-President as a Libertarian in 1980.

I tweeted today's vintage Doonesbury from the Newt Gingrich era - late 90's - Newt is the bomb.

So bottom line is, they won! Convincing and possibly bribing older conservative judges to retire so an inexperienced 30-something, indoctrinated and trained by far-right think tanks, who will then hold the judgeship for 30 years, can take their place. The scoundrels have pulled off a judicial coup.

Meanwhile, at the start of the pandemic, weren't we all saying "Hmmm, maybe having your government small enough to drown in your bathtub isn't such a good idea after all"? And that was before the murderous ineptitude of Agent Orange.

Here's 2 words that raise my blood pressure: Grover Norquist. May he be given bad acid at Burning Man.

I am really hoping it will not take too long to reassemble the US government that Agent Orange had been so busy destroying. I trust those guys - are they the deep state? - to try to do their best for the american people, and with absolutely 0 grifting involved! Science!

I've been sitting on this post. My hero Paul Krugman decided to jump in on my side this morning: "How Many Americans will Ayn Rand Kill?". So although there's clearly a lot more reasons to hate libertarianism, let's let it rip for now.

Show Me The National Debt!

I was so excited on October 13, when the emminent French economist Thomas Piketty published an article in Le Monde [that I picked up through his blog] which included the following statement:

As it is unlikely that the ECB or the Fed will ever decide to put these securities back on the markets or to demand their repayment, the decision to no longer count them in the total public debt could be taken now.

So, take the computer entry for >~= $2T in debt, and set it to 0!

Finally! A fellow traveler! Money is just numbers in computers, it has nothing to do with objective reality. Piketty gained worldwide fame for his 2014 book "Capital in the 21st Century", blogged here, which was the seminal work on economic inequality, how Thatcherism/Reaganism destroyed the 30 years of progress post WWII by the middle class, in which they clawed 15% of GDP back from the top 10% - all gone now. Oh, and BTW, the bottom 50% still got <~= $0.

I tweeted that morning:

Piketty is not 100% cool with all this new debt, because

The orgy of money creation and the purchase of financial securities in fact leads to an increase in stock and property prices, which contributes to the enrichment of the richest. For small savers, zero or negative interest rates are not necessarily good news.

Here's the last 2 paragraphs of the Piketty. I was disappointed that he did not say what might cause inflation to "become substantial again".

It would be different if monetary creation, instead of fuelling the financial bubble, were mobilised to finance a real social and ecological recovery, i.e. by assuming strong job creation and wage increases in hospitals, schools, thermal efficiency and local services. This would alleviate debt while reducing inequalities, investing in sectors useful for the future and shifting inflation from asset prices to wages and goods and services.

However, this would not be a miracle solution either. As soon as inflation becomes substantial again (say 3%-4% per year), we would have to put a stop to money creation and use fiscal means. The whole history of public debt shows this: money alone cannot offer a peaceful solution to a problem of this magnitude, because it leads in one way or another to uncontrolled distributive consequences. It was by resorting to exceptional levies on the better-off that the large public debts of the post-war period were extinguished and that the social and productive pact of the following decades was rebuilt. Let’s bet that the same will be true in the future.

Somehow this prompted me to revisit another finding that I believe totally validates MMT.

I'll repeat my mantra, "Money is Software". And currently, that software has been hacked and is owned by the financial sector aka "Wall Street". I mean seriously, what value do hedge fund managers and most other financial sector species contribute to the human race as a whole? 0! Absolutely 0! They produce nothing real! They have hacked the system to keep generating money to line their and their clients pockets - period. And the rest of the population buys into the "money is real" myth, and lets them get away with it.

In 7 months of pandemic Jeff Bezos's wealth has grown from ~$133B to $200B - is that a sound economic system? Or is that rather an incredibly buggy economic system?

Robert Reich just agreed with me!

So, mental exercise, gedankenexperiment: if we were somehow able to wrest control of the monetary system away from Wall Street, how would we use it create a post-scarcity utopia, the world of Star Trek, where everyone realizes that money is imaginary? Here are the basic principles & constraints we must deal with:

1. Money is not real, it is imaginary. Resources are real. How do we develop an accounting system that recognizes this? My "money is software" post threw out there the concept of maths with all economics numbers as complex numbers, with a real (resources) part and an imaginary (money) part. Or maybe just a tuple, a 2-dimensional vector. I seem to keep coming back to that. How do we do all economic calculations with resource #s in place of or parallel to $$$?
2. We give every person in the world an account with their country's central bank.
3. We presume that Congress/EU/... gives The Fed/ECB/... the power to print money on demand and distribute it however the models say it should be distributed. The goal of the models is to have 0 poverty, and Universal Everything.
4. Things to worry about 1/2: inflation. My contention is: inflation is caused only by supply-side shortages aka not-enough-to-go-around. My contention is: since the 1950s, we are in a post-scarcity economy (Capitalism 2.0 per Peter Barnes). So for most things, particularly digital, zero-marginal-cost things, there is plenty to go around. There will still be constraints, on McMansions, McYachts, McMercedes, etc.
   As Piketty says, if inflation kicks up, then money creation models might have to ramp down. We have lately actually seen the 1st signs of inflation in decades due to pandemic-related spot shortages.
5. Things to worry about 2/2: exchange rates. The entire world has to buy into the concept. If just 1 country starts printing money as needed to meet the needs of its populace, other countries might say "you're cheating", and punish that country by lowering its exchange rate. The only real measure that matters in the world economy: money being created does not exceed real resources.
6. If the 99% are getting provided for this way, the main purpose of taxes is to agressively relieve the 1% of as much of their wealth as is possible. 1 thing about the wealth of the 1%, it has a very low velocity. It just sits in their bank accounts and doesn't place any demands on real resources. So we should not think about redistributing their wealth. Let's distribute wealth from scratch in an amount that doesn't exceed resources, much easier. Let's just destroy the wealth of the 1%, and the power that comes with it, via taxes.
7. Currently-rich countries must help currently-poor countries, how? By propping up their currencies via maintaining a high exchange rate? I think that possibly the Chinese may already be onboard in opening the doors of their manufacturing cornucopia - I love that word, picture to follow - to Africa and anywhere else in the 3rd world that needs more stuff?
   
8. We need to do this ASAP before climate change destroys significant amounts of the currently accumulated capital. I believe that there is enough to go around now, but every climate crisis, whether flooding, fires, hurricanes, ..., destroys some of that.

8 principles/constraints. That seems like enough for now.

I feel pretty good we could make this work for the developed world. Hopefully the concept of "tumbrel insurance" will obviate the need for real tumbrels. The main gedankenexperiment that needs to be performed now: let's take a poor, populous African country, run the numbers, and see if it works.

In My Conclusions on Wray's MMT book, I did a cost estimate for this world. You are creating a fixed demand by having Universal Everything that might help stabilize the economy [Stability Economics FTW!]: to smooth the economic boom and bust cycles caused by the latest financial scam falling through. I estimated $$$ 19% of GDP , 90% of annual budget (2019). So that seems big enough to create a stable economy - as long as real resources aren't exceeded.

We are soooo close on this ...

Further thoughts ...

So much of the wealth of the 1% is in the form of stocks. The ROI on raw capital is now essentially <~= 0%, so where else are you going to invest your money? I don't think that stocks are particularly amenable to destruction via taxation. So maybe we do go on and do redistribution instead. Maybe what we do is, everyone with a net worth > $1B (or $100M?), every year, we transfer 50% of their holdings > $1B into the World or US Common Wealth Trust. That trust every year redistributes 1/2 of its gains into a Universal Dividend [you know, at this point, any program that doesn't start with Universal is BS] Program, distributed evenly amongst all citizens, and lets the other 1/2 ride. Or maybe 1/3 to citizens, 1/3 to Universal Capital Access Fund, and let 1/3 ride.

Or, you could use this to pay off national debts. In his book, Piketty estimated that the US national debt could be retired by a 3% wealth tax for 5 years. Of course, that was before the latest tax cuts and pandemic relief programs. I guess I'm talking about a 50% wealth tax. But, going back to where we started with this post, WHY BOTHER? Just set those cells in the spreadsheet to 0! Easy-peasy! MMT FTW!

One other random thought. 1 completely outside-the-box idea from Wray's MMT book was the elimination of corporate taxes. These have 2 bad side effects:

1. They create a race to the bottom, with countries like Ireland and Liechtenstein leading the race by offering minimal corporate taxes.
2. They encourage bad corporate behavior, such as advertising and borrowing, and anything else that can be taken off of the bottom line.

Yes, maybe corporations are people, but they really don't care about how much money they have. So, as they are on some level morons, give corporations a free ride. Attach the fiscal liabilty to the stockholders based on the value of their stock, which hopefully should reflect the success and profit of the corporation. Ban stock buybacks and set the tax rate on dividends and capital gains to 70% or so. Force harvesting of capital gains, what, annually? Every 3 years? And definitely don't let them get wiped out when stocks are inherited. But again, the whole world must buy in.

Speaking of inheritance. I find it hilarious that all the conservative types who insist everyone must earn everything from scratch and pull themselves up by their bootstraps still want to leave fortunes to their children. Why exactly shouldn't they want those children to start from scratch, work hard, create businesses or whatever, and bootstrap themselves? How is it that trust-fund kiddies get a free pass on all that?

[There was a point rant on Libertarianism here, moved to a new post.]

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