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Is it just me, or do working relationships seem to be getting slowly but steadily worse for the rest of you lately, too? Mostly in little ways yet, without any clear reason thus leaving one asking “why?” Why now? It seems like, if it isn’t just my imagination, it probably has something to do with economic conditions. I know I’m reluctant to put my foot down, even after many incremental moves towards “suck,” given the daunting prospect of trying to find replacement income. Multiply this millions of times over, and you’ve probably got means, motive and opportunity, as they say. Reported trends for “productivity” probably back this up too, to the extent that “productivity gains” are in many cases a matter of squeezing anxious workers to do more work for the same compensation.

What doesn’t seem to be getting slowly but steadily worse, though? Anthem jacked up my premiums by “only” 12% this year; I guess I’m just going to put up with that, too, for the time being. I’ve tried shopping around in recent years, and just ended up raising my deductible a couple of times. I don’t feel like I want to do so yet again, so I suppose I’ll just eat the extra expense and hope that maybe, somehow, something will offer relief in another year, or another year after that. Arguments over what, if any, cost-control effects will result from “Obamacare” or were even intended to result from it, as well as the long timeline for implementation, keep my expectations low.

Some things get cheaper, of course, particularly information technology products and services, though this is partly offset by the fact that we end up needing more and better versions of them to maintain their utility in a networked world. Meanwhile it’s just those few outlier categories of things one actually needs which keep going up, up, up in cost; The Atlantic had an item about this a while back. Health care, education, food (even if most Americans are still rich enough to take little notice), fuel (rather more obvious). How long can this go on?

Small wonder that a protest movement has finally erupted in America, with the great majority of us getting relentlessly squeazed from the direction of both income and expenses, for, oh, most of my life, give-or-take? (more…)

Okay, personal note: it’s an exaggeration to say my life has “turned inside-out” the past few weeks, but it’s been weird and let’s face it, I’m no Hunter Thompson. It  definitely can get too weird for me. So I’ve had little time or energy for the wider world of weirdness.

But I’ll jot down a few more thoughts on the expanding Occupy Wall Street protests.

First, on my non-participation. As noted the other day, any excuse feels like an excuse; Uncle Paul gives his own explanation today and it sounds flimsy though obviously I’m sympathetic, since my own absence from (more and more geographically distributed) protests is at least as flimsy.

That said, where to begin… The main action is still in New York, and I’m in Cleveland. I’ve been very busy. I’m a pussy; I’m pathetically non-confrontational. I’m an isolated, introverted single individual; I suspect that very few people join in demonstrations like this on their own.

The big reason, though, is probably that my brain just doesn’t work this way. I’m probably what one pop-psychology system has termed a “concrete sequential;” in any event my nature is overwhelmingly one of cautious, logical, ordered progression. Whereas protests generally, including in this case, just don’t match up with that approach. One of The Economist bloggers bucked the punditry trend, today, and suggested that “what [protesters] want is pretty clear: jobs, cheaper health care, cheaper education, and relief from suffocating debt.” And I’m for these things, really.

Yet, if I were at an Occupy Wall Street protest, I just don’t think I could satisfactorily get past the questions “what exactly do you hope to achieve, and how exactly do you hope to achieve it by standing here yelling and waving a sign?” (more…)

Am I the only one who feels just a bit like I really ought to be making my way to New York to join protesters on Wall Street, even though I can come up with a number of reasons for failing to do so, which reasons all the same feel uncomfortably like weak excuses?