2013 Auto Miles: 1,025; 2013 Bicycle Miles: 850

We rode almost as many miles on our bikes as we logged in our car in 2013.

I don't usually track my mileage very closely, but I recently discovered that we drove our only vehicle (a late-90s Honda Civic) 1,025 the first six months of 2013 and we rode about 850 miles on our bicycles. We put exactly 27.28 gallons of gasoline in the car in those six months, and we still have a quarter tank left, so it seems we're getting over 35 miles per gallon.

As a data-driven person, I naturally have an odometer/speedometer on my primary bicycle, an old Mongoose mountain bike. In June I rode 115 miles, which is a little less than normal as I was under the weather for three days.

So I reckon I rode about 700 miles in the first six months and my wife probably logged about 150 miles on her Specialized. Most of our bike trips are errands that most people would get in their auto to do, but I also log a fair number of 8-mile pleasure rides just to clear my head (I ride more for pleasure than my wife does.)

I know we spent more on bicycle repairs than on auto repairs ($0), as I replaced worn-out gears, chain, brake pads, etc.

We spend much of the year in Berkeley CA, which is small and bicycle-friendly. Jumping on our bikes is easier than getting in a car on multiple levels: parking is easier (and free), and there's no traffic jams.

(Our time in Hawaii is less bike-friendly due to steep hills and rural distances.)

All miles are about the same in a car; not so on a bike. If you're in a car and you start climbing a hill, you just press the accelerator down. On a bike, you must bear down to climb the hill. One of my standard rides is 3 miles each way, but the last mile is a semi-grueling climb from near sea-level to above 800 feet. You have to be in reasonably good shape to do that mile, and the ride down offers another challenge--not going so fast you lose control. (Just for context: I am 59 years old and very much not interested in falling off my bike....)

But since most people live in relatively flat areas, most bike rides do not require extreme fitness or effort. It's a far more relaxing way to get somewhere than in a car.

It's not really a sacrifice to ride a bike, except in extreme weather. Yes, you have to be alert, as you're on a 30-pound machine and everyone around you is ensconced in a 3,000+ pound machine. On a bike, you can't really afford to space out; things are happening around you all the time--vehicles, pedestrians, other cyclists--and you're constantly responding and tracking potential problems. It's very good practice for focusing on the present. (Always wear your helmet, of course.)

It's a lot more fun going somewhere on a bike (as long as the "bike lane" isn't suicidal--see below), not to mention the simple joys of not having to find a parking space. You can't haul your Costco load home on a bike, but you can haul quite a bit in saddle bags, a bike trailer or just a backpack.

Not everyone can ride year round, but correspondent R.C. reports that the bike club in his Chicago suburb has grown by 40% in the past three years.

Studies have found (duh!) that more people are willing to ride bikes if there are safe routes. A few other nations are way ahead of the U.S. in this regard; here, "bike lanes" are imaginary zones marked by white lines on the pavement; my brother-in-law and I took a long ride a few years ago and found one stretch of the "bike lane" was the shoulder on an interstate freeway. The "bike lane" was littered with delaminated truck tire detritus and other highway junk. Whoever planned that "bike lane" has a wicked sense of humor.

"Bike lanes" often separate lanes of fast-moving traffic from freeway on-ramps (check out the lower University Avenue bike lane in Honolulu for an example). Bike safety in 99.9% of urban America is an unfunny joke: the only truly safe bikeway is one separated from auto traffic by a barrier, or on throughways where cars and trucks are banned.

Correspondent R.C. suggested that perhaps one reason transportation fuel consumption is going down is that more people are riding bicycles ( Our Energy Slaves Are in Recession July 2, 2013). I would like to think so, but I don't personally know a single other adult who rides a bike daily for practical reasons (as opposed to pure fitness) or does errands on a bike rather than a car.

Yes, there are plenty of limiting factors, but one that could be remedied with a modest amount of money and political influence is to make biking safe enough that mothers would be drawn to take their children out, and people who are not bike freaks would not find it frightening to take to the streets on a bike.


Three video programs for your viewing pleasure:

Gordon Long and I discuss Window of Opportunity: Blown!

Longtime contributor and fellow writer Zeus Yiamouyiannis discusses his new bookTransforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism to Connected Communities with Max Keiser

Kerry Lutz of Financial Survival Network and I discuss the future of work and education--though Kerry titled the show more provocatively.... 

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Kindle edition: $9.95       print edition: $24 on Amazon.com
To receive a 20% discount on the print edition: $19.20 (retail $24), follow the link, open a Createspace account and enter discount code SJRGPLAB. (This is the only way I can offer a discount.)

Thank you, Gene M. ($10/month), for your stupendously generous re-subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Thank you, William S. ($50), for another outrageously generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

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The Next American Revolution

Some July 4th thoughts on revolution as a process rather than an event.

The next American Revolution will not be an event, it will be a process. We naturally turn to the past for templates of the future, but history has a way of remaining remarkably unpredictable. Indeed, all the conventional long-range forecasts made in 1900, 1928, 1958, 1988 and 2000 missed virtually every key development--not just in the distant future, but just a few years out.

The point is that extrapolating the present into the future fails to capture sea changes and developments that completely disrupt the supposedly unchanging, permanent Status Quo. The idea that the next revolution will take a new form does not occur to conventional forecasters, who readily assume the next transition will follow past critical junctures: armed insurrection against the central authority (The first American Revolution, 1781), civil war (1861) or global war (1941).

I submit that the next American Revolution circa 2021-23 will not repeat or even echo these past transitions. What seems likely to me is the entire project of centralization that characterized the era 1941-2013 will slip into irrelevance as centralization increasingly yields diminishing returns.

Everything centralized, from the Federal Reserve to the Too Big To Fail Banks to Medicare to the National Security State depends on the Federal government being a Savior State that must ceaselessly expand its share of the national income and its raw power lest it implode. All Savior States have one, and only one trajectory-- they must ceaselessly expand and concentrate wealth and power or they will fail.

They are like the shark, which dies once it stops moving forward: the Savior State must push forward on its trajectory of expansion or it expires.

Stasis is not possible, nor is contraction; the promises made to the citizenry cannot be withdrawn without political instability, but the promises cannot be kept without fatally disrupting the neofeudal financialized debtocracy.

You see the dilemma: The Savior State cannot stop expanding, but the financial system that generates its revenues can no longer support its vast machinery of debt and phantom collateral. This is why I suggest all the centralized concentrations of wealth and power will either implode or fade into irrelevance.

If all the phantom wealth and collateral vanishes in a market clearing event, the Federal Reserve will simply become irrelevant to the vast majority of people. A handful of nimble speculators may well benefit by picking over the carcass of financialization and centralized omnipotence (i.e. central banking), and perhaps the 1/10th of 1% will still have enough assets influenced by the Fed to care, but the forces of disruption will replace centralization with decentralization.

Here is another example: Medicare may not cease to exist, but it will become increasingly irrelevant to most people because it will not longer function. The remaining doctors willing to treat Medicare patients will be working 13-hour days for sketchy pay, and as each one burns out and leaves the system, the system contracts. Eventually it contracts to the point of irrelevance.

The revolution will be in work and social innovations enabled by technology. The conventional view is that technology will magically enable the permanence of the present; this will be proven incorrect, as what technology enables is not the waste, entitlement and centralization that characterize the present but social innovations, some of which are already visible.

If we sought to summarize the profound transformation ahead in one sentence, it would be this: wages are no longer an adequate model for distributing the surplus generated by the economy.

The current Savior State model responds to this by increasing taxes on the dwindling minority with fulltime jobs and increasing entitlement payments to all those without government or private-sector jobs. This model will collapse, politically, socially and economically, as no society or economy can squander half or more of its productive labor force while increasing the burden on the dwindling cohort of productively employed. The inevitable result of this dynamic is a destabilizing Tyranny of the Majority. Tyranny of the Majority, Corporate Welfare and Complicity (April 9, 2010)

Technology is not just disrupting old industries and companies, it is disrupting the entire Savior State/cartel-capitalism model. The disruption has barely begun, but it will pick up speed over the next decade.

I suspect the next American Revolution will begin in the 2015-16 timeframe. A series of interlocking crises will lead to reforms that preserve the Savior State/ cartel-capitalism for another few years, at a lower level of consumption, i.e. burn rate.

But the process of revolution will be far from complete; this initial response of the centralized neofeudal debtocracy will buy time for the Status Quo, and every conventional onlooker will be infused with optimism and hope that the system established in the Great Depression, World War II and its Cold War aftermath--the secular religion of consumerism (i.e. aggregate demand), permanent war footing and the National Security State, and universal dependence on the Savior State and its ceaseless expansion of concentrated wealth and power--will continue.

But this Springtime for the Savior State/cartel-capitalism partnership will be brief, and by 2018-19 all the systemic flaws and disruptive trends will reassert themselves with renewed vigor.

The entire current model of governance, social order and the economy will be revolutionized not by overthrow but by the process of irrelevance. What will become relevant will no longer be in the control of the Savior State or its partner, financialized cartel capitalism.

Those currently holding all the concentrated power and wealth cannot believe they will become irrelevant, but that's the result of projecting the present as if it is permanent and immutable.

The new system will be better, more humane, more flexible, more transparent, with more opportunity, for it will be everything the current corrupt, sclerotic, parasitic and exploitive system is not.


Three video programs for your viewing pleasure:

Gordon Long and I discuss Window of Opportunity: Blown!

Longtime contributor and fellow writer Zeus Yiamouyiannis discusses his new bookTransforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism to Connected Communities with Max Keiser

Kerry Lutz of Financial Survival Network and I discuss the future of work and education--though Kerry titled the show more provocatively....

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Kindle edition: $9.95       print edition: $24 on Amazon.com
To receive a 20% discount on the print edition: $19.20 (retail $24), follow the link, open a Createspace account and enter discount code SJRGPLAB. (This is the only way I can offer a discount.)

Thank you, Richard O. ($50), for your stupendously generous contribution to this site -- please email me as my email to you was returned as undeliverable.

Thank you, William H. ($50), for another splendidly generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Read more...

Opportunity Squandered: We Blew It

We are about to reap the consequences of tolerating the perfection of the Savior State / cartel-crony capitalism's neofeudal debtocracy.

We as a nation had an unparalleled, historic opportunity to set things right in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown. Alas, we blew it. Instead of tearing down what had failed spectacularly, we chose to do more of what failed spectacularly: cartel-crony capitalism, centralized wealth and power and an expansion of our financialized debtocracy.

Gordon Long and I discussed this epic miss in Window of Opportunity: Blown!

While it's certainly easy to blame our corrupt, self-serving leadership, we have tolerated their "more of the same." It's been said that a people get the government they can tolerate (as well as the one they deserve), and the American people have tolerated an expansion of everything that is systemically destructive because we dared not risk our share of the Savior State swag.

The joke will be on us, because there won't be any swag when the rotten edifice collapses in a heap. The entire Status Quo response can be summarized thusly: save cartel-crony capitalism and increase central state power by expanding credit and blowing borrowed trillions, i.e. paper over structural flaws with tsunamis of free money and credit.

Let's check in on the effectiveness of the Keynesian Cargo Cult's project of borrowing and blowing trillions: Oops, diminishing returns.

Does this trajectory of federal borrowing look remotely sustainable to you?

The Federal Reserve's number 1 project of bailing out the parasitic financial cartel with trillions of dollars in free credit has also failed spectacularly, as the banks can't find any positive risk/return in loans except those that are guaranteed by the Federal government (FHA, Fannie Mae, etc.)

The Federal Reserve's number 2 project of "saving" cartel-crony capitalism and its captured political class of toadies, apparatchiks and factotums by blowing asset bubbles has succeeded in setting up one violent crash after another. You don't need Technical Analysis 101 to see the megaphone pattern traced out by the three Fed-inflated asset bubbles.

As you no doubt recall, nobody in the Fed, Wall Street or the Savior State saw the inevitable popping of the tech bubble or the housing bubble, and so it is unsurprising that our "leadership" has once again failed to anticipate the endgame of financial bubbles is not "to the moon" but collapse.

"But that can't possibly happen." Yes, we heard that in 1999 and 2006, too. What must happen will happen, and we as a nation are about to reap the consequences of tolerating the perfection of the Savior State / cartel-crony capitalism's neofeudal debtocracy.

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Kindle edition: $9.95       print edition: $24 on Amazon.com
To receive a 20% discount on the print edition: $19.20 (retail $24), follow the link, open a Createspace account and enter discount code SJRGPLAB. (This is the only way I can offer a discount.)

Thank you, Lee V.D.B. ($20), for another superbly generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Thank you, Helen S.C. ($10), for another splendidly generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Read more...

Our Energy Slaves Are in Recession

Charts of energy consumption are screaming "recession."

To get a feel for how many energy slaves you have, imagine hiring 40 people to drag you and your car down the street at 3 miles per hour. Replacing the energy in a gallon of gasoline with human labor is imperfect, of course, because the people you hire to drag your vehicle down the street cannot run 70 miles an hour.

The gallon (or four liters) of petrol will push your car about 25 to 30 miles at high speeds at a market cost of about $4. Imagine how much it would cost to pay 40 people to drag your 1.5-ton car 25 miles--a lot more than $4. (Weight of 2012 Ford Fusion: 3,285 pounds. Weight of 2012 Honda Civic: 2,765 pounds.)

You get the idea: every bit of fossil fuel you consume is the equivalent of an energy slave. Correspondent David P. (Market Daily Briefing) describes the concept thusly: "Your personal standard of living is derived (largely) from the number of energy slaves you have working for you." Energy Slaves - 5 charts

David kindly shared three of his five charts of energy consumption per capita (i.e. per person). This first is total energy consumption in the U.S. per capita.

The key takeaway here is how closely energy consumption tracks recession: notice how energy consumption cratered in the deep 1980-82 recession, and how it fell off a cliff in 2009, and has continued to weaken despite the official return of "growth."

Clearly, improved efficiency of transport, furnaces, electrical appliances, etc. leads to lower consumption while delivering the same output (miles driven, refrigeration, etc.). Just as clearly, higher efficiency cannot possibly account for the steep declines in recessionary periods. People use less energy because they have less money and are feeling less wealthy:

Next up: energy consumption in the residential household sector of the economy.While the downtrend since 2000 (lower highs and lower lows) could be attributed to improved efficiency, that cannot be the reason behind energy consumption's waterfall decline in 2011. That says one thing: recession.

How about the lifeblood of American life, transportation? Once again, the sharp decline in consumption says "recession." Consumption rose slightly in post-recession 2010, but then resumed its dramatic plunge:

Here is David's commentary on his charts. (The charts for the commercial and industrial sectors also show recessionary declines.)

Concept: personal standard of living is derived (largely) from the number of energy slaves you have working for you. Likewise, increasing or decreasing activity can be tracked by energy (slave) consumption in each sector. 

The series are produced monthly by EIA that totals the energy consumption in the US in 4 sectors (Industry, Transport, Commercial, Residential) from all energy sources. They are a very seasonal noisy series, so we use a 12-point moving average to smooth things out. We then divide this by population to arrive at - energy slaves per person per year for each sector in BTU. The MA makes it lag a bit, but the series are so noisy you would likely not see anything interesting if you didn't have some sort of adjustment. 

Industrial: 40% (per capita) drop since 1975 points at long-term deindustrialization
Residential: 12% (per capita) drop since 2008 points at real losses in standard of living
Transport: 14% (per capita) drop since 2008 - more standard of living losses 

Over a longer time period an argument might be made for decreasing energy use based on increased efficiency. Over shorter timeframes - not so much. And if you look at all the sectors, things are all still trending down except residential.

Thank you, David. Other than a decline in the standard of living (otherwise known asrecession), what other dynamics could be in play? There are at least three, though their effects are on the margins of consumption:

1. Telecommuting/working remotely. Working at home eliminates commuting and many business meetings.

2. The "Brown Truck Store": purchasing goods online and having them delivered by UPS, USPS, etc. saves energy by consolidating delivery to the end buyer.

3. Generational shift away from private auto ownership. Gen Y is far more comfortable with car-sharing (ZipCar, City Car Share, etc.), i.e. the access not ownership model: having access to a private vehicle no longer requires the immense expense of owning a vehicle.

This generational shift may be one reason miles driven per person has been declining: (via Doug Short): Vehicle Miles Driven: Population-Adjusted Fractionally Off the Post-Crisis Low. Adjusting for population growth, total miles driven in the U.S. is back to the levels of 1995, almost two decades ago.

While there are many positives to declining energy consumption, the question is:does this reflect a better standard of living or a lesser standard of living? In terms of replacing the ownership model with the access model and replacing long commutes with remote work, the answer is "better." In terms of overall economic activity, these charts scream recession, i.e. a declining standard of living. 

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Kindle edition: $9.95       print edition: $24 on Amazon.com
To receive a 20% discount on the print edition: $19.20 (retail $24), follow the link, open a Createspace account and enter discount code SJRGPLAB. (This is the only way I can offer a discount.)

Thank you, Robert P. ($100), for your outrageously generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Thank you, James M. ($20), for another splendidly generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Read more...

Our Legacy Systems: Dysfunctional, Unreformable

America's legacy systems are like stars about to go super-nova.

There are two problems with the vast, sprawling legacy systems we've inherited from the past: they're dysfunctional and cannot be fixed/reformed. The list of dysfunctional legacy systems that cannot be truly reformed is long: Social Security, with its illusory Trust Funds and unsustainable one-to-two ratio of beneficiaries to full-time workers; Medicare, 40% fraud and ineffective/needless care; the healthcare system (if you dare even call the mess a system), 40% paper shuffling and 25% defensive medicine and profiteering; weapons procurement--the system works great if you like cost overruns and programs that take decades to actually produce a weapon; higher education--costs have skyrocketed 700% while studies (Academically Adrift) have found that fully a third of all college graduates learned little of value in their four years; the financial system--now that we've given the Federal Reserve oversight over Too Big To Fail Bank practices, do you really think we'll ever get rid of TBTF banks?

One place to start an investigation of any legacy system is to ask: how would we design a replacement system from scratch? The gulf between a practical, efficient replacement system and the broken legacy system is a measure of the legacy system's dysfunction.

We all know why legacy systems cannot be reformed or replaced: each has a veritable army of constituents and vested interests. Every single person drawing a check or payment from the legacy system fears reform of any kind, as each fears that their place at the feeding trough might be threatened.

As a result, reform is necessarily superficial, a simulacrum of real reform that satisfies the PR need to "fix the system" but actually hardens the system against future reform by adding layers of complexity that act as defensive complexity moats.

There is a fundamental asymmetry between those threatened by reform and the reformers. The reformers are trying to save the system from eventual collapse, but the benefits of their efforts often fall to the cohort of young people who have not yet become voters or entered the workforce; these citizens don't exist politically.

Meanwhile, those drawing paychecks, benefits or payments from the legacy system will fight with every fiber of their being to protect every cent of "their fair share." (Needless to say, every share is fair and deserved.) Those resisting reform are fighting to the death, so to speak, while the reformers have no equivalent motivation or political persuasion.

Corporations threatened by reform launch a ceaseless lobbying/PR attack on the reform, either watering it down, eviscerating the regulatory structure or co-opting the reformers into accepting a superficial reform rather than walk away with nothing.

Legacy systems have hardened into bureaucracies whose primary purpose is defending the fiefdom's budget and power from any threat. I prepared this chart to illustrate the life-cycle of bureaucracy:

As revenue flatlines and pressure for real reform mounts, the embattled institutions find that propaganda and facsimiles of reform are cheaper "solutions" than real reform. This is the key driver behind the flood of propaganda and all the phony "reforms" laid out in thousands of pages of befuddling bureaucratic self-preservation.

Real reform would mean powerful constituencies would have to take real reductions in staffing, power, benefits and in their share of the national income. Rather than reveal this double-bind--reform is impossible but the Status Quo is unsustainable--the legacy system deploys its gargantuan resources to laying down a smoke-screen of bogus reforms and ginned-up statistics.

America's legacy systems are like stars about to go super-nova. They have increased in size to the point where their stupendous mass guarantees that once their energy source (as measured in fossil fuels and money) falls below a certain threshold, the institution will collapse inward on itself. 

---

Things are falling apart--that is obvious. But why are they falling apart? The reasons are complex and global. Our economy and society have structural problems that cannot be solved by adding debt to debt. We are becoming poorer, not just from financial over-reach, but from fundamental forces that are not easy to identify or understand. We will cover the five core reasons why things are falling apart:

1. Debt and financialization
2. Crony capitalism and the elimination of accountability
3. Diminishing returns
4. Centralization
5. Technological, financial and demographic changes in our economy

Complex systems weakened by diminishing returns collapse under their own weight and are replaced by systems that are simpler, faster and affordable. If we cling to the old ways, our system will disintegrate. If we want sustainable prosperity rather than collapse, we must embrace a new model that is Decentralized, Adaptive, Transparent and Accountable (DATA).

We are not powerless. Not accepting responsibility and being powerless are two sides of the same coin: once we accept responsibility, we become powerful.

Kindle edition: $9.95       print edition: $24 on Amazon.com
To receive a 20% discount on the print edition: $19.20 (retail $24), follow the link, open a Createspace account and enter discount code SJRGPLAB. (This is the only way I can offer a discount.)

Thank you, Nancy H. ($5/month), for your exceedingly generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Thank you, Daniel S. ($5/month), for your spendidly generous re-subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

Read more...