Whether you have a keener eye for wild creatures’ behavior than for the behavior of that theoretically domesticated creature, man, is an interesting question. Political corruption sometimes seems too big a problem for any individual or group to tackle. White collar criminals, dirty politics, and scandalous business practices have been around for a long time. Fear of using our rights, as well as ignorance of the channels open to individuals, still keeps most ordinary citizens from acting to solve such issues. Yet, as groups like Common Cause, Nader’s Raiders, Occupy Walls Street, the Tea Party, and the NAACP have shown, concerned individuals can bring political and/or economic pressures to bear and clean up corrupt individuals and institutions. Not only politics, but also the air, water, soil, and spaces around us are filled with pollutants. Well, environmental pollution is ultimately caused by human attitudes and assumptions. As a society, the vehemence to milk the technological cow, the community has often failed to take a long-range look at the possible side effects and unwanted consequences of progress. It is not that technology has failed to plan, but that it has failed to plan for more than immediate advantage and profit, in response to public demand. For example, Sacramento, California has done a great job of increasing the population of the state, but the infrastructure and jobs are seriously lacking. Many of the roads in Sacramento, California are too small for new full sized vehicles, there are pot holes in the streets, congestion on the highway, and there is a 7 percent unemployment rate. Also, the sale of new homes is down by two percent and more people are buying existing home, as the new home average about $334,000.00, but a preexisting home is usually about $100,000.00 less.

Speaking of technology, the computer is 75 years old and was actually invented to crack codes. However, more wealthy people became interested in other uses for the computer and they eventually were adapted for person use, such as typing documents, watching movies, listening to music, making movies and searching the internet. Rich people actually help the rest of society get technology because they can afford to buy it when technology is new and expensive, and as the product start to flood the market, they become less expensive and the average citizen can afford them. The smart phone is being called the greatest equalizer of modern times. By the end of the decade, experts are optimistically predicting that everyone will have a smart phone, which is basically a hand held computer and phone, all in one. There is already a $35 smart phone in India. However, technology has been able to bring down the cost of everything, but health care, education and government. Experts are reporting that health care, education, and government suffer from cost disease, but as technology is driving down prices for everything else, health care, education and government keeps getting more and more expensive to operate. These specialists also reporting that online education is a great way to reach inner city children, who do not have the books, supplies or transportation to get to school and may have teachers, who do not care; online education would help these students, as they would be able to learn, in a good environment and education is one way to eradicate poverty. And to really understand people, and do business with them, you must understand their culture, and do not make assumptions. Different cultures are unique.

Everyone should be able to get housing, health care, and transportation without bankrupting themselves or the country. Inflation has been high by most measures, in the recent decade, and wage growth, for the majority of employees, has been even lower, if not declining. The average skilled worker, with a college degree, should be making about $34 an hour. That is if we were keeping up with inflation. However, only the top 20 percent of people, in America, even make $29.54 an hour. That means even small amounts of inflation have been agonizing for the other 80 percent of people in the labor market, as only workers, in the 90th percentile, and up have seen their wage gains outpace inflation, though not by much. The Dow Jones is in record regions, soaring about 17,000 and doing really well, but that is a reflection of corporate America, and not the citizens. The poor performance of wages, in recent decades, is because America has exported so many jobs, overseas, and started buying products from these foreign countries, so American dollars are being spend all over the world, but we are not getting anything in return, but stuff. No jobs, no cash, just new Nike’s, smart phones, Toyota, and other products. And the public simply wants to consumer and keep buying new things—they want more and more cars. These require roadways, freeways; they eat up land and displace houses. The increase in vehicles produces air pollution. However, even in today’s smoggy atmosphere, few people are willing to give up their freedom and autonomy associated with automobiles.

The public is going to have to take a stand and be uncomfortable, at some point; the discomfort will only be temporary. We all belong to the family of humankind. Men, women and children are a part of nature, not apart from nature. Natural resources and inanimate energy are increasingly regarded as affected with a public interest. If this is not sound and moral doctrine, I do not know what is. Certainly the resources were left by the Universe or geology to mankind and not to the Standard Oil Company of California or Avian. The loss of water, since last year, is equivalent to the annual loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet and since 2000, seven states have experienced their driest periods in centuries and scientists have warned the drought could last up to 100 years. Gas prices have come down, but are still at an all-time high, and in the Western United States of America drought: 63 trillion gallons of groundwater lost, and the surface of the Earth is rising. The Earth, on average, has lifted up about 0.16 inches over the last 18 months. Sierra Nevada Mountains and California coastal regions, they have risen up by over half an inch. However there is apparently no increased risk of earthquakes. Therefore, with the presented information, it is clear that individual households must give and take not only for his advantage, but for the welfare of other members of the household in mind. People who would not cheat their relatives think nothing of cheating strangers. However, every stranger is intricately and important related to each of us in the larger spider web of humanity. I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply cannot build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusions, misery, and death. I see the World gradually being turned into a wilderness. I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.