The Magnificent Goldberg

Hey, that's a .pdf file. Can you order from it? MG

She's probably right. I should think the typical sucker cuts his or her losses pretty quickly. MG

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php...c=48003&hl= MG

Oh, I do agree, and have done that myself. But if you have no mortgage on your existing home... Don't get me wrong; in general I don't agree with government handouts to ailing businesses. But when the alternative is a local/regional catastrophe, particularly when there would be a viable supply chain that could, in time redirect itself towards more profitable prime manufacturers, as in the case of the car industry, I can see a rationale for closely regulated intervention. You can see the results of the alternative. The US has still not been able to sort out the social and economic problems that arose from the flight of manufacturing from the inner cities thirty-forty years ago. OK, there's been a certain amount of racism involved, too... MG

Phew! Eleven hours all in one go looks a bit much! Good VFM, though. MG

I don't think it's necessarily been shown that more people will be better off at less overall cost. The overall cost to the taxpayer of supporting hundreds of thousands of ex-workers, and their descendents who will catch on to the same cultural shift, for an indefinite period on welfare is likely to completely outweigh any prop-up costs that would enable a short-term retrenchment or restructuring (by short I mean a decade or so). This has been going on here for decades (see my earlier post) and the situation is, in all probabilty, irretrievable. So you have a situation in which there is every prospect of supporting large proportions of the population on welfare for ever if you allow this kind of local/regional catastrophe. MG In the UK, descendants may be stuck in the same cultural shift, but that isn't the case in the States. People have many more options, including as John mentions, moving where the jobs are. Or choosing to pursue alternatives through higher education. The fact that being on the dole "for ever" or taking "poor man's early retirement" isn't an option in the States has something to do with that. People have those same options here. They are strongly encouraged and given financial incentives to take the latter. Many do move also. Dole is cut off after a few months, so it's not an option here, either. Incapacity benefit isn't cut off (and is more than dole) and that's what people gravitate to. I assume you have a similar, open-ended, benefit for the disabled in America. Where the US does differ is that, unlike South Wales, most people haven't lived in the same village/town for untold generations, so aren't so attached to their area. Also I guess, but don't know, that you don't have such wide disparities in house prices as to militate financially against moving. A typical working class house in the Velleys here may be sold for £20,000 (if anyone wants to buy one). But a cheap one one in South East or East England - where most migration is going - will cost 10-15 times that amount. MG

Do I detect a New England native? I've probably mentioned it before, but the Illinois Jacquet box was a patchy and disappointing set for me. If you've still got it, I'd quite like that one. MG

I strongly disagree. Of course the title track is terrific, but for me, all four originals are classics! I also like "I'm old fashioned". How many jazz versions of that do you know? MG

I don't think it's necessarily been shown that more people will be better off at less overall cost. The overall cost to the taxpayer of supporting hundreds of thousands of ex-workers, and their descendents who will catch on to the same cultural shift, for an indefinite period on welfare is likely to completely outweigh any prop-up costs that would enable a short-term retrenchment or restructuring (by short I mean a decade or so). This has been going on here for decades (see my earlier post) and the situation is, in all probabilty, irretrievable. So you have a situation in which there is every prospect of supporting large proportions of the population on welfare for ever if you allow this kind of local/regional catastrophe. MG

large parts of the country have never recovered from deindustrialization (the same is true about the North of England and most of East Germany for that matter). Yes. South Wales is in the same boat. SOME people have done that. But what a very large proportion of people have done - particularly here in South Wales - is something else. There has been a culture change that has affected the whole of society here. Nobody believes that there are jobs (even of the unstable service type you speak of) and therefore it is accepted that a large proportion of the working age population - particularly men - will maintain themselves on sick benefit; accepted by the medical profession, which is co-operative in signing people off as unfit. This is so prevalent here that new slang has been invented to express the situation. People are now "on the hobble"; ie working informally while claiming sickness benefit, which is now being viewed as early retirement for the poor. Yes. The spending of relatively poor people is reliable because they spend it on necessities. The greater one's income, the greater the proportion that is spent on stuff that's not really necessary and can, therefore, be cut when things get tough. This has a downward racheting effect on the economy and makes recessions worse than they would otherwise be. Furthermore, the spending of poor people is almost all domestic. Of course some of the goods are imported, but they are bought domestically and therefore support proportionately more jobs in the domestic economy than the spending of the rich does. MG

Yes, I think so. I'm no computer boffin but what I think happens is that when a page with a picture from the web is fired up on someone's browser, a link is established between the browser's computer and the computer on which the picture resides, down which the picture is transmitted from Mr Gokudo's computer to yours. With organisations like Photobucket, they have enough bandwidth to satisfy the demands of the entire world for Chris Albertson's copy letters from Ida Cox &etc, because they're running a business of some kind that relies on all those accesses and all of this somewhere down the line must generate revenue for them. Same as Amazon for album sleeves. But Gokudo isn't in the same business - just a private guy. MG

Well, you can still get bored with one genre, but you have a lot of other things to turn to. MG

Well, you're probably right - I'm new at this swing thing. Ask me in twenty years MG

Not as cavernous as Prestige used for some early fifties Ammons singles! Or Chess, for that matter. Wonderful caverns on those! MG

Well, I see thay managed to get Bobby Bland in. Congratulations. MG

How come the greatest singers OF ALL TIME pertains explicitly to the sixties and seventies? MG

I'm just beginning to explore this era and haven't reached that point (yet). But I can see how one might get to that, though, as easily as Hard Bop. A lot of swing was formulaic. The rhythm sections, particularly, seem to be playing the same kind of stuff a lot of the time. What often make swing records more interesting for me are the songs and singers. You don't get that much in Hard Bop. MG

I had a conversation, which I've never forgotten, in 1967 (1967!!!!), with a colleague who was a jazz enthusiast in which he was bemoaning the state of jazz recordings. I said that Blue Note, for example, were churning out loads of great albums. His response was that churning was the right word - that it was all formulaic. Of course, he wasn't listening to the John Pattons, Grant Greens, Freddie Roachs etc etc But was that just a different formula? At any rate, your thoughts ain't new, Dan. MG

Thanks Larry for that Cohn article. Good points. The British lesson that Brad posted is all right as far as it goes but Garel forgot about the supply chain effects of allowing British Leyland to go bust rather than slowly subside. The slow decline allowed a lot of the supply chain sufficient breathing space to get other work from other manufacturers. (Don't forget, people still want to buy cars and more and more are being sold worldwide. We're not talking about an obsolete product.) And many of those firms - as Garel knows - are still in business. MG

Yah boo sucks! I've got a Pathe Marconi edition of "Maiden voyage", which I wouldn't want to upgrade MG

Can someone post a link, please? Or isn't it on line? I hope Caruso is in there. And Janet Baker. And Inez Andrews. And LaShun Pace. And Brother Joe May. And Kylo Turner. And Keith Barber. And Rev James Moore. And R H Harris. And Wilmer "Little Axe" Broadnax. And Koko Taylor. And Bobby Bland. And Percy Mayfield. And Charles Brown. And Kouyate Sory Kandia. And And Tata Bembo Kouyate. And Ami Koita. And Thione Seck. And Kine Lam. And, of course, Concha Buika. MG

Oh, and I thought about posting this in the "Least favourite Mosaic" thread, but decided it goes in here better. I only bought the Joe Pass Mosaic box to get the two albums (and bonus tracks) by Les McCann - "On time" and "Soul hits" - on CD. The other three and a half discs have only been played once. Signed A Philistine

Thanks Steve. MG

Unions are like Laws - there's no pressing need for them if everybody does the right thing. Having said that, though, I still believe in the idea of and the need for unions in some form. Labor will always need representation, just to keep the playing field level. What I am fervently against is outmoded & unfeasible union tactics & demands that make the playing field less than level. I would hope that sanity prevails and that unions evolve their way into a fruitful & useful 21st Century, but that is their call to make. I see signs that this is occurring (new UAW contracts are beginning at 50% of the previous rate, companies are no longer being saddled with unmanageable legacy health care costs, etc.). I do feel 100% certain that if they should meet their demise, companies such as Toyota, who implement practices that engender loyalty and performance will remain in the minority. It's easy to criticize unions - too easy, in fact. Horror stories of abuse and corruption abound. But if you want real horror stories of abuse and corruption, look at the environment for labor pre-union. Don't be fooled into thinking that "things can never get that bad again", because they can. Not all at once, mind you, but over time, definitely. If we've learned nothing else from the recent financial meltdown, let's learn this - business/business power left unchecked & unbalanced can not be trusted to do the right thing over the long haul. This is a basic law of human nature. Surely Toyota has some sort of "employees association" or something to create/maintain/sustain constructive dialog between management & labor? Quite right. Workers need unions when their employer can't be trusted. Few large employers can be. In particular, it's recognised the world over that government at all levels - local, regional, national and (in the EU) supra-national - is not to be trusted, because politicians will do whatever they have to to get what they want - re-elected - including changing the law. So there is no real protection for public sector workers short of their own industrial strength. But the balance between employers and workers needs to be re-jigged from time to time. By the 1970s in Britain, the general balance that had been agreed in the period post WWI was no longer functional, as the unions had too many immunities that gave them too much power for the then prevailing circumstances. Mrs Thatcher, though she did many things that in my view fucked up the country and for which we're still paying the price, took on the re-jigging issue and I think there is a better balance between unions and employers now. I had thought that the same thing happened in the US, since she and Reagan worked hand in glove so much. Perhaps that wasn't the case, though. MG

Cor! That one looks interesting! But who's Paul Togawa? MG