Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced that the fighting in Iraq was finally over. All that was left was to get our people out and help the Iraqis transition into a self-sufficient government. The surge worked. Our political arm-twisting worked. Our efforts to better connect with community leaders on the ground worked. Obama praised the troops, praised President Bush, and reminded people that he had opposed the war. Republicans like John Boehner and John McCain took the opportunity to remind the American people that Obama is an America-hating motherf*cker.

But contrary to what Boehner and McCain said – that Obama should say in his speech that he was wrong about the surge and Bush was right, the thing we should be examining is whether we should have invaded a sovereign Iraq in the first place.

Back in 2002, America was still reeling from 9/11, and Iraq was subjected to myriad UN sanctions, inspection schemes, no-fly zones, and other restrictions stemming from its invasion of Kuwait and subsequent defeat a decade before. Saddam Hussein was undoubtedly a brutal dictator whose Ba’athist Arabic-unity, socialist ideology had been perverted into nothing more than an Arabic construct of fascism. His rule was corrupt and murderous, and he had started two expansionist wars during his reign, neither of which worked out well for his country. He, on the other hand, lived like a king.

But there are lots of bad actors running horribly brutal dictatorships around the world. We can’t invade them all. Nor, if you ask most Republicans when they’re being honest, should we. Just ask most Republican commentators when President Clinton got NATO militarily involved in Bosnia and Serbia.

Turning back to 2002, the UN had implemented a new set of sanctions based on what turned out to be incorrect intelligence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. The UN – never one to rush into war – sent neutral inspectors into Iraq to look for these WMDs. Hans Blix’s team of inspectors went everywhere the US government told them to look. Spy satellites, after all, don’t lie.

UNMOVIC inspectors under Hans Blix were in Iraq for 111 days, and they never found a single WMD.

United States troops were in Iraq for 2,724 days, and they never found a single WMD.

That was the legal basis on which we invaded Iraq – that they had deliberately violated UN sanctions regarding WMDs. There was no other legal rationale. What the Bush Administration’s neoconservative hawks did was just shift the objective to eliminating Ba’athism, regime change, stopping Iraq’s support for terror, help Israel in its efforts against terrorism, etc. After 7 years of battles, death, destruction, we gave Iraq its democracy, but the other regional goals have never been met. Instead, Iraq became flypaper for every disaffected, pimpled Arab teen who wanted to kill Americans. Once Saddam was gone, we had Zarqawi to deal with. Thousands of American men and women died.

So, to my mind, it’s not time to navel-gaze about whether the surge worked and whether Obama was wrong about it, and whether he is sufficiently remorseful or introspective about how wrong he was. Instead, we should re-evaluate why we invaded Iraq in the first place, further destabilizing an already unstable region; subjecting an oppressed people to 7+ years of war, terrorism, and occupation.

To my mind, it’s time to re-examine the so-called “Powell Doctrine”, which was completely disregarded in March 2003 by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and his bosses.

I’m glad it’s over, but that’s a lot of people dead to get rid of a petty dictator. Thank the troops for their service, but question their leaders for sending them there.

Although the Hydraulics neighborhood continued to thrive into the twentieth-century, by the mid-1900s, the area faced increasing economic difficulties.  Like the city of Buffalo as a whole, job loss, declining population and the aging of the transportation infrastructure began to cripple the Hydraulics neighborhood.

Times were quickly changing in Buffalo during the post-World War II era.  By the 1940s and 50s, the city's railroads and factories, which had been constructed nearly a century earlier, were rapidly aging and becoming obsolete.  Buffalo also suffered from a series of crippling labor strikes which made many industry and business owners leery.  Many of Buffalo's largest manufacturers began leaving in order to build new state-of-the-art facilities in other places; Spencer-Kellogg, the nation's largest linseed oil products maker relocated its 50+ year old plant in 1952, followed by Dupont who constructed a new multimillion dollar plant in Ohio. 

The opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959 delivered a final crippling blow to manufacturing and industrial economy of the city, rerouting the transportation of goods around the former terminus of the Erie Canal.  Many of Buffalo's largest manufactures and industries left the area, and as jobs left the region, so too did the residents.  During this period, the population of the city of Buffalo reached its peak of 532,759 in the 1960 census, and began to decline as residents relocated to cities with more jobs and opportunity.  The city's once-prosperous industries such as the grain trade, railroad commerce, steel manufacture and other industrial concerns began leaving Buffalo beginning in the mid-twentieth-century.

Like the city of Buffalo, the Hydraulics neighborhood also suffered the loss of many of its industrial and manufacturing enterprises.  Perhaps the most significant development which impacted the local economy in the neighborhood was the construction of the Niagara Branch of the New York State Thruway (I-190).  Completed in 1959, the Niagara Thruway traced much of the earlier Erie Canal  and Main and Hamburg Canal rights-of-way (by then infilled) and was constructed on the former Scott Street just south of the primary core of the Hydraulics neighborhood.  The elevation of the roadway, coupled with the congestion, noise and pollution, created a physical rift between areas to the north and south of the Niagara Thruway; the road literally became a line which marked a physical and psychological barrier.  While initially the Thruway project, like other highway projects going on across the county at the same time, was seen as beneficial and a means to modernize transportation to and from the city, it soon proved to have the opposite effect on the city.

The same year the Niagara Thruway was opened, 1959, also saw the loss of several key businesses in the Hydraulics.  The F.N. Burt Company, maker of paper boxes, as well as J. W. Clement, and the Keystone Warehouse Co. constructed new facilities in the Buffalo suburbs of Cheektowaga and Depew, areas made easily accessible via the new Thruway system.  The opening of the highway system proved devastating for the commercial interests in the Hydraulics as well; Seneca Street retail merchants reported an overnight drop of 75 percent in traffic on the street as commuters bypassed the smaller street for the new highway.

Maps and photographs of the neighborhood reveal the true extent of the damage to the Hydraulics neighborhood.  Once the area was packed with buildings along all the streets; brick multi-story commercial buildings lined Seneca Street, with dense rows of houses in residential areas.  Large industrial buildings jockeyed for space with railroad buildings and other manufacturing facilities.  After the downturn the neighborhood faced in the 1950s and 60s, many of the properties were abandoned and neglected as people and business left the Hydraulics for the suburbs.  These properties fell into a general state of disrepair and were demolished, clearing large vacant lots and parking areas in the dense urban fabric.  The demolition of the renowned Larkin Administration Building in 1950 began the wave of demolitions which destroyed entire blocks of the Hydraulics neighborhood.

Industrial buildings, unlike commercial and residential architecture, were not constructed with aesthetics in mind; typically these buildings featured simple, utilitarian designs based on function and the needs dictated by the interior production. Industrial buildings of the nineteenth-century relied on the natural elements for interior illumination, ventilation and even for the power to drive the belts and shafts which in turn operated machinery.  As a result, industrial buildings are often constructed in phases, with additions added to the building as need dictated, and typically featured numerous window voids.  Industrial buildings were typically not thought of as true "architecture" in the nineteenth-century, and in fact many architects lacked interest in industrial architecture due to the financial and economic limitations and a belief in the lack of artistic possibilities in their design.  Factory design was often a mix of common empirical engineering with engineering based on rationalized, technological planning. But, prior to the development of specialized engineers or architects, early factory design also involved a bit of luck and trial and error by builders and craftspeople.  As a result, most nineteenth-century industrial buildings were designed as collaborations between industrialists, engineers, local carpenters and buildings, and mill builders.

Industrial Architecture

The industrial architecture in the Hydraulics neighborhood is significant for its embodiment of unique industrial architectural styles.  The extant industrial mills and factories which largely date to the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century signify the area's origins are the core of manufacturing and industry dating to the neighborhood's founding in the 1820s.  Many of the companies which called the Hydraulics neighborhood home played a significant role in shaping the development of industry not only in the immediate area, but Buffalo and also the nation.  The presence of these industrial facilities indicates the self-contained quality of the Hydraulics neighborhood as a place to live and work.

1.)  567 Exchange Street (image right)
Formerly the Buffalo Lounge Company Building, a rectilinear 4-story brick industrial loft building.  Upper floor features segmental arched window details. Building appears to date to ca. 1900.

2.)  619 Exchange Street (former Iroquois Door Company Building)
A large, rectilinear 4-story brick industrial loft building which features a raised cut-stone foundation, large rectangular windows divided by simple continuous brick pilasters.  Originally constructed in 1904 with later additions in the 1920s.

3.)  290 Larkin Street (former Larkin Company "L, M" Building)
This building is a large, 7-story brick industrial building with a cut stone foundation, ground floor shipping and loading bays.  Several bays appear to have once featured larger door openings for bringing goods into the building through the use of large roof-mounted hoists (partially extant).  Constructed in 1908, the L, M Building once served largely as a storage building for the Larkin Company.

4.)  500 Seneca Street (image right)
The former F.N. Burt Company is a sprawling complex of buildings featuring 4- and 5-story portions set on cut-stone foundations with large window voids throughout.  Constructed in numerous stages between 1901 and 1927, the architecture of the building reflects the development and refinement of new industrial architecture technology in the early twentieth-century.

5.)  635 Seneca Street (former Larkin Company "I" Building)
A large, 4-story brick industrial building, notable features for this structure include large window voids divided by brick pilasters with a simple brick cornice above.  Reinforced concrete was used for the basement floor and foundations while brick was used above.  Perhaps the signature element for the building is its tall brick chimney. Constructed in 1902, the Larkin Company "I" Building served as the Power House for the entire complex.

6.)  701 Seneca Street (former Larkin Company "B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, N, O" Building)
The most massive of the buildings associated with the Larkin Company in the Hydraulics, this large edifice is actually a combination of several smaller building components which were constructed at various stages between 1898 and 1913.  Primarily a 6-story industrial building, it features numerous aligned and regularly spaced window voids, loading docks and shipping bays on the ground floor and a corbelled cornice along some portions of the roofline.  The building has been resurfaced in a cement-like finish sometime in the 1960s, but where some the surface has worn, portions of the original brick construction and segmental arched, paired 12/12 wood framed sash windows are visible.

7.)  545 Swan Street (former The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company Building)
A large, box-like 8-story reinforced concrete framed industrial building with brick spandrel panels, concrete pilasters and now largely infilled bands of window.  Still visible are the traces of painted lettering and signage which advertised the former A&P brand.  This simple, utilitarian building was constructed by the Keystone Warehouse Company between 1903 and 1917.

8.)  239 Van Rensselaer Street (image right)    
This is the former Larking Company "U" Building.  Unlike a majority of the other industrial architecture in the Hydraulics, this 3-story brick building with Medina sandstone accents is designed in the decorative Romanesque Revival style.  The primary western façade features a series of large arcaded arches which contain windows and a central entry door.  Originally constructed in 1893 by D. Ullman Sons, a large-scale industrial salvage and recycling firm, the Larkin Company purchased the building in 1911.

Mixed-use Commercial Buildings

Like any nineteenth-century community, the Hydraulics neighborhood once boasted a large, thriving commercial area primarily located along Seneca and Swan Streets.  Extant early commercial architecture in Buffalo generally dates to the Victorian era (ca. 1850s-1900s), and displays styles which coincide with many of the popular residential styles from the period including Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne and Richardsonian Romanesque.  As was common in commercial architecture, historic photos show that a majority of the architecture was designed as two-part commercial blocks (the prevalent style from the 1850s to the 1950s) with a façade which was divided into a lower floor public commercial space with unified upper stories which accommodated other functions such as private offices and residences.

While certainly early commercial buildings were located in the Hydraulics neighborhood in the 1820s, much of the commercial development in the area was during the late nineteenth-century.  Rows of three-, four- and five-story buildings lined the streets and housed a variety of small enterprises including butchers, blacksmiths, brewers, painters and a myriad of other trades.  Maps indicate that a majority of the commercial buildings were constructed of brick, sometimes with wood framed additions or out-buildings, and were tightly-packed along the street line.  Today there are few remaining examples of commercial architecture in the Hydraulics neighborhood; much was demolished in the twentieth-century or has been significantly altered.  The view down Seneca Street in its hey-day would have been typical of any city in the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century; a walkable street bustling with activity, buildings densely lining the streets.

Public Architecture

Being that the Hydraulics was a self-contained, self-sufficient settlement within the confines of the larger Buffalo area for a majority of its history, it is not surprising to find that the area once contained several examples of public architecture.  Public buildings are those which served governmental, municipal services or other similar capacities including schools, fire stations, post offices and other functions.  Often these buildings shared many characteristics of typical commercial buildings from the time including a ground floor service zone with additional stories above.  At the end of the nineteenth-century, the Hydraulics neighborhood contained its own post office branch (located in the Kamman Building at 755-757 Seneca Street), was home to Public School Number 5 at the corner of Hydraulic and Seneca Streets, and featured a fire station (Hydraulic Engine Company No. 9, established on October 18, 1845) located on Seneca Street near the Swan Street junction.  With the exception of the Kamman Building, much of this original public architecture has now vanished from the landscape of the Hydraulics neighborhood.

Commercial and Public Architecture Examples

1.)  594 East Eagle Street
A 2 ½-story front gable wood-framed vernacular style building which retains its original carved wood storefront façade on the street level.  Perhaps one of the oldest remaining mixed use buildings in the residential area, this building appears to date to at least the 1870s when it served as the residence of J.B. Burldenberg, and became a store in the 1880s.

2.)  831 East Eagle Street
A 2 ½-story front hipped brick building with a vernacular Italianate design with a ground floor store and upper floor residential.  The ground floor East Eagle façade retains much of its original storefront design including pilasters, molding and what appears to be decorative wood paneling.  It appears to date to the 1890s.

3.)  700 Seneca Street (Buffalo Firehouse Engine 32 Ladder 5)
This one-story brick fire station was constructed in 1955 in a simplified Art Deco design.  The beige glazed brick edifice with verdigris copper flashing features three large bays for the fire equipment which are labeled with slightly projecting Art Deco-style metal lettering, flanked by a smaller bay to the south of the building which is labeled "Chief, South Division."

4.)  740 Seneca Street (right, image by Chris Hawley)
The former Marine Trust Bank Building, a 3-story, brick commercial building with a 3-bay primary south façade, is designed in a vaguely Renaissance Classical style.  East façade features two light wells cut into the upper floors which indicates the close-proximity of a now-non-existent neighbor.  Designed by architect Joseph J. W. Bradney (who also designed the home of John Durrant Larkin Jr. House at 65 Lincoln Parkway in 1912) circa 1900 to originally house Henry Schaefer's grocery store, the building was enlarged in 1919 by the firm of Mann and Cook to house the bank.

5.)  755 Seneca Street (The Kamman Building)
A 4-story, 7-rank brick and Medina sandstone commercial building in a Romanesque Revival style.  An example of a two-part commercial block building, the ground floor storefront features cast iron pilasters, lion head ornament and a sign noting the building as "The Kamman" at the center above an entry door.  Constructed ca. 1883/84 by architect Franklin W. Caulkins on property owned by the Kamman family.

6.)  760 Seneca Street (right, image by Chris Hawley)
This Romanesque Revival two-part commercial block brick building, the former F. X. Winkler & Sons Building, is 3-stories with a 7-bay primary south façade.  The ground floor features brick infill set into the original cast iron store front façade which still retains decorative pilasters at each end of the façade and flanking a central entry door.  Constructed ca. 1893 by an unknown architect, this building served as the F. X. Winkler & Sons grocery store until it closed in 1968.

Railroad Viaducts and Subways

Given the industrialization and development in the Hydraulics neighborhood, it is not surprising that the area contains several excellent examples of structural design.  These interesting engineering feats are related to the railroad in the form of cast iron and steel subways, which interlace the neighborhood.  The presence of these metal structural elements, juxtaposed against the residential and commercial fabric, strengthens the sense of industrialization and transportation which formed the foundation of the Hydraulics neighborhood.  The use of rivets indicates that these structures most likely date to the period before 1920 when the advent of welding and bolted joints became more common.

Today there are large holes cut into the architecture of the Hydraulics neighborhood.  Many of the houses have been modified with new materials, odd additions and alterations and some have entirely lost the character of the original design.  Some of the houses which have been maintained now are sheathed with modern materials such as vinyl siding and have had replacement windows inserted, also negating the original historic character of the building.  Neglect is still a primary concern for many buildings, and properties are lost each year to arson.  Commercial properties fared equally as poor as their residential counterparts. 

A majority of the original architectural stock of streets like Seneca Street has been lost to demolitions, and many remaining commercial properties are significantly disfigured by later alterations and modifications.  Industrial building have fared much the same.  The handful of buildings which do remain and do retain the original character of their architecture in the Hydraulics neighborhood are rare surviving examples of what the neighborhood once was at the height of its prominence. 

But enough remains to create a solid foundation for a brighter future thanks to the visionaries at Larkin Development Group that rehabbed the Larkin at Exchange building.  Commercial tenants quickly filled the property's 600,000 sq.ft. of office space, buying into the neighborhood's future and encouraging the developers to rehab other structures and plan for new construction.  The City pitched in to undertake a streetscape project along Seneca Street.  Other developers are following their lead unveiling plans for both small and large-scale reuse projects.  The Hydraulics District is returning to its roots as an economic engine.

Source:  National Register Multiple Property Documentation Form prepared by Architectural Historian Jennifer Walkowski of Clinton Brown Company Architecture.

Previous:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Two top images courtesy of Chris Hawley @ The Hydraulics Press

This just in: Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska concedes the Republican primary to lawyer Joe Miller who got a massive bump from the Tea Party and Sarah Palin, reports the New York Times. That is not the source of my “WTF?!”, but this is:

Hat's all, folks!

That it all…

Even though this offseason has been riddled with injuries, the Bills may not be in the worst of shape when it comes to week one of the regular season. It appears as though many of the walking wounded appear to be on the fast track toward making it back onto the field. Here is the latest news on a few of the preseason and camp injuries:

Fred Jackson: Freddy has returned to the practice field and shed his cast. It sounds to me that Coach Gailey feels that Fred will be ready to go in week one, but only on a limited basis. This makes me feel pretty good about where Fred is at. I figure if C.J. Spiller and Marshawn Lynch were not on the team, Fred might be able to take on a bigger role in the offense. With the Bills’ RB depth, though, it seems Gailey will take an intelligent approach and ease Jackson back.

Marshawn Lynch: Lynch appears to be at 100%. He was back on the practice field at full speed, and is expected to play in the Bills’ preseason finale Thursday.

Byrd is a player the Bills can't afford to have on the sidelines

Jairus Byrd: Byrd is probably the most important casualty the Bills need to have back by week one. Byrd has not yet returned to the practice field after having surgery on his groin. The pass defense has looked very suspect in his absence, as FS is probably the only position in the defensive backfield the Bills have questionable depth. Gailey has said that Byrd is “on track” to play in week one, but it’s difficult to know how realistic that is until he gets back on the field.

Ed Wang: Wang seems to be healing from his thumb injury rather quickly as his initial diagnosis was 4-8 weeks, but I generally expect injuries to last until the higher number. Wang has returned to the practice field, but is not ready to play on Thursday. Wang likely would not have seen too much action early in the season anyways, as he is really only the 4th or 5th tackle on the roster (though that doesn’t mean you won’t be playing on the Bills, as we found out last year).

James Hardy: Hardy played limited snaps against the Bengals, and even managed to make a 30-yard reception along the sideline in that game. I expect that he’ll be ready to see a lot of action on Thursday, and hopefully show some signs that he was worthy of a 2nd-round selection (not holding my breath on that one just yet).

Derek Schouman: The Bills’ TE is likely to miss another 2-5 weeks with a knee injury he suffered against the Colts. He also may be a little behind that schedule as he has struggled to stay on the field all offseason battling injuries. Gailey has hinted that Schouman will need more reps on the practice field before being ready to be too involved on Sundays.

While Marcus Easley and Danny Batten are out for the year with their injuries, if the Bills can get Jairus Byrd on the field, they should be in pretty good shape for the Dolphins game. Hopefully the Bills got the majority of their injuries out of the way early this season, and won’t suffer a repeat of last year’s injured reserve parade.

Dent Neurologic Institute is heading eastward with a new office in Batavia, located on Main Street at the Batavia City Centre.

Under historic rehabilitation tax credit law, historic sites throughout Western New York can be revamped, bringing jobs to the area.

Police say that 24-year-old Anthony Thomas of Buffalo shot and killed 22-year-old Fernando Vega at the Schaffer Village Apartment Complex on June 9th.

A pivotal race in this year’s New York State elections played out in Western New York Tuesday. Four Democrats challenged each other on the issues facing the 58th State Senate District in a debate that aired on YNN. Our Mark Gruba reports…

Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, President Barack Obama declared Tuesday evening. The president addressed the nation from the Oval Office on the final day of combat operations in Iraq.

Less than 24 hours after SUNYAB president John Simpson announced his retirement effective January 15, 2011, questions were flying within the UB community: How is it that Jeremy Jacobs, in his capacity as UB Council Chairman, could name Scott Nostaja interim president of the university? It’s a good question, when you consider that the Education [...]

The Wall St. Journal’s Op-Ed page often provides a refreshing glimpse at what members of the ruling class and their cronies really think about today’s affairs and the people who are most affected by them. The newest installment in their repugnant, “let em’ eat cake” series of economic opinion pieces is an unapologetic drive-by shooting of extended unemployment benefits. Robert Barro, Harvard economics professor and senior fellow at the neoconservative Hoover institution, takes liberties with meaningless, out-of-context figures and attempts to prove that unemployment can be magically wished away by simply dropping receipts from their benefits.

I want to focus here on another dimension of the Obama administration’s policies: the expansion of unemployment-insurance eligibility to as much as 99 weeks from the standard 26 weeks.

The unemployment-insurance program involves a balance between compassion—providing for persons temporarily without work—and efficiency. The loss in efficiency results partly because the program subsidizes unemployment, causing insufficient job-search, job-acceptance and levels of employment.

Mr. Barro makes a lot of assumptions. I seriously doubt he spoke to any actual unemployed people prior to writing this hit piece. Even more doubtful is whether he knows any unemployed people–ya know, the kind who don’t have massive trust funds and other investments to sit on for the rest of their lives.

It’s quite clear the professor’s sympathies lie with captains of industry and the economists that spin all sorts of nonsensical dribble as an apology to plutocratic excess in a manner akin to the temple high priests of the sanguine old days of early civilization. The professor, being hermetically sealed from the real world through his tenured, academic ivory tower and country club social network, clearly lacks the ability (or desire) to see anything in a greater macroeconomic perspective. Either that or he is consciously manipulating data, having no qualms about being downright dishonest in order to preach his deeply-ingrained biases.

To begin with a historical perspective, in the 1982 recession the peak unemployment rate of 10.8% in November-December 1982 corresponded to a mean duration of unemployment of 17.6 weeks and a share of long-term unemployment (those unemployed more than 26 weeks) of 20.4%. Long-term unemployment peaked later, in July 1983, when the unemployment rate had fallen to 9.4%. At that point, the mean duration of unemployment reached 21.2 weeks and the share of long-term unemployment was 24.5%. These numbers are the highest observed in the post-World War II period until recently. Thus, we can think of previous recessions (including those in 2001, 1990-91 and before 1982) as featuring a mean duration of unemployment of less than 21 weeks and a share of long-term unemployment of less than 25%.

These numbers provide a stark contrast with joblessness today. The peak unemployment rate of 10.1% in October 2009 corresponded to a mean duration of unemployment of 27.2 weeks and a share of long-term unemployment of 36%. The duration of unemployment peaked (thus far) at 35.2 weeks in June 2010, when the share of long-term unemployment in the total reached a remarkable 46.2%. These numbers are way above the ceilings of 21 weeks and 25% share applicable to previous post-World War II recessions. The dramatic expansion of unemployment-insurance eligibility to 99 weeks is almost surely the culprit.

2010′s economy absolutely cannot be compared to that of 1983. Apples and oranges. No fuzzy fruit basket of math formulas can make that pig fly. Back then America still manufactured a lot of stuff. The gargantuan oil fields of the North Sea and the Persian Gulf were just beginning to pump at full blast. China and India were still pretty dirt poor for the most part. Today they are cranking out mass quantities of goods and services that we used to. They people in each of those countries now consumes a far greater share of resources than they did 30 years ago. America, along with the other developed nations, now has to complete on a global scale for a dwindling inventory of precious energy resources.

Our current economic depression due to both the aforementioned energy crisis and the implosion of our credit system that has functioned like the cross between a Ponzi Scheme and a Vegas casino. The finance sector, which produces nothing of real value for our society, had come to dominate an American economy that forgot how to produce much of anything of long-lasting, physical worth. Any one with half a brain should have been able to guess that an economy that doesn’t go far beyond big box retail, suburban McMansions, cheeseburgers and infotainment, would not stand the test of time. Our “livin’ large” lifestyles were largely enjoyed on borrowed time.

What’s been religiously-celebrated as “economic growth” over the past many decades is a complete farce. The only thing that has kept our economy afloat since the late 70s is the hyper-consumption of shoddy goods enabled by an orgy of hallucinated, speculative paper wealth we all know as credit. “Growth” simply means an increasing rate of the Earth’s finite supply of resources being processed into finished goods and all the services that accessories the sale and marketing of such goods. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of basic math should be able to deduce that infinite growth can not take place within a medium of finite resources. In debt-based monetary system, infinite growth is the only thing that can keep the whole charade from collapsing.

Our new date with mass unemployment comes as a result of pretty much everything I mentioned above along with these key factors:

• The steady advance of mechanization and automation allows our technology to produce more with less, (given a reliable and cost-effective supply of energy inputs to run the machines) therefore an ever-declining need for human labor hours to produce X amount of goods and services.
• Outsourcing of work that doesn’t require specialized skills and education. This globalization of labor is due to the nature of a global economy defined by cheap transport costs and instant communication. As long as energy remains cheap, the old barriers will remain shattered. Once global oil starts becoming harder to extract, therefore more expensive for everyone, then we can start talking about countries like America re-localizing production.
• Capital deployment that is to a great degree no longer loyal to any specific national concern (maybe this should be a part of the above item)….i.e. international capital calling the shots
• A collective entitlement complex in which a majority of the people of the richest countries demand a high material standard of living, therefore their unwillingness to take on the most undesirable of occupations. The people will likely riot in the streets and demand that heads will roll before they will even consider voluntarily becoming serfs.
• The loss of purchasing power across the board because of the first three items along with the disappearance of easy credit that enabled the fake “boom economy” in the first place.

The ugly truth is that the good ol’ days of gluttonous consumption for Americans is in the past. Will be collectively accept a lower material standard of living. I think there will be a lot of self-entitled brats who will not be able to come to terms with this new reality. Whom they will turn to in these times of desperation is pretty scary to ponder. We’re already seeing this in action and it will only get worse. The Plutocrats and their sympathizers will continue to publish hit pieces like this on regular folk until the people finally wake (one can dream) up and realize who is really behind this humiliating economic collapse of epic proportions.

With approximately 26 million American workers on the unemployment lines or unable to find a full-time job, millions more having lost their homes, and regular people faced with relentless wage-cutting while Wall Street reels in record profits, things are bound to only get uglier over the next year. I hope the unlikely happens and that Professor Barro, that devout pusher of voodoo pseudo-science known as economics, finds himself without a job. Perhaps then he will get some well-needed perspective he’s likely been deprived of his entire life.

After a year of working as a TA, last night was the first meeting of my very own course at UB.  God help these kids.

When I meet a new batch of students, I like to ask them to list the three most important historical figures from the period we’ll be studying.  It’s a good way of getting them talking, demonstrating that I’m not going to kill them for a goofy answer, and getting a sense of how much they know about the subject.  And it’s fun.

By now, I tend to know what the answers will look like.  There are the safe answers — Lincoln, Washington — and the more daring ones, like Jay-Z and Oprah.  Someone always lists Obama or JFK, which gives me the chance to discuss the difference (or lack thereof) between history and iconography.  Students are also really into the Edison/Tesla rivalry, for some reason.

But last night, one answer really surprised me: Landon Donovan.  And I had to admit that his goal against Algeria in the World Cup this summer was the best moment of my life.

Of course, that moment wasn’t that important in the scheme of things.  There are thousands of more important things that have happened in my life, and lots of things I’ve felt more deeply.  But as a moment — 10 seconds of pure emotion — there’s nothing that can top it.  Listen to the emotion in Cantor’s voice, how he’s breaking down as he calls Donovan the best American player ever.  It still gets a little dusty every time I watch it.

Moments are weird.  They let us set reason and perspective aside and imagine that this — whatever “this” is — is the only thing that’s ever mattered in the world.

What are your moments?

Tillman Ward, 27, one of the men gunned down in the City Grill mass shooting describes his life following the massacre. YNN’s Nicki Mayo has his story.

Hosted by John Kane:

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With Ross John, a former Seneca Councilor, past Chairman of the League of First Nations, a board member of the Seneca Free Trade Association and a prominent Seneca business owner. A discussion of the State’s plans to shut down Native retailers.

A Flock of Seagulls, The Romantics, Dramarama, When in Rome, Animotion and Gene Loves Jezebel... that's the line-up for the Hello Yesterday concert being presented at LaSalle Park on September 18th. Not a bad line-up for LaSalle Park, the city's premiere outdoor concert venue. It's an all-day concert event that also features a lip sync concert of course. The posters are around town and the buzz is starting. We've seen a lot of rock, blues and jazz this summer - now it's time to go back in time to the land of new wave hairdressers and power pop, featuring classics from above along with Hair Nation.

To top it off, you can sign up for your own 80s high school reunion tent where you and your friends can reminisce while listening to your favorite 80s icons playing some mad keys. Wear your best 80s costume and win a prize. Food and beer tent will be on hand. No coolers or lawn chairs are allowed (apparently the Romantics prefer picnic blankets). After hours party at Pearl Street hosted by Buffalo's notorious Dave Schulz.