Brief Thoughts and Updates

1) Jill Greenberg is a very clever idiot.

2) The economy is in terrible, desperate trouble.

3) My photo mojo is not workin'.

1) From my comment on Rachel Hulin's blog:

(See http://www.rachelhulin.com/blog/ for the backstory.)

While I dread a McCain presidency even more than I dread an Obama presidency (and I dread a potential Palin presidency far more than either) that was a low-down, dirty trick to do to a subject she was being PAID to shoot by a client, who she then publicly called irresponsible and implied weren't very smart. Not to mention that now the client has to deal with the consequences of sending McCain to Greenberg and having her pull this crap.

Yes, let's all insult our clients, belittle and trick our subjects, and leave the steaming heap behind for other people to have to deal with. THAT'S a good way to encourage people to pay professional photographers rather than just send a point-and-shoot camera along with the interview journalist.

Brilliant, Jill, brilliant.

Also that crap she pulled with the Photoshopping and the monkey poo? Juvenile. Totally juvenile. No wonder she empathizes with little children who've lost their candy so much. She basically views the whole world as one big exercise in stealing her candy and her life is a tantrum in response.

2) We're already at 5x the amount of losses from the sub-prime, excuse me housing, excuse me general risk-management EPIC FAIL, crisis that was first projected less than a year ago and there's no bottom in sight. From five major investment banks we're down to two. The Big Three automakers are going broke at a rate that surpasses human comprehension. The USG has done NOTHING to mend its financial idiocy and whoever wins in November we will spend more, not less, next year than we did the year before and we will take in less, not more, in taxes than we did the year before, guaranteed. There's an old saying that if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. What we've always done is spend more than we have, and what we've always got is more debt.

There's another saying, however, that receives much less press, and that is that if a trend is unsustainable, it will not be sustained. Accruing more debt is an unsustainable trend. The USG is going to collectively wake up some morning in the same place that Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns and Countrywide did, and at that point it has two options, no more and no less. Bankruptcy, or monetization of debt. That second one is a fancy way to say, "Print the money to pay the bills." This leads to a phenomenon called hyperinflation. If you want to know what that looks like, hop on a plane to Zimbabwe, or read a book about the Weimar Republic or the economics of the Confederacy. This is not a new story and it always, always, always ends the same way.

If you want to learn a little about how this all works, and don't like math, try PJ O'Rourke's book on economics and business, Eat The Rich. Trust me, any book which discusses cow howitzers and Courtney Love on permanent tour in Japan is worth reading. Your local library will have it, as PJ is quite popular, and it's probably also available in audio form. Read it, seriously.

3) Between the PhotoShelter Collection going teats-up and the fact that I just can't seem to get any joy out of it, I don't remember the last time I took pictures for fun. I take 'em at family things and so forth and they're good, it's not like I don't have the chops, or at least as many chops as I ever had, but I don't seem to be getting anywhere.

M