When we stereotype people...

Often time, we have that discussion about how Americans are different from French people from a culture and attitude standpoint.

This is when I decide that what makes more difference than the country of origin is where the individual stacks up in the socioeconomic ranks than geography or even traditions. Think about it.

Humanity is pretty much the same everywhere and today's big difference is more likely to be found in someone's actual stage on life and how hard or easy it is to survive day by day, than by that person's passport.

Not an "Epic" incentive

Vail Resorts isn't that generous, but is trying all kind of tricks to get its clientele to commit early to their next season's ski pass.

In May, they begin by asking for a $50 deposit towards the pass lowest price by offering a few “buddy passes” that are a bit cheaper than their outrageous window price and will let you ride the few lifts open during summer as long as you don't have a bike in tow (if you do, you must buy a special day ticket or a season pass). 

If you can't decide to purchase your season's pass by Labor Day, the cost goes up by $20 until the final deadline at the beginning of October. All in all, skimpy incentives in relation to more than a 6 percent increase of their pass price over the previous season!

The Steve Bannon Interview

Sunday night, I watched the Steve Bannon interview, by Charlie Rose, on CBS's "60 Minutes" and saw about 30 minutes of feisty exchange between the two.

Too bad that Charlie lost a bit of his temper (which happens all the time he sits down with folks he doesn't like), but in the end, it didn't change much of the outcome.

I was hoping to discover the real genius in Bannon; after all, the man had “fabricated” our 45th president, but instead, I discovered that he was a mirror image of Trump and someone making up his "strategy" as he spoke.

Just like Donald Trump, the man who served as the White House Chief Strategist during the first seven months of his presidency, is a big mouth and a bully, but there is nothing of substance behind his boisterous remarks and, at least in my view, the Vice-Emperor had no clothes.

Thank you Charlie Rose for debunking the only mystery left in the Empire of the Donald.

The double-edge of tourism

Just as a follow up to yesterday's blog, I was thinking how tourism can be a double-edge sword and how it can destroy and homogenize what otherwise makes a place attractive to visitors if not kept in check.

I speak both from what I see happening in my hometown valley, back in the French Alps today, as well as my four decade of living in Park City. Visitors (and tourists) come to specific places because of their beauty and their character.

Remove the latter and you take away most of a place's appeal. This means that tourist spots must be vigilant in not letting visitors, or worse yet, second-home owners, dictate what the place ought to be or should become.

This pressure happens all the time whether one lives (like me) in the Rocky Mountains or in the Alps. Typically, over a short period of residence, a significant percentage of second-home owners develops a tendency to resent the tourist trade and whatever makes the place authentic.

These same folks quickly get tired of the “charm” that got them to purchase a home in the first place. Instead, they strive to recreate the universe they've left behind with all of its trappings. Furthermore, as time goes by, a large percentage of these second-homer morphs into permanent residents when they elect to retire at the resort in question.

Kept unchecked, these pressures lead to the planetary homogenization that can be found everywhere, except perhaps in Corsica, because of the islanders' forceful push-back.

Classically, these new comers become the tail that wags the dog and if no one objects, they'll do everything to ruin the place, its character and its authenticity

When in Rome...

...Do as the Romans do, at least that the way life should work. Recently, not far from my native hometown, up in the French Alps, a bunch of second-home owners started a petition and presented it to the City Hall at Le Biot, to protest the noise made by cowbells, as a herd has been grazing on the ski slopes opposite to their cabins and condos.

These malcontents were mostly made of Brits along with a Belgian and a French, I believe, and all but one of the dozen of households involved is a year-round resident. That rather trivial and petty grievance reminded me of my life experience, coming from the France and setting foot in America more than 40 years ago.

To survive, thrive and make the best of my American experience, I simply had to adapt to my new home, its different values and its unique culture. I did the best I could to lay low at times, make no waves or never fight against the main stream. This was what I believed then, what worked perfectly well for me, and what I continue to abide by today.

This is also what I expect newcomers to do; if they don't like it, it's always time to move on. Not rocket-science by any means! So, if these folks that can't stand cowbell music want to feel better, they simply have to leave. Adapt or perish!

Shopping for hard-to-get stuff

Thanks to the internet, it's a breeze to buy “stuff” online; from electronics, to shoes or even bicycles. Yet, there are some rare items and many mundane services that are not always so easy to shop for, so doing so requires a tad more creativity in the way we conduct our research.

Not everyone that has something to sell necessarily has a website, a merchant account or even an email address. That's where it pays to communicate through texting or through house services like Angie's List, to finally get closer to getting what you want or need.

Just “Googling” a rare item or a certain service won't spit a result right away and it's often necessary to spend a huge deal of time searching and looking into places or domains that we never envisioned going to when our search began.

So, if you want to find what you need on line, put on your thinking hat, be very persistent, don't expect a river of good deal flowing your way the first time around, spend even more time, and you'll eventually be rewarded!

Wall Street and Population Control

I often blame overpopulation on religion, but it's hard to deny the fact that our capitalistic system is also what supports it. It too, actively contributes to a deteriorating environment that leads to climate change, hence my finger-pointing at Wall Street.

As we all know, capitalism requires sustained production growth to remain stable, improve standards of living and keep a growing world population employed. Then, all that production need consumption; without it, the system would cease to function.

Evidently, this leads to a vicious cycle where constantly improved production demands even more consumption and more consumers to keep the machine running. This shows that mass consumption or consumerism isn't just a passing cultural behavior; it's instead an essential element of capitalism, an economic system in which the mad dog keeps on turning faster to bite its own tail.

This cycle is almost impossible to stop, because companies are constantly pressurized to cut costs; if they don’t, their competitors will.

Reasonably, one way of cutting costs would be to re-invest some of the savings into the environment, but capitalism has no built-in mechanism to do that, so it would require some forms of non-market intervention either by the State or by organized social forces.

Obviously, States' main concerns are to grow their GDP and keep their population working. States are also permanently under the pressure and influence of big business, have little incentive to intervene and only social forces are left to pick up the slack. In summary, Wall Street or capitalism have absolutely no incentive to discourage runaway births and could care less about the effect of overpopulation on the environment.

As firms are constantly pressured to cut costs and optimize profits, issues like overpopulation fall pray to the compulsive market behavior of developed or emerging Nations and are never discussed by their governments that prefer to keep their citizen unaware of that stark reality.

Without the intervention of social forces, capitalism as an economic system, is simply unwilling to reduce the world population and protect the planet.