A new word describes what is happening to our country
There is a team of linguists who come up with a new word every day which receives attention on the Web. They are usually entertaining but not very usable. But this one hit my funny bone and the bone that hurts.

The team has combined “Quagmire” and “Reversal” into “quaquaversal,” which means “something is going off in all directions.”

The new word gives meaning to the Divided States of America, Donald John Trump, White House staff, Cabinet, Congress, billionaires, middle class and the homeless. We are not only going off in all directions, we’re rapidly circling down into a whirlpool.

A cartoon in the latest The New Yorker shows a doctor pointing to a toaster on a cart and saying to a patient who is a writer sitting on a table: “I have found mild psychedelics to be very effective. I’ll have Timmy the Magical Talking Toaster write you a script.”

I think the toaster represents Artificial Intelligence at its best in today’s world.

Jill Lepore has written a fascinating paragraph in an article about A.I. titled “Is A.I. Above the Law?” in the latest The New Yorker: “Last year, horses galloped into the A.I. debate when the historian-futurist Yuval Noah Harari predicted that in the not too distant future, humans will be to artificial intelligence what horses are to humans. Horses live in a world ordered by humans. Harai pointed out, even though horses aren’t aware of it, they know nothing about things like animal law or finance, but these things govern their lives. In the future, Harai suggested humans will be the horses, we won’t even comprehend the systems established and run by machines that rule our lives. Also gruesome: Cory Doctorow warns against a future populated by “reverse centaurs,” in which the robot is the head and humanity is the body: the horse’s ass.”

Review and say: “I got that!”

I have been reading Lepore for years. As men have ruined the world, we have only a short time to save Planet Earth. We need a woman with intelligence and commonsense to bring the Divided States of America out of its quagmires and reversals.

She winds up her article with a warning that men in power will not like: “Assuming we are not all dead by 2027, androids may begin to roll off the production even as lines as almost every conceivable question about how to live with robots remains unanswered — questions about everything from chat boxes and A.I agents to drones, autonomous vehicles and battlefield robots. Corporations cannot be trusted to answer any of these questions.” Name me a male billionaire who would dare make such a public statement.  Why don’t we ask the billionaires who are supporting data centers and Artificial Intelligence developments to develop a plan to reduce human influence on climate change which will kill everyone on earth? What is the answer? Washington politicians are in a quaquaversal about A.I. because they can’t agree if there were anything to worry about.

Isn’t concentration of wealth the biggest problem in the DSA?
The problem in the Divided States of America is that the richest 0.001 percent of extraordinarily wealthy American men now control more of the nation’s wealth than at any time in modern history, including the Gilded Age of Carnegie and wealthiest Rockefeller – who ended up with “only” $30 billion in today’s money.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich sums up today’s problem: “Wealth cannot be separated from power. Great wealth becomes great power through campaign contributions, media ownership, the ability to buy off opposition, the capacity to wage public relations campaigns, and the resources to deploy armies of lawyers who litigate on your behalf. Recent years provide illustrations of this.”

Great power turns into great wealth, sometimes in a great hurry. Examine Elon Musk’s unusual life to understand why.

Wealth also buys changes in laws, regulations and court decisions that bestow even more wealth on those with the power to change systems to their benefit, at the same time draining the earth’s resources from everyone else.

“The Chosen One” by God to lead the United States, according to that great Christian TV evangelist Franklin Graham, is world-renowned for his corruption, such as accepting bribes for pardons of various criminals and bribes for an excessive number of executive orders cutting funds and causing mayhem in many national and international organizations.

Two prime examples: the World Health Organization and the United Nations.
On the other hand (a phrase made famous by President Harry Truman, who said he always wanted to name one-armed men as his economic advisers so they couldn’t say: “On the other hand!”).
Wealthy corporations have changed labor laws to make it very difficult to organize labor unions.
Fact: In the 1950s, more than a third of private-sector workers were unionized. After Ronald Reagan and his tax cutters in the 1980s, the rate is now down to 6%. 

If you want to know how wealthy CEOs do it, read about Amazon and Starbucks workers who have tried to organize local shop unions. Most attempts fail, but if they succeed in establishing a working union, it can take years of battle.

There is no doubt that corporate wealth and power have been increased by mergers and buyouts for years, often unchallenged by so-called regulators. Executives and shareholders have profited by becoming bigger and more profitable.

More than half of the households in the Divided States of America live paycheck-to-paycheck because of higher prices, lower paychecks and fewer choices. That’s why the new word is so meaningful. The DSA economy is going “quaquaversal,” as in “going off in all directions.”

Headline: In Trump’s second term: Average U.S. family forced to  spend $3,800 more on essentials
Grocery prices went up more than 4% in the first six months of his presidency. The average family spent an additional $604 on gas to get the groceries. All this while billionaires made lots of money on fossil fuels on the stock market.

The major reasons?

Trump’s stupidity on increasing tariffs to most of the countries in the world and the utter insanity of the Iran War.

Becoming a millionaire used to be a big deal for the average family. The dollar has shrunk in value, so economists at Northwestern Mutual’s 2026 Planning and Progress Study have estimated that it will take $1.46 million to retire comfortably. If the American has more than $1 million in investable assets, he will need $2.67 million to be comfortable.

The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances has figured the American family’s median net worth is $192,900. But if we count all households, including those mansions of billionaires, the average household net worth is $1,063,700.

The enormous fortunes of those at the top skews everything upward. To become a member of the top ten percent one must have roughly $2 million. Only one in 10 households make it. By the way, the top 10 percent hold 67% of total household wealth in the DSA. See below to learn where you fit in the scheme of things for your generation’s net worth:

• Generation Z (1997-2012): $162,744
• Millennials (1981-1996): $379,562-$853,373
• Generation X 1965-1980) $853,374-$1,478,689
• The Silent Generation (1925-1945) $1,412,514-$1,478,003
• The Baby Boomer Generation: (1946-1964) $1,478,003-$1,748,689

1,000 billionaires have more wealth than 175 million Americans
Our billionaires and a possible trillionaire pay an average of around 3.1% as their functional income tax rate. This rate is making us the most unequal developed society in the world.

The 1920s and 1930s were other periods when severe poverty and extravagant wealth created similar conditions when the United States were divided like they are today. The sale of slave babies and bodies before the Un-Civil War created more millionaires in Jackson, Mississippi, than Wall Street in New York City, which served as the financial capital of the world.

Economic inequality in the Divided States of America has created “smash and grab” gangs that rob jewelry stores of products and millions, school districts in Trumplican states are falling apart and losing teachers by the hundreds, gun violence seems to haunt every state, a day hardly goes by without a mass shooting of some kind and homelessness is readily apparent in most cities.

A power shift caused by wealth can be corrected. It’s rather unusual that a Republican president in the early 20th century split monopolies into smaller units, developed regulations with Congress that limited corporation corruption and barred political bribes. He was followed by a Democratic president who then developed an American middle class after the Great Depression that was the largest and most envied in the world. They both had the same name: Roosevelt. Well, whattaya know!

Shakespeare wrote about a tempest that blew in many directions
In one of his last plays he wrote alone, Shakespeare explores many themes in The Tempest. He traces magic through some of his characters, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness and family.
It is listed among his comedies, but it deals with both tragic and comic themes. The play is also filled with songs and music.

The leading character is Prospero, the true Duke of Milan who has a daughter named Miranda. The first scene takes place aboard a ship sailing unfamiliar seas during a huge storm. The ship is damaged when it hits an island, so the rest of the play takes place there.

On the island Prospero has two servants. One is Caliban, a savage monster figure, the other an airy spirit who is always happy.

Critics have many interpretations of the play. It has a lot of love and hate. Critics say it has too many themes for a three-hour play. The play has had a varied afterlife, going in many directions. It has inspired artists in many cultures, particularly those in literature, music, opera and visual arts. Near the end of the play Gonzalo, a minor character, sums up what has happened on the island:

“The air breathes upon us here most sweetly…
Here is everything advantages to life…
All things in common nature should produce
Without sweet and endeavor treason, felony,
Sword, pike knife, gun, or need of any engine
Would I not have had nature should bring forth
Of its own kind all plenty, all abundance
To feed my innocent people….
I would with such perfection govern, sir,
“I” excel the Golden Age.

Whenever the air is breathing upon the Trumplican Party governed by Donald Trump if he is awake, everybody knows he’s going off in all directions. He has said he is leading us to a Golden Age, but he is doing it using a $2.99 can of fake gold paint decorating the White House and his man-cave of the Oval Office with thrift store gimmickry..