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I am no longer updating this blog. If you are looking for information about my music, gigs, or new solo CD, "Surfing In The Dark," please go to my new website: www.RonBeach.net

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Audio clip of the BT Labs Stage & Studio model guitar. This is a prototype that is now almost completed. This recording was made before the finish or binding was done and the neck was only roughed out. Good enough to be played but Brett Terrell was working under less than ideal instrument conditions. Though Brett is a classical guitar master and this is a steel string acoustic the balance, voicing and playability allowed him to perform music on this instrument that has never before been possible on a steel string guitar. This recording was done in one take with no overdubs or sound conditioning (except for a little reverb in the final mix). BT Labs is Steve Richards Chief of Operations, Ben Taylor President R&D, Ron Beach VP Engineering, and Andy Meyer VP Beta Productions. The first limited production run is scheduled to begin last quarter 2009.

Debt

Twin Peaks

David Beim, a former banker who is now a professor at the Columbia Business School, has something to say for people who want to pin this whole thing on the banks.

He has a chart illustrating how much debt American citizens owe, how much we all owe — with our mortgages and credit cards — compared to the economy as a whole. For most of American history, that consumer debt level represented less than 50 percent of the total U.S. economy, as measured by gross domestic product.

"From 2000 to 2008, it's almost a hockey stick. It just goes dramatically upward," Beim says. "It hits 100 percent of GDP. That is to say, currently, consumers owe $13 trillion when GDP is $13 trillion. That is a ton."

This has happened before. The chart shows two peaks when consumer debt levels equaled the GDP: One occurred in 2007, the other in 1929.

And that scares Beim.

"That chart is the most striking piece of evidence that I have that what is happening to us is something that goes way beyond toxic assets in banks. It's something that has little to do with the mechanics of mortgage securitization, or ethics on Wall Street, or anything else," Beim says. "It says: The problem is us. The problem is not the banks, greedy though they may be, overpaid though they may be. The problem is us."

We have over-borrowed, Beim says: "We've been living very high on the hog. Our living standard has been rising dramatically in the last 25 years. And we have been borrowing much of the money to make that prosperity happen."

In other words, the problem the banks are facing is the problem we, as a society, are facing: We all have too much debt. And getting rid of it is going to be painful.

Excerpted from “Taxpayer Beware: Bank Bailout Will Hurt”

by Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg

7 THINGS THAT WILL DESTROY US

• Wealth without work
• Pleasure without conscience
• Knowledge without character
• Commerce without morality
• Science without humanity
• Worship without sacrifice
• Politics without Principle

From the teachings of Gandhi. Each is an end accomplished through an unprincipled or unworthy means. The end seldom if ever justifies the means.

Belief is Delusion

Belief is based on your feelings and ignorance, not on any factual evidence. If you had factual evidence for what you believe, you would not have to believe it - you would know it and we could all share in that knowledge.

The Beginning

This is the beginning of my posts. I hope to stimulate ideas & conversations among my friends & my friends yet to be. This blog will mostly be about my music & my art. And secondly, it will be about the Zen of my life.