As we come frightfully (and rightfully) close to nationalizing the auto-industry, doesn’t it seem completely ironic that this all happened during the watch of the bullies of the free-market playground, W and his cohorts?
“W” and “cohorts,” however, lacks the umph needed to really kick this discussion off; so, let’s give them a real boss name to add additional luster and menace to this gang’s reputation—The Horseshoe Crabs s of Pennsylvania Avenue will suffice. And if you have ever seen a horseshoe crab then, man, you know what I am talking about!
Now, I am not going to completely blame the Crabs for the dangerous lack of regulation that has taken root over the past 8 years. Much of this belief in Santa Claus (aka “the derivative”) took hold during President Clinton’s administration (we shall call these guys the “Felt Hats” because they are cool and dig chicks and play instruments and probably like college football).
The Felt Hats led us to the rabbit hole and said, “hey, let’s go on down there and check things out.” The Crabs merely liked what they saw whilst in the hole and simply continued to explore.
So, even if it seems that both parties are equally guilty, what the Felt Hats did was say, “let’s climb down the latter into the hole and explore things with miner’s hats (and those funny lights), pick-axes, mobile phones, a lunch box filled with burgers and fluffa-nutter sandwiches and they explored step-by-step; yet, despite the obvious danger of this territory, caution was still the party-favor for all.
The Crabs, however, once down there decided that “real men don’t eat quiche” and so they did away with the miner’s hats (with the funny lights), they tossed the burgers to the rats lining the sides and instead of prowling forward with caution, they pissed into the wind and sprinted forward in a way only fat, formerly-athletic white men of privilege can.
Now, for the metaphorically-impaired, the hats and sandwiches and slow strut forward are government regulations. Although, one can say that the mere creation of the derivative is counter to government oversight, the Felt Hats never hated government.
The Felt Hats believe that government is needed and it can be good for the overall welfare of the people; they even believed this so much that they forewent their own innate desires to buy new hats and matching suede shoes and balanced a budget that had been made “unbalanced” by a string of Republican administrations (the Lemons (Nixon), the Santa Barbara Lifeguards and the Kennebunkport Chowder Heads).
Where the Felt Hats praised the glories of good government and did more than any administration to responsibly decrease the presence of government in our lives, the Crabs recklessly, even treacherously, decimated government oversight in all aspects of our lives. People are dying of shitty spinach, literally!
By bankrupting our nation, by spending hundreds of millions to illegally occupy other nations, by running a non-stop political campaign against government, by replacing dozens of qualified professionals with party hacks, by disregarding any non-partisan research (the refusal by the Crabs to consider the Felt Hat’s conclusions about terrorism dangers in 2001 when they took office) done by the Felt Hats has led us to where we are today.
I am not an economist. Well, actually, I am as good as the experts who failed to foresee the current collapse of the world economy. It does not take a genius to realize that too many people were living way too comfortably on way too much credit (read: the available resources were/are not sufficient enough to support so many “American middle-classes” throughout the world).
So, take my words back, I am an economist because guess what, economics is not a science, it is mastery of observations that have been made over many years. It is an ability to understand greed and how greed will motivate people to force/entice others to part with their resources.
Had our nation been at least macro-economically sound when this credit crisis hit the fan, we might have been in a much better place to solve it. However, we are nationally about 100 years ahead of ourselves in spending. Obviously, we are not prepared to deal with this crisis.
The Crabs, however, are all wealthy and have only gotten wealthier over the past 8 years—the members of the Politburo in the Soviet Union had a very similar situation—and so they really won’t be affected by the pain which lies ahead.
The Crabs are the essence of free-market values (greed, abuse, etc.) and we are where we are today thanks to there incompetence. Government is needed. Government is needed because people, especially corporations (which are run by people) are inherently greedy.
Tomorrow, the auto-industry will come under the guidance of a government-backed board of advisors. How did we get here? Go down to the pool hall, knock on the door with 3 and a half quick raps, say Dickey sent you and ask to see the King Horseshoe Crab: he’ll tell you how we got here (but then again, he just might lie as he is known to do and then start to pray as he is known to do, also).
Yes, government is needed, and soon, the auto-industry will realize what that means like never before!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
This Christmas Give yourself a gift--put the blame on Hitler!
Germany is to blame for the current economic crisis. Actually, Hitler is to blame. The Nazi’s are to blame. Global warming can also be blamed on the Germans.
This Christmas, when American children across the land are NOT getting their favorite toys—because so much of America is just now paying for the toys that our parents bought us 30 years ago—we can all sit around, as is so typical in modern-day America, and slide the blame for this collapse off our backs with the ease that just a year ago so many spoiled-rotten, hyper-consuming Americans slid their fat asses across the “pleather” seats of cars that are just way too big for common-sense!
We are not guilty for what is wrong with us and the world today: Hitler and the Germans screwed us all.
Pax Americana—American Peace—was not a political system as they would have us believe. It was and is still—but not for much longer—an economic system based on greed. It was and is an economic system based on abuse of the earth and its resources.
Packaged in ever-increasing sizes of soft-drinks, popcorn and so many millions of other foodstuffs, appliances, etc, America’s democratic goodness was prostituted to make sales to the world. The ethos that you can have whatever you want in any size or color became to billions throughout the world the “dream of America.”
The beauty and the success of Pax America was simple: Americans, as they evolved from savers to spenders, had insatiable tastes so there was still so, so much demand for yet so, so many things to guarantee strong sales for decades to come; and, the rest of the world wasn’t even yet in the tadpole stage of economic development—there was still so, so much that had to happen before the world could start hopping about in gleeful consumption. Man, were the big bosses and company owners happy.
And then, with the appetites—and I mean literal ones—of Americans growing to unfathomable and even embarrassing proportions (despite all of our talk about God and such, after all, greed and gluttony are deadly sins), the rest of the world bought into our way and yes, they too wanted to live like Americans.
This started in earnest about 10 years ago when all of the BRIC nations began consumption catch-up. Suddenly, the resources of the world were being strained in ways never before seen. Inflation became a real concern for the whole world because there were just not enough resources to go around. Demand was not being satisfied!
And, with the massive increases in the output of consumer goods, emissions of carbon dioxide increased to dangerous levels. And, in the midst of all of this money, money, money and extremely distorted values—wealth became almost holy, an enlightened state of being for so many fat ass Christians (Amway meetings were Christian rituals)—randy schemes for making money out of nothing overtook financial institutions who once prided themselves on reliability, their reputations and trust-worthiness.
And, just like that. The whole big soap bubble burst and now the world’s eyes are stinging. And why did this all come about? Because a punk, racist from Linz, Austria invaded every European nation he could see on his map and as a result of his madness, the true Frankenstein, American military industrial might was created and unleashed.
With millions of everything needed to wage a “good war” against Nazi terror being produced and in amazingly quick ways being disseminated to troops throughout the world, when that war stopped suddenly, Frankenstein couldn’t possibly go back to sleep.
First, we needed to rebuild the world; and then, we needed to save the world from communism. Both of those things required that Frank be kept alive. And, in the meantime, Frank’s capacity was so vast that he managed to wage minor skirmishes and simultaneously make tons and tons of needless, even dangerous, ecology-destroying, cancer-causing shit: the shit that shaped the glory of Pax Americana.
Had Hitler not started that war; had he been stopped in Munich in 1938, this Christmas, children would be getting one gift—and they would be happy—and families would be celebrating rather than dreaming of the needless shit they couldn’t buy because their 8th credit card was maxed out and cancelled.
This Christmas is Munich 1938 and it is time for us to wake up and smell the Linzer torts. It is time for us to change our consuming, greedy ways or bid farewell to everything we have known and loved and called America. And then, once we have done this, we can close down fast-food drive-thrus, Mall America and the Sam’s Clubs; and, on a Sunday in the near future, families will actually find time to be bored.
This Christmas, when American children across the land are NOT getting their favorite toys—because so much of America is just now paying for the toys that our parents bought us 30 years ago—we can all sit around, as is so typical in modern-day America, and slide the blame for this collapse off our backs with the ease that just a year ago so many spoiled-rotten, hyper-consuming Americans slid their fat asses across the “pleather” seats of cars that are just way too big for common-sense!
We are not guilty for what is wrong with us and the world today: Hitler and the Germans screwed us all.
Pax Americana—American Peace—was not a political system as they would have us believe. It was and is still—but not for much longer—an economic system based on greed. It was and is an economic system based on abuse of the earth and its resources.
Packaged in ever-increasing sizes of soft-drinks, popcorn and so many millions of other foodstuffs, appliances, etc, America’s democratic goodness was prostituted to make sales to the world. The ethos that you can have whatever you want in any size or color became to billions throughout the world the “dream of America.”
The beauty and the success of Pax America was simple: Americans, as they evolved from savers to spenders, had insatiable tastes so there was still so, so much demand for yet so, so many things to guarantee strong sales for decades to come; and, the rest of the world wasn’t even yet in the tadpole stage of economic development—there was still so, so much that had to happen before the world could start hopping about in gleeful consumption. Man, were the big bosses and company owners happy.
And then, with the appetites—and I mean literal ones—of Americans growing to unfathomable and even embarrassing proportions (despite all of our talk about God and such, after all, greed and gluttony are deadly sins), the rest of the world bought into our way and yes, they too wanted to live like Americans.
This started in earnest about 10 years ago when all of the BRIC nations began consumption catch-up. Suddenly, the resources of the world were being strained in ways never before seen. Inflation became a real concern for the whole world because there were just not enough resources to go around. Demand was not being satisfied!
And, with the massive increases in the output of consumer goods, emissions of carbon dioxide increased to dangerous levels. And, in the midst of all of this money, money, money and extremely distorted values—wealth became almost holy, an enlightened state of being for so many fat ass Christians (Amway meetings were Christian rituals)—randy schemes for making money out of nothing overtook financial institutions who once prided themselves on reliability, their reputations and trust-worthiness.
And, just like that. The whole big soap bubble burst and now the world’s eyes are stinging. And why did this all come about? Because a punk, racist from Linz, Austria invaded every European nation he could see on his map and as a result of his madness, the true Frankenstein, American military industrial might was created and unleashed.
With millions of everything needed to wage a “good war” against Nazi terror being produced and in amazingly quick ways being disseminated to troops throughout the world, when that war stopped suddenly, Frankenstein couldn’t possibly go back to sleep.
First, we needed to rebuild the world; and then, we needed to save the world from communism. Both of those things required that Frank be kept alive. And, in the meantime, Frank’s capacity was so vast that he managed to wage minor skirmishes and simultaneously make tons and tons of needless, even dangerous, ecology-destroying, cancer-causing shit: the shit that shaped the glory of Pax Americana.
Had Hitler not started that war; had he been stopped in Munich in 1938, this Christmas, children would be getting one gift—and they would be happy—and families would be celebrating rather than dreaming of the needless shit they couldn’t buy because their 8th credit card was maxed out and cancelled.
This Christmas is Munich 1938 and it is time for us to wake up and smell the Linzer torts. It is time for us to change our consuming, greedy ways or bid farewell to everything we have known and loved and called America. And then, once we have done this, we can close down fast-food drive-thrus, Mall America and the Sam’s Clubs; and, on a Sunday in the near future, families will actually find time to be bored.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
It's Nice Not to Be Dumb Anymore
Our national foray into extremism has ended and in the wild world of professional horseshoe-throwing and handgrenades, the "almost" principle was never more real. We ALMOST ended the evolution of our revolution which gave voice to the little man against inbred kings--and in modern day lore, inbred CEO's, the modern lords of their manors (read: companies).
Yet, before we can fully appreciate what we almost lost; we must come to terms with what it was they (our forefathers) gave us. To begin with, The American Revolution was not really so revolutionary. We didn't raid any villas of the rich and cut their arms and heads off. We did not appropriate businesses from the wealthy and give them to supporters of our revolutionary cause.
We did not enter into the massive homes of the wealthy and divy them up so that less-well-off families could take up residence in what used to be the pantry off the kitchen. The American Revolution was violent, of course, and even more so than we learned in school. Yet, it was really child's play in comparison to other world revolutions.
What was revolutionary, however, was the simple proposition as put forth by the authors of this Declaration of Independence in which they stated that "every man" (for argument's sake we are not discussing slave's and women) has the God-given right to have a representative voice in the governing of this nation.
And then, so as to ensure that demigods and simple human stupidity could not tear us asunder, they created an ingenious system of balances--no one branch can completely dominate another for things like simple math prevent this (2/3, 9, etc.).
And then, from our victorious moment against Cornwallis in Yorktown, we went forward with earnest as we crafted a nation for the people, by the poeple, of the people. Education and haute couture became acceptable while at the same time our truly American love for commercial art and pop culture crap (which existed even in 1805) managed too to set a balance between the "elite" and the empowered masses.
There were times during the 19th century when big business tycoons were winning and goverment was corrupt, yet, we survived. And, most importantly, the value of an education, the strength and necessity of a trained and enfrancised electorate, principles put forth by our revolutionary forefathers, were never in danger of being erased from the nation's mission statement.
In December 2000, a crack appeared in the evolution of our revolutionary process--the Supreme Court selected a President (the majority of whom had been put on that court by this new President's father, a former President).
In the aftermath, page by page, brick by brick, torture by torture our values as laid out in a Declaration and affirmed by the Constitution were erased from our national psyche. And, in a fashion that has proven so successful at maintaining control over the populous in modern-day Russia, Americans were made to believe that being smart (Eastern Establishment, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, etc.) was wrong.
The majority party, the ruling one, scoffed at intelligence and made fools out of anyone who used words with more than 5 letters. Being smart was dumb and being dumb was supreme--our president's inability to speak his native tongue was simply overlooked by his followers!
Yet, the new leaders under Bush are all smart men and women. They were almost genius as they had ALMOST succeeded in permanently altering our American thesis. They linked themselves to the greatest dividing factor in the modern world--man's misuse of God--and went forward pillaging all that American science and corporate R&D had accomplished over the past 100 years.
Like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where truth and facts are tailored to fit Party principles, so too did the Bushies alter reality, hide facts and just plain lie to guarantee their hold on power.
America's best, brightest and most capable for solving our national problems were not permitted to do so not because their resumes were lacking experience but because they didn't believe that George Bush was Jesus Christ, they didn't care if a man kissed another man and they believed that global warming was truly killing the world.
Barack Obama yesterday introduced us to his national security team--Mr. Gates is a Republican and voted for John McCain, his national security advisor, an ex-Marine probably also voted for McCain--and these people are truly bright, smart and have experience to carry out their missions. None of them know anything about Arabian horse, I am sure.
It is a great moment yet sadly one that should not be so great. We should never have permitted 2001 to 2009 to have happened in the first place!
I was against both George Bushes from the moment I laid eyes on them. But, for those millions of Americans who supported him and believed in him, there is another period of time, of disbelief, of regret that might be able to offer consulation--May, 1945. The German nation was rebuilding what had truly been a great nation prior to November 1933 and they too could not understand how they had fallen so far, so fast.
It's good to be smart again. Now, let's go back to the future and reverse the effects of the last 8 years.
Yet, before we can fully appreciate what we almost lost; we must come to terms with what it was they (our forefathers) gave us. To begin with, The American Revolution was not really so revolutionary. We didn't raid any villas of the rich and cut their arms and heads off. We did not appropriate businesses from the wealthy and give them to supporters of our revolutionary cause.
We did not enter into the massive homes of the wealthy and divy them up so that less-well-off families could take up residence in what used to be the pantry off the kitchen. The American Revolution was violent, of course, and even more so than we learned in school. Yet, it was really child's play in comparison to other world revolutions.
What was revolutionary, however, was the simple proposition as put forth by the authors of this Declaration of Independence in which they stated that "every man" (for argument's sake we are not discussing slave's and women) has the God-given right to have a representative voice in the governing of this nation.
And then, so as to ensure that demigods and simple human stupidity could not tear us asunder, they created an ingenious system of balances--no one branch can completely dominate another for things like simple math prevent this (2/3, 9, etc.).
And then, from our victorious moment against Cornwallis in Yorktown, we went forward with earnest as we crafted a nation for the people, by the poeple, of the people. Education and haute couture became acceptable while at the same time our truly American love for commercial art and pop culture crap (which existed even in 1805) managed too to set a balance between the "elite" and the empowered masses.
There were times during the 19th century when big business tycoons were winning and goverment was corrupt, yet, we survived. And, most importantly, the value of an education, the strength and necessity of a trained and enfrancised electorate, principles put forth by our revolutionary forefathers, were never in danger of being erased from the nation's mission statement.
In December 2000, a crack appeared in the evolution of our revolutionary process--the Supreme Court selected a President (the majority of whom had been put on that court by this new President's father, a former President).
In the aftermath, page by page, brick by brick, torture by torture our values as laid out in a Declaration and affirmed by the Constitution were erased from our national psyche. And, in a fashion that has proven so successful at maintaining control over the populous in modern-day Russia, Americans were made to believe that being smart (Eastern Establishment, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, etc.) was wrong.
The majority party, the ruling one, scoffed at intelligence and made fools out of anyone who used words with more than 5 letters. Being smart was dumb and being dumb was supreme--our president's inability to speak his native tongue was simply overlooked by his followers!
Yet, the new leaders under Bush are all smart men and women. They were almost genius as they had ALMOST succeeded in permanently altering our American thesis. They linked themselves to the greatest dividing factor in the modern world--man's misuse of God--and went forward pillaging all that American science and corporate R&D had accomplished over the past 100 years.
Like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where truth and facts are tailored to fit Party principles, so too did the Bushies alter reality, hide facts and just plain lie to guarantee their hold on power.
America's best, brightest and most capable for solving our national problems were not permitted to do so not because their resumes were lacking experience but because they didn't believe that George Bush was Jesus Christ, they didn't care if a man kissed another man and they believed that global warming was truly killing the world.
Barack Obama yesterday introduced us to his national security team--Mr. Gates is a Republican and voted for John McCain, his national security advisor, an ex-Marine probably also voted for McCain--and these people are truly bright, smart and have experience to carry out their missions. None of them know anything about Arabian horse, I am sure.
It is a great moment yet sadly one that should not be so great. We should never have permitted 2001 to 2009 to have happened in the first place!
I was against both George Bushes from the moment I laid eyes on them. But, for those millions of Americans who supported him and believed in him, there is another period of time, of disbelief, of regret that might be able to offer consulation--May, 1945. The German nation was rebuilding what had truly been a great nation prior to November 1933 and they too could not understand how they had fallen so far, so fast.
It's good to be smart again. Now, let's go back to the future and reverse the effects of the last 8 years.
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