Peace and Carats

On the Recovery Circuit, it is suggested that the ‘-ism’ of alcoholism stands for Incredibly Short Memory.  I will argue that it stands for Incredibly Short Memory with other -ism’s as well, including but not limited to activism, evangelism, communism and corporatism. 

On the chance that it resonates with anyone but me, otherwise just for the hell of it, I re-print a piece I wrote before bailout bucks commenced flying out of Congress like so much candy out of a pinata.  I do stand corrected on the matter of money not simply disappearing.  A lot of money DID “simply” disappear — I did not realize just how much of the “money” wasn’t money at all, but leverage-read-that-accounting-entries.  Make no mistake, though, a lotta lotta REAL money “simply” changed hands.

THE PLURAL OF WOLF IS WOLVES
26 September 2008

Certainly the urgency of the “run up” to the Great Bailout is reminiscent of our reaction to another terrorist attack.  Schizophrenic overkill and underkill, like the Addicts that we are.

There are traders and bankers…and appraisers, and real estate agents and loan officers and risk managers and government officials, who are SUPPOSED to be risk managers…who both contributed to The Mess (Disaster has been overused, like Whatever, and like) AND who profited from The Mess.

It is less that we should be bailing people OUT of their problems, but locking people up for CREATING the problems.  Laws have been broken.  Shit like this doesn’t just happen.  Check these people, WHO ARE PAID A LOT OF MONEY TO SEE THAT SHIT LIKE THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN, saying that we “find” ourselves between a rock and a hard place.  “We” “have” to do “something.”

I have a theory that far oftener than Anonymous Sources blow whistles, they throw shit at walls to see what will stick.

Bull Shit, More Shit, Piled high and Deep.

PAST DUE WAGES THAT HAVE BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED WITH I.O.U.’S SHALL BECOME SECURITIES?  TO BE TRADED AT FAIR-I-USE-THE-TERM-LOOSELY MARKET VALUES?  Lemme get this straight . . . wages are to be discounted, with financiers to take a cut?  Hank The Ban

Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck.  Obviously.  Who can have forgotten about THE DEBT under which everyone is staggering?  People are in arrears, people are on the edge, PEOPLE NEED CASH TO FLOAT THEIR BOATS.  Who cannot see that people will be motivated to trade I.O.U.’s which signify a specified earned wage for LESS than the amount contracted?  This is BLATANTLY a scheme to discount the wages of American labor  to reflect the downward adjustment of “all asset classes.”  In other words, by the Fraud Factor.

One is too many and a million are not enough is said about a drink for an alcoholic.  America is inarguably a Nation of Addicts.  I will say the same about outraged calls and letters to Officialdom, one is too many and a million are not enough.  Just say NO.  Just say . . .

THE FAIR MARKET VALUE OF THOSE I.O.U.’S IS THE FACE VALUE, NOTHING LESS.

We boycott independence every other day of the last several years, we can damn well boycott Independence Day.

That WE is Royal, by the by. I no longer consider myself to be ideologically related to many of my countrymen. No matter.  The American Revolutionary War, by which we became a sovereign nation and the fruits of which we are kicking to the curb like a first wife, was apparently fought and won by three percent of the population.

Let’s get this straight. RIGHT IS ALWAYS OUTNUMBERED AND/OR OUTGUNNED. It’s been that way for all of recorded history. We ourselves are perpetually at war. We have every reason to believe that RIGHT WILL BE OUTNUMBERED AND/OR OUTGUNNED FOR THE MEANINGFUL FUTURE. Which is to say all of our lifetimes.

I have contempt for anyone who celebrates Independence Day this year. Demonstrate? Excellent. Agitate? Three percent. Boycott?  Are we kidding me?

EVERYONE WHO IS NOT A LOYALIST, A PROFITEER, AN OPPORTUNIST OR A CHOWDER HEAD SHOULD BOYCOTT THE FOURTH OF JULY.

We are NOT independent. We are so not independent that we file applications for PERMITS TO DEMONSTRATE INDEPENDENCE. If the supremely ironic PERMIT TO DEMONSTRATE INDEPENDENCE is not granted, by and large and pathetically, we stand down.

We make me sick.

I reckon that makes me a Three Percenter.

Some things just stand to Reason.  When this side is telling you that, and that side is telling you this, ponder what stands to Reason.  For one thing, it stands to Reason that we have brains for a reason.  Use ‘em or lose ‘em.

The “deleveraging” process in which we “find” ourselves?  That’s BAD DEBT that is being unraveled . . . the more slowly owing to the continued blitzes by Advertisers AND Government commanding us to buy, Buy, BUY.  

WHO is not clear that More, More, More, Waste, Indulgence, New & Improved, Extravagance, This Year’s Model, Recklessness, Bigger, Better, Faster, Greed, GREED and MORE GREED lie beneath the bullshit through which we are daily slogging?  WHO THE FUCK IS NOT CLEAR ON THIS POINT?  Call me.  Seriously.  Eight-oh-eight, 205-9447.

And STILL  . . . I can scarcely believe my ears . . . I hear shopper-pleasers like “No Money Down” and “No Payments Until Whenever.”  You know what I want?  I want a cross-reference between the Players in the Mortgage Meltdown and the Players in Loan Modification.  The names that appear on both lists are EXACTLY with whom to begin criminal investigations, with an eye on relieving people of licenses to practice where pertinent (”luckily,” we have plenty of qualified Unemployed to fill their loafers) and of tossing particularly dirty white collars in with the orange-clad crowd.

For corrupt politicians and corrupt executives alike, I favor Lifetime Bans from politics, finance and law.

If we will avoid a repeat of this financial fiasco, which follows on the S&L fiasco, which follows on a previous bailout of Detroit, WE MUST TAKE THE BAD GUYS TO TASK.  The alleged Credit Crisis has always paled beside the CONFIDENCE CRISIS.

But separately . . . even if we could punish all the scoundrels and slay all the dragons . . . the Belt Tightening remains.  In the same way that we have no ethical or practical choice but to vanquish our Made In America Bad Guys, we have no ethical or practical choice but to CURTAIL SPENDING.

Curtailed Spending and Strategic Boycotts go together like . . . well, like Hank the Bank Paulson and Tiny Tim Geithner.

Money talks.  Withholding money hollers right back.

If there will be Justice, without which we will at a later date mimic this “financial crisis” like a funhouse mirror, the American economy SHOULD get substantially worse before it gets better.

All this meddling and micromanaging, aside from bolstering yesterday’s ineptitude by undermining tomorrow’s productivity, serves chiefly to mitigate the losses of the richest and most rapacious men on earth. They went overboard, like Midas. An exhilarating ride gone off the tracks — reminds me of the old Wild Mouse ride, at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk back in the day. HAIR RAISING.

Now we’re all scrambling like chickens with our heads cut off trying desperately to interrupt as little as possible the same reckless spending that got us into trouble in the first place. In order to keep the same kingpins in their dominant positions, albeit with everyone’s numbers adjusted by the Creative Accounting Index. This is Theater of the Absurd, nothing less.

My countrymen are cowards, nothing more.

Unmitigated Assholes are not only freewheeling with impunity, they are being hyper rewarded with bailouts and bonuses. Soft, spoiled, and selfish, an apparently commanding majority of Americans are prepared to let it slide so long as their personal prosperity and security can be re-established . . . albeit with everyone’s numbers slashed by the Cheating Index. Please don’t hurt us.  

“Not in the face” has been replaced by “Don’t take my remote control.”

Government agencies investigate one another. Police investigate their own brutality. Federal Falderal. I’m coining that term, right here and now — captured in the bowels of the electronic archives that my sneaky, pervy Uncle Sam is collecting. The other day, I coined Slackerocity.  I coined it at a Board That Shall Not Be Named unless its elder statesmen start standing up for women when Hostile Sexists spew their venom.  I confirmed coinage of Slackerocity in an email.  Here’s what I know.  If I said something on a Board and confirmed it by email and it offended my sneaky, pervy Uncle Sam, he wouldn’t hesitate to declare it sufficient grounds to persecute me.  He would assert with the clout of his iron fist that my damning words were a MATTER OF RECORD.  So too, then, with Federal Falderal and Slacerocity.  I am ON RECORD.

See, I have had an Epiphany.  I’ll get to all the paperwork when and if I get to all the paperwork.  Life is short and the world is big, and we are wasting both while Political High Flyers fly high on the backs of the Working Poor.  And I’ve got hard news for you-You.  I don’t care WHAT your lifestyle — it matters not, how modest OR HOW GRAND — if all you do is work in order to keep that boat afloat and your own nose above water, you are Working Poor.

When Henry Paulson browbeat Congress into authorizing a blank check for TARP funds, a lot of the scare was that companies would not be able to meet bankroll without passage of the Welfare Wizardry.  Why are we not talking about the APPALLING revelation that so many organizations which accrue payroll liability do not have the next payroll banked?  Will the people with the perky parachutes please ponder what is liable to happen if a large workforce that lives hand-to-mouth puts in two weeks’ labor only to discover that there is no money to cover their paychecks?  Municipal Mayhem, that’s what. 

Shy of Force, there is only one venue to play hardball and it’s the marketplace.

That is why before America attacks a mutinous-some-might-say-willful country, “we” impose Economic Sanctions.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  Yes, well.  I am having Technical Difficulty.  That is why I am purposefully looking for a partner.  ”All things being equal,” what pussy-footing equivocator came up with THAT qualifier?  All things are NEVER equal.  Or, FINE . . . all things being equal, I’ll take a Great Man.  With technical aptitude.

I watched an interview of author Paul Theroux on C-SPAN awhile back, who had elected against incorporating photographs that would detract from “purple prose.”  A thousand words, it is . . . a little over 900 to go.

If the photos would have uploaded cooperatively . . . after I actually remembered to charge the camera batteries and bothered to take the photos . . . they would have depicted an electronic fork, a fireplace remote control and a laundry room wall hanging that spells out l-a-u-n-d-r-y.  That’s it .  .  . an item that someone thought to manufacture and that someone DID manufacture and that someone thought to buy and that someone DID buy.  And, I suspect, that someone else received as a gift whereupon the recipient uttered to themselves a heartfelt, “You shouldn’t have . . . really.”

By electronic fork, I mean a long handled fork with a digital temperature gauge in the handle.  Presumably, sticking this fork in cooking meat will see the meat’s interior temperature travel up the fork frame and register on a digital thermometer, OR, maybe one sets the digital thermometer to what constitutes DONE and the fork beeps when the meat has attained target temperature.  I couldn’t say for sure — I have never seen that widget before.

A remote control FOR A GAS FIREPLACE?  Dispensing with the gathering of wood and the building/maintaining of a fire is not the Super Duper level of New & Improved.  No siree, now ya don’t even gotta get up and walk across the room.  Ingenious.  Well done.  You shouldn’t have . . . really.

If Americans will correct rather than camouflage their economy, they will get serious about getting Back To Basics.

‘Days of Wine and Roses’ sounds good, does it not?  Watch the movie.  Substance Abuse, thy other name is Conspicuous Consumption.  Believe you me, I know a Last Gasper when I meet one.

We hit bottom, or we continue the run.  The former is a bitch, and the latter is worse.  The upside of hitting a real bottom instead of scraping along false bottom after contrived bottom is that the people who contributed most to the crisis in which we “find” ourselves will take the biggest hit.

As they should.  Consequences R Teachers.

These are not Conspicuous Consumption Days.  Unless it’s in the Third World.  The G-20 leaders couldn’t have been more crass about developing nations needing to step up to the consumption plate.  You bet.  That’s a lotta cell phones and overpriced sneakers and torn jeans.  And a lotta Starbucks and McDonalds and Exxon Mobil.  If we leave the Ruling Elite to their machinations, the Average American’s standard of living will stagnate while BILLIONS of people catch up the new-fashioned way . . . by taxpayer-funded government largesse.

For Americans, these are Days of Belt Tightening, Recycling, Reconstituting and Repairing.

Americans are not obliged to surrender Greatness, just because Connivers would trade it for personal gain.

Fewer than 525 words.  UNDER budget, what a concept.

Count me IN on the Fundraising game.

No lie, a buck apiece.  I am nigh upon the three-year mark of wielding my metaphorical sword of astute observation serrated by rapier wit.  In the manner of chumps throughout history, I have been doing for no money but a Good Cause.  In the manner of a lapsed Catholic recovering alcoholic, I’ll see yer Stupidity and raise ya Martyrdom.  I am PAYING to play the game.  

To quote a once-upon-a-time Rooomie, “Fuck that for a laugh.”  British.  Starving Artist Daze.  Fun fun fun, ’til they weren’t.  People need to get out more when they’re younger — meet people, see the world, get smart.  Oldsters should be doin’ the office holding . . . with all the glamor of jury duty.  And for the same price, with a beats-sittin’-at-home cheerfulness.  My considered opinion.  

That should be a given, yes?  That I speak MY mind, MY Truth.  There are VERY few Inarguables.  I grant 2 + 2 = 4, and all that follows provably by equation.  I grant certain Laws of Science, eh?  Otherwise I’d be a European Monarchical Nincompoop who would refuse to fund Christopher Columbus’s adventuring on certainty that the world was flat.  I have crossed the mid-century mark.  I have only to look at my own face and body to know that Gravity is Fact.  I grant that which follows provably from Fact.  Otherwise electricity would scare the bejeezus out of me, and a camera would steal my soul.

After that, it’s a marketplace of Ideas.  I am noticing some strong arming of competition, by the by.  When Bad Guys freewheel with impunity, Bullies can be relied to come out to play.  Like looters after a natural disaster. 

Even if I were positioned to continue to work/live “for free,” which I am not — thanks every bit as much to freewheeling Bad Guys as to my perversity for gravitating to them — I see clearly and feel strongly that working “for free” is corrosive to Capitalism.  I see clearly and feel strongly that Capitalism is the best economic system thus far sort of defined by sustained application REALLY SORT OF principles.  Peek-a-boo principles, that’s what we have.

Too, I already put in my time working for free — and got kicked in the teeth for it.  Life is not for Sissies.  Or it’s COMPLETELY for Sissies, which is the path on which this Effete Elite Administration, like the previous Effete Elite Administration, has us skating wildly along.  Look Ma, no hands!  LOOK MA, NO BRAKES!!

A bona fide well-wisher said to me lately, in an I-love-how-you-are-but-perhaps-you-should-change way, that I have no brakes.

I’m taking advice to heart, believe you me.  I have also put in my time banging my head against a brick wall.

Brakes.  Here.  Me.  Now.

It takes a lot of discipline to be free, I’ve learned that.

People will pay me to write online — “for free,” instead of selling books — or I will find something else to do that DOES cause money to flow through my coffers as needed.   

If I make you laugh even once in awhile, it’s work a dollar.  That’s what I’m going for, tiny amounts in staggering number.  Laughs are hard to come by.  So is honesty.  I’m bringing both to the table, plus an uncommon flair with the English language.  

The CoughUp button in the right-hand menu opens a PayPal page.  Yeah, I know.  It scared me too and kinda still does.  You don’t have to open a PayPal account.  You can use other credit cards.  But I GET IT about not wanting to use credit cards online.  Or at all.  The matter of my not writing online for free remains.  Decisions, decisions.  I need to make a decision that is contingent on the decision of others.  Is my musing/writing/blogging online — without advertising and absent affiliation, it bears mention — worth one dollar to enough people to make it economically viable? If not, there are alternative and better ways to focus myself and direct my resources, such as they are.  Talk about the School Of Hard Knocks, eh? 

But MUCH better all the way around if you would be so kind as to SEND one dollar . . . one increasingly worthless Federal Reserve Note . . .to the address below.  I appreciate that between envelope and stamp and time, this is more like a two-dollar commitment.  But when the going gets tough, desperate times call for measure of improvisation that celebrate the present as the start of the rest of your life, which is unfair.  Something like that.

Implausible Endeavors LLC
8306 Wilshire Blvd. PMB 46
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

You won’t like everything I say, but I think you will never suspect me of pulling punches, covering up or side stepping. I’m irritating, like your conscience, but I’m honest.  Trust me on this, cash and honesty will send the IRS into what my CPA father used to call CONNIPTION FITS.  

That alone is worth a buck.

There are some no-brainer ways to get this economy percolating, yet we steadfastly do not do them. Why ever could that BE? Hmmm, lemme think. /frowns in concentration/

Okay, SINCE WASHINGTON ONLY KNOWS HOW TO THROW MONEY AND REGULATIONS AT A PROBLEM, I’ll hazard a theory.

The problem is two-fold.

1.) Rank-and-file think we can pull this off without some serious belt-tightening.

2.) Ruling Elite thinks it can remain intact.

Barack Obama’s designs for redistributing wealth are economically unsound. Barack Obama himself, The Product, is economically unsound. Longest campaign in history. Spendingest campaign in history. Ten inaugural balls. How do you keep topping that?

Spend MORE, of course.

It is not sustainable. Barack Obama is another bubble.

Let us PLEASE get serious. There are ACTUAL HUMANS who are at the heartless heart of this debacle. Let us roll up our sleeves, and let us do what needs to be done. There are some high-flyin’ quick-talkin’ executives who need to go to federal penitentiaries, right after their ill-gotten assets have been seized, and their families have been tossed into the street. And there are plenty of slick, insincere middle nouveau riche management whizzes — real estate agents, appraisers, loan officers and such — who need to have their licenses yanked. Or I declare that licensing is meaningless, and suggest that up-and-comers should save themselves the rigors AND FEES of securing them.

It is the PERFECT time for wholesale firings of corrupt, lackadaisical, inept and/or inefficient Middle Management AND Federal Employees. We’ve got TRAIN LOADS of Quality Unemployed, Made In America.

Sic the IRS on THEM rather than us. In fact, outlaw the the “career” of Tax Attorney, and oblige all those guys to do some “volunteering” at the IRS. Everyone’s taxes done, for free, by the same people operating with the same rules, period.

I’ll be gettin’ round to the SANITY, LOGIC, REASON AND JUSTICE of a Flat Tax, as anyone who has had to endure my rantings already knows.

Anyone who is ANYONE knows that there are powers behind the throne. Those shadowy kingpins of the ages can relax and call off the dogs, mainly. No one really wants capital-C Change (except the poor countries, who are all for our handing over the lifestyle that we earned with blood, sweat and tears), no one really wants to upset the apple cart (except our OWN freeloaders who, like other downtrodden peoples, stand to benefit mightily from the largesse of Barack Hussein Obama (who now jetsets with the Swells who are above the fray) — it couldn’t be more clear that the American people have no stomach for war when it’s on their OWN turf.

But things done got outta hand. Money is one more addiction in a Nation of Addicts. Those who looked the other way while Bad Guys, real Stinkers, sold America down the river are gonna have to give some of those Bad Boys up. Some people HAVE to take the hit. Some people HAVE to go down.

Look only to the banking scandal of the Eighties to know there is no other way.

I’m makin’ a business out of Dragon Slaying, and I’d appreciate some moral and financial support.