Monday, September 22, 2008

Oh No, Mr. Bill

Oh No, Mr. Bill.
Not another new word.


Illiquid….Illiquid?….Huh?…Sick liquid? Don’t you just love these Orwellian attempts to put a happy-face on really bad things? You know, really bad things like massive bad debts that stand no chance of being satisfied. The word “Illiquid” is trying to put a positive spin on a situation that greed cooked-up with such a complicated and esoteric Ponzi scheme that it defies the normal meaning of words to explain. The shameless and faceless charlatans who conjured up this new word for public consumption, created the word to subliminally suggest a connection with a normal business type of situation where frozen or untouchable assets cannot be used to service cash flow needs. That normal situation is called a liquidity problem and even us everyday people find ourselves in this situation when we need cash but our money is tied up, for example, in a CD that cannot be redeemed until a future maturity date. A trip behind the tool shed would be a good first step for those trying to describe a Ponzi scheme that has collapsed with a word that suggests a normal business situation. Why would anyone create this word unless they were purposely trying to deceive and confuse? Because they are purposely trying to deceive and confuse so that they can engineer an even more brazen attempt to pickpocket the hapless public in order to save their ill-gotten bacon. I hope this new word does not become part of our new age lexicon like “downsizing”, “outsourcing”, “delayering”, “smartsizing” and other such horrible words have become because these words, in reality, are always a harbinger for more bad times for ordinary people.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Comming Age of the Borg

The Coming Age of the Borg

The Ballad of John Henry, Steel Driving Man

John Henry was hammering on the right side,
The big stream drill on the left,
Before that steam drill could beat him down,
He hammered his fool self to death.

Who among us could not feel a grudging kinship with the Steel Driving Man, you know, fighting the inevitable with sprit even though the outcome was as certain as death and taxes? Besides, who could feel the slightest affinity for that big mechanical steam drill that was taking a man’s livelihood away and all for the sake of the dollar that some faraway good-smelling Dude laid down so he could make even more dollars without breaking one iota of steel driving sweat. We all may crack an amused smile at the thought of a real live man actually challenging a steam machine to a steel-driving contest with only his muscle, grit and determination to match the power of steam. We smile, of course, because of the foolish nature of the contest. But then again, I wonder what most contemporary people were thinking and feeling at the time when in 1997 they witnessed a more recent contest between a real live man (Garry Kasparov) challenging a thinking contest with only his brain, grit and determination matched up with the power of billions and billions of silicon switches fastened together with the lifeless software of the chess-playing computer, Deep Blue? Somehow I think we probably feel a little differently about the thinking contest due to the contemporary and cognitive nature of the contest. But, I don’t know why! The two contests are identical and the outcomes just as inevitable! Perhaps we don’t even think the chess match was a foolish contest because of the notion that the magnificent organic thinking machine, the human brain, is surely the ultimate cognitive device that no mere machine could ever match. The human brain will surely prevail for all times just like John Henry thought his muscles could surely prevail over the mighty mechanical steam drill even though we now concede our magnificent muscles are no match for lifeless machine power. Here is a thought to muss up your day when trying to decide what to do about being outsourced by the machines of automation and all because some faraway good-smelling Dudes are still trying to make more money without breaking a contemporary sweat. John Henry and Garry Kasparov are not the only contestants in a continuing struggle between man and machine that started when Gorg rubbed two sticks together to make fire. We all are front and center in the enduring contest and so will all of our progeny. Research shows that we are loosing far more contemporary jobs to automation than jobs that are lost to distant lands where labor is cheaper and more abundant. Indeed, one of the biggest loss of jobs today is due customer outsourcing. What that’s you say? What is customer outsourcing? Customer outsourcing is transferring a job that was once done by a paid employee to a paying customer instead. Here is just one minor scenario of customer outsourcing. You drive your rattletrap Chevy to the local gas station emporium where you get out of your seat, pop in and quickly remove your Master Card or Visa (a lot of lost jobs of people taking money, counting money, bookkeeping, accounting, depositing, etc.) and wait for the computer screen to instruct you to continue. After being authorized by a great big computer somewhere that is connected by satellites, relays and God only knows what, lift the pump-handle and pump your gas (more lost jobs of gas attendants). Hell, I’m even checking myself out at the local Wally World and Home Depot and buying stuff off of the Internet by clicking a mouse and causing a massive whirling of untold computers that fetch my latest Ronco gadget, package and ship it without a single paid employee in sight. All of this is made possible by technology and (oh no Mr. Bill!) machines. Because this is a continuing process, it is less noticeable in our everyday, put the meat-on-the-table lives. For example, before the industrial revolution, well over 50% of all people in the country was working on farms while today we produce all of our food needs by less than 1% of the population, i.e., million and millions of jobs lost to machines and we rarely think about the farm job losses as we rant about all of our current jobs going to China, India and machines. And the non-physical jobs like engineering, accounting, marketing, research are also being outsourced to machines and cheaper labor, so no one is immune to job loss except the rich (that is if you believe making money off of money constitutes a job). I think you get the picture and if you get the picture then you know that contemporary job losses will continue on at an ever-accelerating rate and due mostly to automation (machines). What to do? Hell, I don’t know either but I do know that at some distant point in the future the Cyborgs will have all of the jobs and I really don’t know how humans will make a living. That’s right John Henry:
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE,
YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED!

Friday, September 12, 2008

OBL and the 3rd Deadly Sin

OBL and the 3rd Deadly Sin


Remember the movie Wall Street? Remember the famous scene that has Michael Douglas playing the role of Corporate raider Gordon Gekko and Gekko stands up before the hapless hard working people of Teldar Paper and delivers the famous line: “The point is, Ladies and Gentlemen, that greed --- for lack of a better word --- is good!”
I remember it well. I remember it because to me it was such a perfect example of how the glib and self-assured charlatans of this world get honest people to start believing that a vice, like greed, is in reality, a virtue. Once these Flimflammers can manage that trick, then it’s relatively easy for them to convince the gullible that they are being “cheated” by not being virtuous (greedy) enough and demand their fair share that Mr. Gekko alone knows how to obtain. Of course, all of this nonsense was in reality only a ruse because Mr. Gekko was not really interested in fairness or the welfare of the people. Gekko, in truth, only needed the people to believe in what he was saying so that they would do his bidding. All of this manipulation of good “honest” people was, of course, solely designed to eventually satisfy Mr. Gekko’s own virtuous greed. Never mind that a Company that had sustained the people for many years would most likely be destroyed in the process. Hard work and sacrifice is so old fashioned in the new economy because all you really have to do is listen to those like Mr. Gekko and wondrous riches can be yours, if you only believe. I listed greed as a vice, but we all know that greed was the third of the seven deadly sins. I know we don’t really like to talk about deadly sins all that much but to refresh our memories about these vices, I have listed them in order: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride. Greed has, without a doubt, replaced hard work and sacrifice as the engine that is now driving our unbridled Capitalism and let me say without reservation that unbridled Capitalism is just as poisonous to society as unbridled Socialism could ever be. Lets look at some of the dismal results that greed has fathered and unbridled Capitalism has fostered that will, unfortunately, be the legacy we stand to leave to our children and grandchildren to sort out. The national public debt now stands at $9,698,267,795,301 as of 9/11/2008. America’s total debt, pubic and private, now stands at $53,000,000,000,000 and is increasing at about $4.3 trillion per year. Hell, I can remember when the late Senator Dirksen of Illinois was reported to have said “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money”, and now here we are talking about a trillion here, a trillion there. Are these trillions really money? You bet they are. They are our 401ks, our IRAs, our retirement funds, our insurance money, our equity funds and on and on. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not smart enough to know what is really going on here, but one thing I do know with perfect clarity and certainty, when people like Mr. Grekko (Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, et al) and Flimflammers (Politicians) tell us every thing is OK and just believe in what they say and we all can continue to “get something for nothing” (debt with no hope of repaying), I know we are in big trouble. However, I do know what real money is. It is the exchange for work and other things of value for a certificate we all agree has the same value as work or property and in so doing, facilitates the operation of an economy. Money relies exclusively upon the faith and trust of the people that money is as valuable as their hard work, property and sacrifice. When you think about it for a while it becomes obvious that money is in reality the basis of an authorized official Ponzi scheme that operates on faith and trust, and as long as things are in balance or value is always increasing, it works just fine. But when faith and trust begins to wane and money loses it’s value, the scheme begins to falter and if faith and trust isn’t restored in a timely manner, the whole scheme begins to cascades into an unstoppable demise. I believe we are now seeing the beginning of the cascade into ruin. Here is some evidence of the cascade and the impending ruin that it portents. Lehman Brothers, a 158 year-old investment bank, has lost 95% of it value due to greed and will no doubt fail and billion of dollars will disappear. Bear Stearns Companies, an 85 year-old investment company that was one of the world’s largest, has failed resulting in the loss of untold billions. Fannie May and Freddie Mac, a government sponsored and backed investment entity, has failed and precipitated a takeover by the Government with even more borrowed money (will someone tell our Government that you really can’t pay off a credit card with a credit card) resulting in untold loss of billions of dollars and property. Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual are next up on the failure docket with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler floundering as foreign companies complete their takeover of our last manufacturing capabilities. Need I go on? Unadulterated greed is the basis for all of this mess we find ourselves in, and that unbridled Capitalism has facilitated, be it individual greed or the collective greed of an electorate that buys into the notion that it can get “something for nothing” at the expense of others. So, if I were Osama bin Laden hiding in a cave somewhere planning our demise, I would not bother. Just wait a little while longer and the 3rd deadly sin, greed, will do the job just nicely.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Can't Do America

Can’t Do America

Have you ever gotten yourself into an unpleasant, dangerous or compromised situation, and while struggling to repair your position, reflected on how you managed to get into such an awful mess in the first place? I think we all have experienced a number of these “reality” offerings simply because we are all Standard Issue, Mark 1, Mod 0, Human type persons and while these unpleasant situations may well become a positive lesson-learned opportunity, most of us would just as soon be spared the “hard-knock” lesson that our Parents and Grandparents warned us about with waving fingers and the nodding gray heads for wise emphasis. One thing that is almost always certain about getting into most of these situations, is that the getting there is nearly without fail a slow and meandering process, and not a flash-bang, out of the blue thing that finally propels the uninitiated into an acknowledgement that all is not well. In other words, we almost always have been fully warned by converging events, large and small, about the coming happiness-interruption, if only we are wise enough to recognize the storm-clouds swirling about us for what they are and vigorous enough to make an effective change to prevent misfortune from having its merry day at our tranquil expense. So you ask, “What has all of this got to do with a Can’t Do America? Well if you think about it for a moment or two you will realize that the good old US of A is not a merely a place or thing, it is in reality, an amalgamation of standard issue, Mark 1, Mod 0, Human type persons that has a collective behavior not unlike anyone of its unique Human parts and can get into unpleasant, dangerous or compromised situations with the same ease as you and me. And my fellow Americans, we as a Country, have most definitely meandered into a number of unpleasant, dangerous and compromised situations without the wisdom or vigor to marshal the wherewithal to propel ourselves out of the mess we now find our country in. Just like your Great Aunt Betsy, who told you with bad breath and a weathered hand, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”, that same road to hell for a country can likewise be traveled upon that have been paved with the collective cobble stones of “Good Intentions” and all laid down by a collection of Americans with sweetened breath and manicured hands that have somehow managed to acquired incredible power and persuasion without the necessity of being responsible for what they do. The fact is now obvious that the seemingly good intentions of environmentalists, one-world government advocates, naturalists, and other like “I know what is best for all of us” people and organizations, has so hobbled and muscle-bound this country with their “Good Intentions” that instead of the traditional Can Do America, we have become, for all practical purposes, the Can’t Do America. How on earth could we have conceived, planned and built the 6,636,360 Square Foot Pentagon in only sixteen Months and today we would not even begin the process of an environment impact statement for the project in sixteen months (has the Pentagon building wrecked the environment sans an environmental impact statement)? The situation reminds me of the pathetic “Help me, I’ve fallen and can’t get up” advertisement that can juxtapose a weak and helpless person bound by the infirmities of old age into a clueless and helpless behemoth that can’t get up and going because it is bound by the infirmities of an ever expanding infinity of laws. This has come about because each “Good Intention” faction has learned how to use the power of the money/power grubbing legal and judiciary system, aided and abetted by the ideologues and money grubbers in the fifth estate, to effectively block any action, including those of other “Good Intention” factions, that does not support their particular advocacy. And so all that occurs is that we can’t do this or we can’t do that and all because irresponsible people have somehow obtained the power to stop anything or anyone. Of course all of this can’t do nonsense uses up the precious intellectual and capital treasure of this country that should be used for positive Can Do purposes but instead is utterly wasted in epic and useless battles of such esoteric nonsense that even the reason for the battle is no longer important in the quest for power and advocacy (not unlike the great debate of how many Angles can fit on the head of a pin). And never forget, most of the battles being fought are not necessarily being fought for the purpose stated, for example, the One World Government advocates will enthusiastically support the Environmentalists goals as a vehicle to devise laws and policy that can eventually subjugate a Country’s sovereignty to a global sovereignty under the guise of Environment Protection and therefore satisfy the One World Government goals. Even if I knew how to fix our current Can’t Do malady and could support my remedy with irrefutable logic, legal and Constitutional support, it would do no good because it takes enlightened leadership to effect real change. The self-serving Yahoos who wrap themselves in leadership clothes nowadays in order to further their lust for power and wealth are hardly the giants needed to get us back to Can Do America. But you know what, we are the ones who let this situation happen because a Country is not a place or thing, it is amalgamation of Standard Issue, Mark 1, Mod 0 Human type people and it takes people to made real change.