On The Money; What’s Wrong With Economists

On The Money;

Economics for the 99%

What’s Wrong With Economists

Most economists write for policy wonks, not regular people. While they study consumer behavior and worker productivity, they have little, if anything, to say to consumers or workers. They might have something to say to voters, but only because they endorse a policy favored by a particular candidate. Economists write their books for the candidates, the political think-tanks, the rich and powerful and their advisers, but not for us, the 99%.

 

While economists may have some respect for you as a voter, as a worker, producer and consumer, you are simply a pawn to them. Something to be pushed around by fiscal policy, corporate coercion, and government taxation. Your life, energy, time, creativity and spirit mean no more to them than so many barrels of oil, tons of molybdenum or bushels of corn, and they don’t write economics books for bushels of corn.

 

To economists you are just a commodity to be bought and sold, consumed and discarded, just another anonymous drone, toiling away at meaningless work, in an empty life that you fill with pointless consumption. They don’t want you to read their books. They want you to go shopping, and let them, along with Americas smartest and greediest, worry about what’s best for the economy.

 

As a result, we now have an economy engineered entirely to help the richest and greediest acquire more. This economy demands that the rest of us sacrifice more and more of our lives, and our planet, every year, for their benefit. No, economists don’t want us to read their books, they want us to spend more time at work, more money for housing, and more money for health care. They want us to accept lower wages, give up job security, and to get used to being disposable.

That’s how they save “the economy”. As soon as we get used to working longer and harder for less, accept the destruction of the environment as a necessary evil, and learn to step around the human garbage left in their wake, the economy will be fine. Isn’t that great! As long as we’re willing to sacrifice our lives for it, the economy will be just fine.

Yet, too many of us still worry about “the economy”. Is it growing? How fast is it growing? Are prices rising? How’s the stock market? Who worries about us?

Why does it cost so much, just to have a place to live? How do the long hours I spend at work affect my family? How much of my current lifestyle would I choose, were I not economically coerced into working full time? How will global climate change affect my quality of life, or my children’s? Mightn’t I appreciate a clean environment more, if I had more time to enjoy it? Should I participate in a system in which I have no value, except as an exploitable resource? Why should economic growth trump all of these real human concerns? Whose job is it to think about these things? Not economists, that’s for sure.

How can you leverage maximum productivity from employees? How will environmental regulation effect energy prices? How does depression and suicide effect corporate earnings? That’s how economists look at these problems, and that’s why economists suck.

In On The Money, Economics For the 99%, I take the radical position that economics is about people, and how they interact with each other and the environment. Instead of simply looking for ways to help the rich and powerful increase, and accelerate the flow of money into their own bank accounts, On The Money; Economics for the 99% exposes the fundamental flaws in the capitalist system that have led to the gross inequality, and catastrophic environmental destruction that define our time. On the Money; Economics for the 99% shows you how to reclaim your life and liberate the world from the greedy clutches of the 1%, one step at a time.

On The Money, Cheap Calories

On The Money;

Economic Advice for the 99%

Cheap Calories

 

Its official. July 2012 was the hottest month in history. The last 12 months have been the hottest year in history. With the Olympics going on right now, it seems like a great time to break records, don’t you think? Maybe it’s time we gave Global Climate Crisis a gold medal for its performance this year, now that half the counties in the US have been declared disaster areas because of the heat, violent weather events, wildfires and drought.

 

I think Global Climate Crisis has really proven that it has what it takes to beat war, disease, poverty or political oppression, hands down. We’ll call the event “biggest threat to life on Earth”. This relative newcomer to the pestilence field has had to overcome a lot of obstacles to even be considered a contender, but this summer’s performance has really done a lot to remove those doubts.

 

NOAA’s chief climate scientist, James Hanson, says that this summer provides statistical proof that global climate change is real, and that it is man-made. However, if you don’t believe the evidence of your own eyes, and have gotten used to dismissing climate scientists as alarmist, Chicken Little types, statistical proof probably won’t change your opinion either. Such is the nature of denial. Reality doesn’t affect it much.

 

So, if you like triple digit temperatures, bizarre new weather events, dust-bowl-like droughts and giant wildfires, you are in luck, because we’re going to see a lot more of them. Yes, global climate change is likely to be more fun than you ever imagined. So get ready for some climate excitement, and be sure to thank the 1% for turning up the global thermostat.

 

Last year they gave us the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The year before that, it was the BP oil gusher in in the Gulf of Mexico. I can hardly wait to see what happens next year, because it only gets worse from here, but what do they get out of it?

 

Why do the 1% keep investing in fossil fuels, nuclear power, and GMO crops for that matter, even though it will almost certainly have disastrous long-term consequences? After all, if the richest 1% of us can’t take the long view, and base their decisions and devote their resources towards what’s best for the survival of life on Earth in the long run, who can?

 

Remember, that we, the 99% are just now figuring out that the 1% are ripping us off, destroying our planet, and ruining our lives, but the 1% have known that all along. The 1% knows that their empire would crumble, and that we would kill them if we ever get out from under their thumb. They really do have their hands full keeping all of us in line. Enslaving 7 billion people takes a lot of energy, and so, energy, not life on Earth, remains their highest priority.

 

If you want to watch the 1% in action in your life, look for the cheap energy. Gasoline, diesel fuel, grid electricity, natural gas, propane, aviation fuel. We wouldn’t have any of these without the 1%. Drilling platforms, nuclear power plants, oil refineries, etc. all take big capital, and the kind of government support that only really big money can afford. Whether you eat them, burn them in your car, use them to dry your clothes, watch TV, surf the internet, or fly to Miami, those cheap calories work to undermine the value of everything we do a human beings.

 

How so? Simple, you can’t possibly do as much work, in one day, as a gallon of gasoline. At today’s prices, that means your labor is worth less than $4 a day. That’s one way that cheap calories undermine your value as a human being. Cheap calories means it doesn’t cost much to ship jobs overseas to the cheapest labor markets, or to ship products and resources to the highest bidders, and cheap calories means our population continues to expand.

 

Cheap edible calories means most of us don’t ever struggle to find enough to eat. Instead, we struggle not to eat too much. By keeping food artificially plentiful, with capital intensive agribusiness techniques like high-tech factory farms, GMO food crops, and monoculture on a massive scale, the 1% has removed any sense of of our connection to the carrying capacity of of the land. As a result, global human population continues to explode exponentially, further lowering the value of any one individual.

 

So, if you want to see the 1% at work in your life, look at the places you find cheap calories; the gas station, grocery store, your electric bill, the corner convenience store or fast food restaurant. You’ll find cheap calories everywhere, and everywhere you find cheap calories, you’ll find the 1% using them to control your life and wreck your planet. Cheap calories cheapen life, and the 1% feeds them to you to keep you under control. There’s a view of the energy crisis that’s On The Money

ON The Money; Getting Emotional

On The Money;

Economic Advice for the 99%

Getting Emotional

In our culture, reason reigns supreme. In school they teach us to value reason, logic, and rational thinking, but they teach us to control our emotions, to keep them to ourselves, and not to let them interfere with our work. While the rational mind constantly gets rewarded through good grades, high-paying jobs, etc, our emotional responses, especially negative emotional responses, invoke scorn and discipline. We learn to override our emotional responses early in life, but we have emotions for a reason, and often they carry a lot of wisdom.

 

We learned to override our emotional aversion to school, which made it easier to override our emotional aversion to work. Pretty soon we start to recognize the thump of our heart, as it hits the bottom of a pit of despair, as the call of duty, and we do what we’re supposed to. We learn to expect life to suck. We rationalize it. We invent ethical codes and religions around it. We say it builds character, but have you looked around lately? I see more shallow, greedy, status conscious, small-minded idiots every day, and we here in the US work harder than anyone in the developed world. Is that the kind of character we need more of?

 

We learn how to pretend we like it, saying we love our job, doing extra work and kissing ass to prove it. We learn how to cope with life as a wage slave, while our desires, hopes and dreams turn to bitter resentment. After a while, when your emotions finally realize that you’ll never to listen to them, it all turns to depression. Depression sells pharmaceutical drugs like no other condition on Earth. If you have it, its why you can’t afford to be without health insurance. If you don’t have it, its why you can’t afford health insurance.

 

Depression, refers to the complete loss of enthusiasm for life. You may think emotions are inconvenient, silly, or irrelevant, but when your emotions give up on you, nothing else matters. Your emotions are smarter than they look, but they deserve close scrutiny. If your emotions are telling you to buy something, chances are they are being manipulated.

 

After almost 100 years of subliminal manipulation of our emotions through advertizing and mass media, we often find our emotions working at cross-purposes with our best interests. The 1% uses your emotions against you through a campaign of very sophisticated psychological warfare, carried out through advertizing and media. As a result, the more media you consume, the more inadequate you feel, the more needy you feel, and the more stuff you want.

 

Watching TV instantly turns you into the ugliest, poorest and dullest person in the room, by filling the room with sexy, witty, well-dressed people who completely ignore you. Don’t invite them into your home! Even though they seem to ignore you, everything they say and do is designed to take advantage of you, and use your emotions against you.

 

Not only has the field of psychology completely failed to help the millions of people who suffer from serious mental illness, they have induced mental illness in millions more by collaborating with business to manipulate buying, voting, driving, smoking, or any other kind of behavior they choose. Psychology is not about understanding the mind, psychology is the study of behavior, and how to manipulate it. Right now, thousands of college educated psychologists, with mortgages and student loans to pay off, are telling their bosses how much they love their job, and really knocking themselves out to find new ways to manipulate your behavior, by using your emotions against you.

 

While real rich, snooty obnoxious people might make snide comments about you while they drink all your booze and grind their cigarette butts into your carpet, they wouldn’t have an army of mad scientists orchestrating every word and movement purely for the purpose of taking advantage of you. It really pays dividends in your sanity to strictly limit your exposure to mass media, because that’s how the 1% turns your emotions against you, and you need your emotions on your side.

 

Its worth examining your emotions, because sometimes they well up from the very fiber of your being, and that emotion always has your best interest at heart. Your heart instinctively knows what’s best for you, and it will tell you so. On the other hand, if your heart’s not in it, get your body, mind, time and money out of it as well, and quit telling yourself how much you love it. Remember “the pursuit of happiness”? You will not find happiness by plunging yourself headlong into misery, day in and day out, no matter how much it pays, how proud it makes your parents, or how secure it makes you feel.

 

While you read On The Money; Economic advice for the 99%, pay attention to how your heart reacts to the ideas in this column. If you hear that little voice inside you say “Yes!”, “Right On!”, or even “That’d be nice.” when you read the ideas I present here, it’s because these ideas resonate with who we are as human beings, and our hearts remember what it was like to have meaningful, satisfying lives, instead of working ourselves to death for meaningless stuff.

 

In On The Money; Economic Advice for the 99%, I show you how to break out of those destructive habits that define our sick culture, and help you reclaim your life, your time, your dignity and your humanity, the things that really matter in life. On The Money;Economic Advice for the 99% represents a completely original and revolutionary approach to personal economics that challenges conventional thinking in a way that reveals the deceit, cruelty, and violence of our current economic system, and shows you how to turn the tables on the 1%.

 

So, read this column with an open heart, and realize that economics is bigger than money, its bigger than goods and services, its bigger than “the economy”, in fact. Economics is about how we live, how we exchange goods and services, and our impact on the environment, but economics is also about how we think and feel about our lives, and those things matter a hell of a lot more in life than the GDP, the unemployment rate, or the movements of any stock index. There’s a view of emotions in economics that’s On The Money.

Occupy Wall St., The Opportunity of a Lifetime

Occupy Wall St., the Opportunity of a Lifetime

 

I really want to acknowledge the amazing phenomena that started on Wall St.,but is now spreading all over the country. I support the 99%, 100%. I think the Occupy Wall St., and Occupy Everywhere campaign are great ideas, both conceptually and tactically. Possession is 95% of the law. Wherever you stand is liberated territory. So, I think its great to take back this land by occupying it.

 

I think this is also a great tactic for people confronting foreclosure crisis. There’s a good chance that your bank cannot prove they own the home you have stopped paying for, in which case, it is now rightfully yours, free and clear. Don’t walk away from it now, just because you got some threatening letters. You might be sitting pretty, right where you are, in a couple years, if you stand your ground now.

 

If you are under water in your mortgage, find out if your bank can actually produce the deed, if not, stop paying and call it yourn. If you don’t have a place to live, take your tent and tarp to the Occupation taking place near you. Liberate some territory and occupy it. You have as much right to inhabit the space beneath your feet as anyone, so stand your ground.

 

I know nobody gives a fuck what I think about tactics. I just think these protesters deserve some attention and appreciation right now, and I encourage everyone to support them any way they can.

 

Now, I’ve seen protest movements come and go, but there’s something different about this one that makes me think that they may succeed where others have failed. For one, I like the fact that no one single issue dominates the discussion.

 

What are they protesting? What have you got? Wars, government corruption, dirty elections, racial injustice, environmental collapse, gender inequality, unemployment, housing, health care, wages, the wealth gap and corporate capitalism for starts. They recognize that all of it is important, and all of it is entwined in one rotten system, and they have finally focused on getting to the root of it all. That looks like a major step forward to me.

 

Another major change in the Occupy Wall St. movement, is the protesters themselves. If you went to any of the big anti-war marches just before the start of the Iraq war, or just about any protest rally, anywhere in the country, you saw the same fading has-been baby boomers who have protested everything since the Vietnam war.

 

When you get them all together, they are the most insufferable bunch of louts that ever walked the face of the earth. Between their nostalgia for “the ’60s”, self-congratulatory attitude, and complete obliviousness to class issues like soaring housing prices and sinking wages, these gray, baby-boomer hippie-fascists do more to crush young people’s spirits than they do to smash the state.

 

Fortunately most of the boomers have gotten too old and creeky to sleep comfortably in a tent for weeks at a time, and they have not yet added RV hookups to the occupation at Foley Square. At least so far, you don’t see too many of them skulking around in their tweed jackets handing out copies of Plowshares Magazine.

 

“Thank God” I say. These people haven’t had an original idea in thirty years, they remain as effete and ineffectual as ever, and they get uglier every day. If those old boomer protest-vermin have any presence in the Occupy Wall St. movement, people have had the good sense not to photograph them.

 

Instead, who do we see at Occupy Wall St.? Lots and lots of hot-looking young women! You can imagine how much more attractive a movement crawling with hot chicks is, compared to one full of wrinkled, liver-spotted baby boomers. This movement looks more like a Tori Amos concert at Spring Break than any protest march we’ve seen in recent decades.

 

Take my advice. If you are a single young guy, Occupy Wall St. may well be THE BEST TIME OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. Standing up to authority is a huge turn-on for these women. Right now, a lot of guys are discovering that taking a stand can get you laid. They are learning, right now, why all of those baby boomers are so nostalgic for “the’60s”.

 

These women don’t care whether you have a job, or a degree. They don’t care whether you have a car or an apartment. They are hot for revolution, and you can be a revolutionary. So, get yourself a tent, a tarp and a box of condoms and head for Zuccotti Park. to join the “girls gone wild” Occupation.