Financial Circus Brings in the Clowns.
Every facet of our species’ brilliant and ever-advancing career finds us not quite in control.
With disorder tamed to an acceptable death rate, expertise is claimed. When un-garbage in equals un-garbage out, design defers to mass production – with mass recall a hairbreadth away.
As matters progress quite swimmingly we are proud masters of our domain. But humans being people, a train wreck follows.
So, as another paramount year unfurls, the entirety of this planet’s mug punters find their fortunes astride some lurching blindfolded mule, distraught that it’s not the magnificent sure-footed stallion the guy in the suit told them to bet a life’s savings on.
A snowboarder hurled from chopper onto 60 degrees of powdery snow chances life, if not avalanche. Likewise, and with bells, entrusting the world’s inventory of toil, manufacture, plant, and property to a self-serving recursive bubble of avarice begs eversion, if not oblivion.
If democracy is the worst possible system of government, except what follows when it fails, then financial bedlam is the nightmare sequela to a brief flirtation last century with public ownership, to the governance of science and knowledge-based national planning, and even respect (if grudging) for social visionaries and an intellectual elite.
While all stood deluded by concepts of equality, societal perfection, and control of human destiny, economic dogmatists stole the fleeting moment, like the arrogant ignorant greedy thieves they are.
And now these self-congratulating fools, these “Alpha Beings” who would save us from the perils of socialism, nanny states, and utopian pipedreamery, stand revealed in their finest moment as masters of .. that train wreck.
But don’t mind too greatly for their well being, as governments across the globe, having privatized profits of social infrastructure, now nationalize the debt of its gutted carcass. Our captains of gluttony stand, as always, to inherit the skimpy surfeits of dullards like you and me, whichever way the wind blows. It’s the natural order of things. Didn’t they explain this at school?
Well, for us bottom-feeders, as usual, nothing much differs.
Still a world of animal indifference and jungle law from which we imagined struggling through endless millennia to emerge in celebration of human intellect. Still sustained by much day dreaming of equality, religious salvation, social justice, or portentous proletariatizing.
Parting clouds long ago snapped shut on any chance of an efficient, measured, benevolent, and dare I lament ‘spiritual,’ procession to the future. Demented as any religious fundamentalist, free market zealots engendered a tsunami of greed that rolls its selfish deconstruction across the shores of every nation and doorstep of each life, endlessly, mindlessly, and each day more irretrievably.
Ha! Another Utopia rant, you might sneer. And you are right… except to sneer.
In no corner of science do two eminences agree on nature’s intention – or even if it has one. Moving from cold hard yet disputed facts to softer mental pursuits, like economics, finds but an Armageddon of pseudo-intellectual mayhem to rip the heart of hope from any foolish optimist on this craven little mud ball.
Turning finally to fellow salts-of-the-earth for inspiration, hope, or salvation, finds in their deluded greed-lit faces only the cause of our eternal distress.
What part of moderation do 6 billion opportunists not understand?
Who will concede “I only need this much to live; others have greater need”?
When does social narrative admit our existence and future is predicated on consumptive madness and blind unsustainable growth?
Almost delicious, watching the world’s economic powerhouse unravel in viral greed and utter stupidity.
Except it’s my house, too.