QQ : NUMBER THIRTY ONE - MAY 28, 2012

                      Qapek-onomics

A propensity to austerity brings catastrophe.


QQ:1   FUNNY, YOU DON'T LOOK KEYNESIAN

I challenge an economic historian to come up with a single example of a nation that has succeeded in resurrecting a collapsed economy by imposing austerity measures similar to the Merkel-Romney vision of Utopia. 

Here we eviscerate medical care, basic nutrition, emergency shelter, child labor laws and organized labor. Under the Merkel-Romney vision we hand these fundamental necessities of a civilized society over to the church and the plantation owner. Pick a bale of cotton.

Forty percent unemployment is an austerity measure that can only lead in one direction. That direction is the model designed and implemented by our European and Russian friends, the ethnic cleansers of 1933. Let's break a few windows. That will give the unemployed something to do.

QQ:2   EAST GERMANY’S BAILOUT COST TWO TRILLION EURO  

The ultimate irony is that Germany now finds itself in the position of power, just like Dr. Mengele, to give Greece a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Greece has an economy about the size of New York.
It's not that big a deal. Think of it like Europe's Mississippi or Louisiana. We can't all be Massachusetts. Build some roads, fix the plumbing, patch the roof and harvest the olives.

Who is going to have the last laugh when they discover rare earth deposits in the rocks, or shale gas or oil in the Aegean sea.

Isn't it wonderful that other nations can be so 'holier than thou' because they have valuable shit in the ground or black gold in their waters? It makes them the moral, ethical and economic wizards.

Alberta, Canada is like that. It is an entire province with a sneer on its face, epitomized by the dear leader Harper's complete bypass of democratic process. The environment, what environment? We have oil. Fuck the environment.

QQ:3   DEUTSCHLAND UBER ALLES

Can you imagine that Germany's intransigence could once more collapse Europe and possibly the economic structure of the world? Maybe Truman should not have stopped at Hiroshima. And the French are not much better.

QQ;4   A CONTEMPORARY ODYSSEY     

Shovel ready was an unfortunate turn of phrase. But the concept was correct.
How can an economy be turned around. There are no jobs because there is no work to do. The only way to create jobs is to educate, innovate, cultivate, beautify, renovate, germinate and originate.

Who will pay for these idealistic ventures? The state is the only body that can. The investment is far too long for private capital. Education can take 25 years to begin its payback. Private investment may run a school as a business, but they cannot sponsor a nuclear physicist from birth to age 30 when she might begin to be productive.

Who will pay for Greece's yet unborn Einstein? Who will build a desalination plant on a remote island when you could fill a suitcase with a worthless drachma?
But all is not lost. We have Facebook. Greek protestors can tweet and we can watch the entire adventure on YouTube. It's a reality show. In fact, it's a Greek tragedy.

QQ:5   HAM AND EGGS AND BAIN CAPITAL

The PIGS; Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain share a common destiny. If austerity measures continue without any injection of mechanisms that stimulate growth, then we will revisit the 1930s and chaos will reign.

Chaos is expensive. In fact, the organized, planned imposition of chaos in Greece is based on the Merkel-Romney economic theory of austerity. This policy is sheer madness not only in human terms, but more so in financial terms.

The formula is simple:

Austerity = unemployment = social unrest = chaos = PIGS in shit producing a global economic downturn in the trillions of dollars.

On the other hand:

Education = innovation = culture = beauty = growth = employment = prosperity with PIGS in heaven and a global uptick in social and economic equity.

QQ:6   SOCIAL ENGINEERING

And who are the unemployed?
They are black, they are Turkish, they are Arabic and they are Muslim. They are women, they are elderly, they are children and they are infirm. They are uneducated, they are immigrants, they are mentally ill and they are the homeless.

Minimum wage in the USA is $7.25 per hour. In what way should this exchange not be labelled for what it is. It is slavery. Basic nutrition, shelter, health and hygiene expenses, energy costs and transportation to work all for $7.25 per hour? Maybe on another planet.

What we do not acknowledge in this flawed equation is the immense cost to the taxpayer, to civil order, to larger health concerns and to culture.

When we exchange labor for $7.25 per hour, I suggest that the resulting cost to society is at least double that amount in the short term, and through geometric expansion, when families and communities are affected, the cost to society is probably multiple times that amount.

I postulate that the dollar saving to an entire economic system in the long term would be significant if the minimum wage were to truly reflect the reality of a 'living' wage, in which fundamental human needs would actually be addressed. There would be spending on goods and services. There would be a viable economy.

Corporations that profit to the tune of billions of dollars should not be permitted to pay their workers anything but a living wage. To suggest that their shareholders demand profit at any cost does not reflect the reality of the actual, long-term cost to the larger society, the cost of food stamps as socialized nutrition and ultimately to civil order.

How many gated communities can we build?
Can you trust your minimum-wage security guard? Don't wear a hoodie.

QQ: 7   YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US

When technology does our work for us:
Press one for assisted suicide
Press two for sexual abstinence
Press three for heavenly guidance
Press four for manna from heaven
Press five for the Red Sea to part
Press six for insider information on the Facebook ipo
Press seven for the Ayn Rand, personal debt-consolidation formula
Press eight for the return of the Messiah
Press nine for a private lap-dance from Lady Gaga
Press ten for your soul to be saved by Mitt Romney via Joseph Smith.

QQ: 8   A FINAL SOLUTION 

And if technology does not solve the problem, then what will?

There is a problem. We are revisiting the 1930s and we have not learned from history.

The French hate the Germans; the Croats hate the Serbs; the Protestants hate the Catholics; the Shia hate the Sunni; the Pakistanis hate the Indians and everybody hates the Jews.

I know, let's start with he easiest target. Blame the Jews. Once we get rid of of them, everything will be OK. Oh I forgot. We tried that. It didn't help.

God, please choose someone else next time.

QQ: 9   THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PHIL

History, if we have one, will look back at this last one hundred years in shock and with awe. We had the Stone Age, the Iron Age and the Bronze Age.

This has been the Oil Age.

It is an almost Monty Python-esque 'silly' concept. We crawl around in vehicles powered by technology that is more than one hundred years old. It explodes gasoline in iron cylinders to make wheels turn. That gasoline is something we found in the ground. We did not create it. It was just there. It happened to accumulate in regions of the world that would otherwise be barren and destitute.

The economics that governs what is found in the ground under a controlled territory is perhaps a primitive and flawed concept. This is my land, my territory and I have marked it with my urine. Whatever lies under it is mine, mine, mine. The fact that this resource has value to the larger society is not my problem. Let the market rule.

Based on this concept, I believe that mankind has remained static since ‘Phil’ created our current humanoid. Perhaps the creationists have it right. We are exactly the same as when we were created. There has  been absolutely, no evolution no development and no advancement. We are primitive beings leading primitive existences leading desperate lives of subsistence based on what we find when we dig into the shit in the ground of our marked territory.

My shit is more valuable than your shit.

I win.


QQ : 10   MICHELANGELO, DUDE....PAINT ME A CEILING

Bill Gates - buy a painting.
Zuckerface - sponsor some music.
Buffett - build an art school.
Saudi rich guys - put your money into real innovation. Liberate your women.
Chinese rich guys - cure cancer.

What ever happened to physical education and music in schools?
We lose on every level. Our agenda is economically unsound. The numbers do not add up.

This is the Oil Age.




etched on my stone tablet


editing : Batsheva