936, 937, 938, 939...

Dear George,

Who would have thought that an innocuous letter like “n” could have brought down our economy?

Just look at all its absence has accomplished:

· Americans are now spending 66.9 percent of their monthly expenditures on debt service, medical costs, and food and energy bills.
· U.S foreclosure rates are at their highest level since World War II.
· Homeowners could see the value of their homes drop by as much as thirty percent.
· Our economy is racked by large trade deficits, manufacturing job loss, asset price inflation, rising debt-to-income ratios, the detachment of wages from productivity, the use of financial bubbles to support debt-financed spending, an easing of credit standards to support borrowing, and cheap imports to ameliorate the effects of wage stagnation.

Our financial retards accomplished all of this, and more, simply by dropping the letter “n”. All they had to do was redefine the meaning of capital. Traditionally, capital was defined as surplus wealth that was owned. Our oligarchy turned the economy into a cheap sideshow by repositioning capital as surplus wealth that is owed. It is amazing what a missing letter or word can do. (Imagine the possibilities were we to eliminate "not" from the Ten Commandments.)

None of this would have been possible without that paragon of progress, the corporation. A corporation is simply a “self-perpetuating collective bureaucracy”.[1] It is driven, not by rational self-interest, but by ego, greed and stupidity, all of which are sanitized by the arcane drone of bureaucrats whose critical faculties have been paralyzed by the anesthetizing effects of a profusion of quantified goals and objectives.

Margaret Thatcher sounded the death knell of capitalism when she made her grandiose pronouncement that, “There is no alternative!” Dynamic systems don’t need dogmatic statements like hers; dying systems do. I’ve always said God has a wacko sense of humor. One of his favorite practical jokes is to allow a system or a country to reach the pinnacle of its power and influence just before it crumbles.

But, all of this doom and gloom is naught but smoke and mirrors. I know, because you told us so when you said, “I believe our economy has got the fundamentals in place.” (We won’t get into unpleasant little questions like what you mean by “fundamentals.”)

Nor will we wonder if your statement is number 936, 937, 938, 939….∞.

Happy is the man who believes your bullshit.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones

[1] Istvan Meszaros, Beyond Capital.