Friday, March 21, 2008

Repositioning Death as Innovation

Dear George,

One of nature’s more destructive forces is successful greed. Whatever it touches is reduced to ruin.

Success is what differentiates criminal activity from sound accounting practices.

Success is the acid that eats away at systems and empires. Both die, and as they age they slather on layer after layer of pancake makeup in a desperate attempt to conceal the creeping rot of purification. This is called innovation.

We are seeing innovation at work in the arena of finance capitalism as its minions cast about in desperation to squeeze more profit out of our worthless currency. Their innovation is a delusive act based on the naïve belief that complex financial formulas and algorithms eliminate risk, which they never do.

There was a time innovation stood for progress. Now it is an invitation to disaster. The mushroom cloud rising over Hiroshima was the moment innovation was transformed from the light of progress to the darkness of death.

So it is that our financial wizards have brought us to the brink of ruin. We’ve bounced from bubble to bubble until are none are left. Our vaults are empty, their barrenness littered with crumpled up IOUs written on torn scraps of paper. Our sole comfort is Big Al Greenspan assuring us that the market will self-regulate itself out of the crisis.

Ideologues are so brain dead. Greed’s idea of self-regulation is to sate every appetite. Granted, it is easier to blame stupidity on the Invisible hand of the market. It’s a slick way to avoid personal responsibility for ones actions.

Let us wish our financial retards continued success and the climb to new heights of innovation and success. It is they who make life worth living.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones

2 comments:

Mark Prime (tpm/Confession Zero) said...

Success is what differentiates criminal activity from sound accounting practices.

Oh my.

Case Wagenvoord said...

I think it was Mark Twain who said, "Steal a loaf of bread and you're a thief; steal a railroad and you're a United States Senator."