The Emerald Rose

        I stayed up later last night, slept with one eye open, got up early, kept my B’berry near as I showered and shaved, kept all the phone lines open, turned on two computers,……and nothing happened! Damn I hate when that happens!

       After the news last night about the imminent bailout plan by the Federal Government of the entire Financial Industry, I thought for sure they would at least call me, or e-mail me to see how much I needed,…..I mean why can’t I be part of this bailout too!

      I wasn’t going to push it too hard, all I want is “affordable” (as defined by real folks not idiots that think $1500 a month is “affordable”) health insurance, a fair and liveable wage (not big new SUV and beach house kind, but enough that I can pay my bills and take my wife out to dinner once a week, and see an occasionally a movie), and an end to the Internal Revenue Service. Is that asking too much?

        (sigh) But alas, no one called or e-mailed. Here I am, same old me, same old bills, and I did not particpate in any of that crazy financial crap with the fancy names, like “derivitives”, “sub-prime mortgages”, “bundled leverage packages”, …..yup, just me and my checkbook scraping by together.

       Not that I’m a “conspiracy” devotee, BUT…….hmmm, could actually be a book in this. But here’s my thoughts for you on financial liquidity and life.

      First of all folks, we ran out of money back in the early 60’s, we just flat ass ran out of it, all done, no more “tout finis”, and then along came the “neanderthal” stage of financial guru’s. An lo and behold Mastercard, Visa, Diners Club, Discover, American Express,….they all started appearing. Hot Damn we had more spending power, so who cares if we got no more real “money”,,,we can still spend!

       That worked for about forty or fifty years until it turned upside down and the practice of  “moving monetary columns” was developed, that was like just typing numbers into bank accounts and using those numbers instead of “money”.

        For example, you go to Best Buy and get a new TV, pull out the credit card, slide it through the slot, and “poof!” you are out of there with the TV. (Unless there is a Hurricane or Flood and then you just smash in the front door and “save” a TV from drowning or whatever.) But I digress. That evening the Credit Card Company “moves” a monetary column from it’s books to Best Buys books, Best Buy then orders more TV’s and moves some of it’s “monetery column” numbers over to Sony’s books, and so  on, and so on, and so on. See these were all “definable monetary colums” i.e. Best Buy Price to sell TV $489.00, Best Buy Cost to Buy TV from Sony $277.16, Sony’s cost to make  TV $187.63, Sony’s Cost to buy materials for TV from Kubatshi Microchip Company $122.59,….and so on and so on, and so, on. With me?

       BUT each “unit” of measurement in the “monetary column” was the same, that’s why it worked so long, and fairly well. And we would, at the end of the month, write a check allowing our banks to move our monetary columns to the Credit Card companies column. It was what I call a Darwinian Concept. It let us take huge quantities of people and reduce them to debtors, in so deep they would never be able to climb out of the hole! We were finally controlling the development and demise of weaker and inferior “money managers”, in favor of a few “Uber Wealthy” managers who understood. Real Money Managers understood there was no more money  and the only way to get more is take it from someone else! What part of “survival of the fittest”  don’t you understand? You doubt me go to Borders, Barnes & Noble or Books A Million and see how many “Money Management” books are on the shelves. The money Managers are writing them to lure us deeper.

       I am sure you can see the financial gurus working overtime to accelerate the accumulation of wealth to faster than “nano seconds”. Remember they were evolving as well as accelerrating and the next stroke of monetary development came with the “Sub-prime” concept. We could lure the masses into a proverbial “something for nothing” mindset. They figured out that if they made “the American dream” come true for everyone and they could control the expansion of the monetary columns as well, they would create the “perpetual machine” to just grind out wealth with virtually no need to do anything but pile it up, making bigger “monetary columns” for themselves.

       But the fly in the ointment was that too many of the “American Dreamers” could not keep up with the rate at which the perpetual machine was working. The “weak link” was the people, they failed the theoretical rate of individual wealth expansion that was necessary to keep the machine feed.

     So this led to an emergency need to find more fodder for the machine, the sub-prime mortgages were “bundled” or hidden like Mom used to do with the bad tasting medicine you hated, hide it and then give it to you in a twinkie or such. It worked,….for a while. The Guru’s “fed” these aweful yucky “exploding mortgages” to the rest of the world, and the machine kept going.

       So what happened?  The latest evolution of monetary theory and sophisticated financial managment models all agree that we went directly to the “OS” period, closely followed by the “SHF” tangent. (I apologize for using the initals, but they are “OS” period,…the “Oh Shit!” period folllowed by the consequential “Shit Hitting the Fan” tangent.

        So I am eagerly awaiting the final final phase of this new program they are developing that we are assured will stabilize both the markets, the fears of the average person and the job security for all IRS employees. It’s the “KBB” (Kiss the Boo Boo) initiative followed with the “ITT” protocol for ultimate stability and consumer confidence. (“ITT” means “Increase Their Taxes”)

        And there you have it, and they say economics is tough!

       This blog was written without the aid of mind-expanding drugs of any kind, and tested on my two cats. They are both sleeping like logs, just like me in Economics 101!

-30-