Because You Never Asked

(This essay was written somewhere around 1998)

     When I am on vacation on the other side of the endless sea, I have developed a ritual practice of buying an International Herald Tribune every ten days or so. This is how an American abroad finds out that Michael Jordan did it again, or that one's preferred baseball team is currently playing way beyond all expectations and is challenging for a spot in the playoffs.

     But it's a long season.

     I generally don't use newspapers for anything more enlightening than that, but when one is as unencumbered as I am while living by the Roman Sea, there is a tendency to stray off course in filling such leisure time.

     Last night, after having deceased in my efforts to lure something feminine back to my lair, I rescued "The Trib" from its discarded status on the floor and began wandering into uncharted waters. It wasn't long before I found myself adrift in the extensive Financial-Business sections of the paper.

     For people like myself --- and it's probably not too different for someone like you --- if they had printed this section in Sanskrit it would hardly prejudice whatever I could decipher of it. A language has been created here that has become so complex, that even those who can speak it are not quite sure what it means. From the translator's point of view, this could be seen as somewhat advantageous because such ambiguity provides enough space to spin any issue in the desired direction.

     This language is rich in words like "bond market shares", "interest rates", "commodity futures", "budget deficits", "soft money", "trade surpluses", "gold reserves", "hard currency", "inflation", "unemployment", "federal reserves", "Bundesbanks", on and on, "was gibts hier?" There are "cross rates", "dollar values", "forward rates", "Libid Libor rates" (I didn't make that up), and other such hieroglyphic machinations having to do with who's money is worth what against a silo full of soybeans. There is the "discount rate", "the prime rate", "90 day CD's"  (this has nothing to do with Bon Jovi), "180 day CP's", "stock splits", "reverse stock splits", and even notes to the reader explaining how, due to technical difficulties, Bombay stock prices were not available (you can imagine how this ruined my day).

     This language is used to play a game whose rules have been invented and constantly reinvented by people responsible for what might be called "the established order". This established order has two kinds of people: 1) "them", and 2) the "suckers" (us). The suckers must rely on these financial experts (generally people descended from Henry VIII or Catherine DeMedici) to translate this language and tell us how things are going. For instance: inflation is down, employment is up, gold is shiny and the Yankees won the World Series means we are happy. When pork bellies are down, cattle feed up, and the Swiss franc can buy you a bar of Belgian chocolate, this means we are hungry. No matter what the economic indicators are saying, be it the Nasdaq, the Blue Chips, the High Techs or the Nikkei-Dax-Footsy review of the world's ten worst dressed women, we are always horny. If all this means we will have to reduce your pension, not pay for your gall bladder operation, or close the local library because this deficit or that is becoming too deficient, there is always Baywatch and Oprah, so shut up and quit complaining.

     One must remember that this game and all of its somewhat misty rules and cyber-finaglings are not a natural part of the ecosystem. It is an artificial thing created to serve a way of doing things that could be altered and revamped, or even totally discarded without affecting the basic life systems of the planet. We are not talking about eliminating oxygen or topsoil here. It is only relevant within a certain context, that being a world that bases the development and distribution of the Earth's resources almost exclusively on commercial combat and, if not maximum consumption, something very close to it. In other words, if we leave behind the Stengalese with which the game is played and express these thoughts in a more Seinfeld-like way, it might be said that the "established order's" economic game is only applicable to a world in which Nike is desperately trying to put its logo on the jerseys of the All Himalayan Elephant Racing Team. In a world not oriented along these lines, it would be superfluous.

     Being that the people who developed this economic game premise their vision of the world almost exclusively on competitive buying and selling (and really, I'm being very gracious here, their competitive buying and selling usually being a smokescreen for a manipulated Grand Scam), it is not surprising that they've become excellent sales people. Their sales skills have been so perfected that they've just about convinced the rest of us that their economic scheme is the only game in town. We have almost reached a point where we can't even conceive of any other form of economic distribution. As a result, when they translate what is happening within the parameters of their self creation and tell us that the economic indicators mean that the rest of us will have to tighten our belts and have less vacation time or less benefits, or that the creation of a stronger currency or a single currency or a currency with a picture of Margaret Thatcher on it means we must operate with "austerity", there is a tendency for the herd to believe it. Quite remarkably, whenever they say "we", they never mean "them", but only "us" (the suckers). Their interpretation of their game always translates into something like this: we are rich, which is some kind of Providential sign that we deserve it, meaning that the guy in the bleachers at Wrigley Field must sacrifice.        

     The next time they ask you to sacrifice, or tighten your belt, or work more for less, or pay more for your broken leg, ask yourself this: are you tired of being a sucker?

     Which brings me to . (see essay "Privatizations")