Let me firstly say sorry to any pensioners I may offend in the following post, for they are the only real undeserving victims of our current economic woes. Everyone else deserves all that they have coming to them.
So, let's launch straight into it - I cannot keep the smile from my dial. In fact, my cheeks (both sets) are sore from smiling. It is almost impossible for me to contain my mirth resulting from the long-deserved stumble into the wilderness for the worldwide fraternity of eternally greedy fat capitalist pigs.
I personally hope that no whiff of a rescue package ever makes it to Wall Street. It's worth the financial pain of a few million people just to see the greedy bastards get their come-uppance.
My wife put the whole world financial crisis into fabulous context with some very simple words to me yesterday. She said:
Yesterday, there was a lot of pretend money. Today, there isn't quite as much pretend money.
Let's face it - it's all crap anyway, this whole stock market thing. To think that a company that floats on the stock exchange goes from being an ordinary business to being a megalomaniacal financial construct that puts the mythical "shareholders" on a golden pedestal and forsakes all of those quaint, antiquated concepts like customers, employees, community obligations, morality, sustainability and modest/achievable growth. All decisions become a cynical exercise of determining the resultant effect on the share price. Not only that, but a genuinely solid company can hit the skids just because a bunch of rich assholes get spooked and decide to sell their shares. I've never understood it, and I never want to, because it would dirty my soul and crush my spirit irrevocably.
I cannot believe the amount of time and energy wasted worldwide in speculation, hedging and all of the other crap that is involved with the capitalist movement of money. The way I see it, until mankind realises that there are waaaay more important issues currently facing us (such as our continued existence on this planet), we are screwed. What we need to do is to make some very hard decisions on a multitude of issues (pollution, deforestation, energy depletion, resource depletion, mass extinctions, etc). Unfortunately, nobody has the political will or the desire to change anything if it affects our precious economies. For craps sake people - if we don't do something within the next few years (not decades) then all of the money in the world will count for nothing. Money won't make all of the pollution magically disappear, nor will it make us suddenly understand the nearly infinite complexity of the creation around us that we are trying to play God with.
Now I know that millions of people worldwide are going to suffer the consequences of this so-called financial meltdown. Tough. I have little or no sympathy for them (except for the aforementioned undeserving victims such as pensioners). My wife and I won't have any problems at all, and do you know why? Because we've worked our butts off to minimise our debts. We've made concessions and compromises throughout our lives to ensure that we live within our means. We have not relied on all of that easy credit that's been sloshing around for a decade or so, because we are realists. And lastly, we are not nearly as materialistic as the vast majority of spoiled brats that populate the modern developed world.
So, to everyone who has overextended themselves, has lived beyond their means, has reaped fruits that they have not yet sown - well duuuuuuuuuh! It's not like you didn't have it coming to you. Serves you right.
And if it ever got as bad here in Australia as it is in the good ole U S of A, then I would fight tooth and nail to block any taxpayer-funded bailout. Why should the fruits of my hard labours be used to fund a bunch of people who have been hypnotised by the bouncing carrot that capitalism offers oh-so-tantalisingly out of reach?
I would much rather settle for the potato at my feet than the golden carrots all those idiots jump blindly for.
One of my greatest hopes is that this isn't just a temporary blip on the financial radar. I've always hated capitalism with a passion, and yearn to see the day when the greedy fall to their knees and realise that their soul-destroying ways have all been for nothing. I want to see the whole damn system ground into the poisonous ooze from which it was spawned, and the sooner the better.
Most likely, the fears on Wall Street will have been overplayed, in a typically cynical effort by the monied powers to obtain yet another get-out-of-jail-free card. This hated capitalism will continue unchecked, destroying all hope for rhyme or reason. The real issues will remain hidden behind reality TV, media conglomerates, fluffy news organisations that fail to disseminate the fundamental truths to the vapid masses, the latest celebrity scandal, soap operas, marketing blitzes that brainwash the stupid into buying more things they don't need, and a bunch of politicians driven by the economic backers that got them where they are.
I fear that there's life in the old whore yet, and she will rise from her deathbed and screw the world again.
Maybe it's for the best. If we truly fall for the same old tricks yet again, then we don't deserve to continue as a species on this planet. Time to let Darwin's evolution take us to the inevitable consequence, and the sooner the better. Let the chimps or dolphins have a go before we kill them off... they surely can't do any worse.
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