A Simple Question

If Arab nations continue to unravel, including the grandaddy of them all, Saudi Arabia, it may be due to one very simple questions Arabs are asking themselves. Why are a minute fraction of us worth trillions of dollars based on a naturally occurring resource which sits under all our feet, while the rest of us aren't worth camel shit? Because they're royalty? Now why should that fly anymore. Didnt Napolean say a revolution is only 3 meals away? And so this may be the Black Swan nobody saw coming, Oh they tried to decipher what it could be. But it may be here in the form of the resurgence of Pan-Arabism. So far Egypt took a 21% 2 day plunge. Saudi down 6% yesterday. Monday will be very interesting. Hey Bernank, get those helicopters a-roaring a la that scene in Apocalypse Now.

Dedicated to Hosni

The King called up his jet fighters
He said "You better earn your pay"
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah Way
As soon as Sharif
was chauffered outta there
the jet pilots tuned to
the cockpit radio blare
As soon as Sharif
was outta their hair
the jet pilots wailed:

Sharif dont like it
Rockin the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

The Clash - Rock the Casbah

The Machine Stops

"To the rescue! Avenge the Machine! Avenge the Machine!"

-The Machine Stops, E.M. Forster

So often it isn't easy to accept change.  So it may be with the overall re-structuring of economic systems that had long served so well, but no longer.  These systems will not recover now, or possibly ever.

And from the awakening of the long denial of this ending, so springs human desperation and frantic discourse.  Religious beliefs substitute for long-lost reason, some of these beliefs so fairy tale that their origins can only be in make-believe.  But this is easier to accept than real change. 

As the old Chinese blessing (and curse) goes, "May you live in interesting times."

Slide.

"Slide."

-Fight Club (The Power Animal)

"You're the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine."

-Memo From Turner (Jagger/Richard)

So what are the sociopolitical effects of the economic transformation that is unhinging society?  Have we reached another period when the tectonic plates underpinning human events start shifting again?  The Renaissance was followed by the Reformation, as rebirth and expansion and creativity, then religious wars that brought the need for stability, and the Counter-Renaissance designed to restore stability and continuity, according to Toulmin and his followers.  Paging Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and his friends the thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

And if the economic models that were constructed in that day no longer hold true?  If, in fact, economic systems are not inherently stable, but inherently unstable?  Chaos theory imported into economic policy teaches us that there are butterfly wings thousands of miles away that manifest themselves here as a hurricane.  Is human economic behavior any less predictable?  So, it seems, we are finding out for ourselves.

So what are the socioeconomic and sociopolitical effects of that maelstrom?  Shall we address how the economic hurricane sweeping the globe impacts those in its way, their political institutions, their civil liberties, their fundamental rights and obligations?  Methinks that the man behind the curtain would rather you not know. 

Perhaps more importantly, are these economic developments simply the billions and billions of interactions of human beings, albeit in the form of economies, or is there some other purpose, or design?  Is there a hand (or hands) holding the massive miniarette and intentionally aggrandizing not just materiel, capital and wealth, but political power as well?  Or are many hands struggling for hegemony over this sinister mess?

And, if there is a design behind what we are seeing, who is behind it, and what is its purpose?

Where are the Hippies???

Well? Where the eff are they? They were once all over the frickin place. Doing drugs, having group sex, living on the road. But I have a sneaking suspicion, given we know how most if not all those self-absorbed assholes turned out, that the whole time Moon and Morning Honey Dew were living the life, Western Union wires from Mom and Pop were the only thing standing between them and mass assimilation. And of course, Charles Manson didnt help their cause either. By the time LAPD was combing thru the Tate-LaBianca residences in August 1969, astute gold investors should have known the ship was turning. Slowly, but it was turning. As the movement died, the hippies slowly matriculated into LAWKI (Life As We Know It). Again, slowly at first, but then with exponential speed. A few got PhDs in Computer Science at Berkeley, got good jobs, and traded in their VW vans for Beemers. And then their junk status peers noticed, and they went off to get advanced degrees and conquer the world they'd thought they set straight. HELLO INFLATION!!!

Now enter Ronald Reagan stage right. And bingo. Of Course Tricky Dick filled in the first few bingo squares by getting us off the gold standard, but Reagan, de-regulation, and deficit spending set off a secular 25 year bull market from hell. Instead of fucking in open fields, the hippies had fun in mountainside homes, yachts, and cocaine-laden discoteques.

They got on the Grid in a major way. And the grid was ever increasing in intensity and consumption. You had to run like Carl Lewis just to stand still. The homes, the private schools, the Euro vacation, waxing for the wife, then expensive divorce for the wife who breifly lived with Bruno the personal trainer, charity balls, Range Rovers and Lexus's. It never stopped. Until it did.

So now the generation who once appeared to hold a moral compass above everyone else, in the end, became the most corrupted generation since the Romans. And their kids were like disgusting extensions of themselves. Porshes at 16, incessant bullying, cheerleader Darwinism, Ritalin, Xstasy. I'll stop here.

Now, the Worst Generation could (dis)gracefully exit stage left of their scorched earth policy. But you see, they can't. 2008 wiped out perhaps what was the biggest cocktail party converation topic of the last 15 years: The 401(k). So they need to keep showing up at work shuffling papers and screaming into phones. And there are a whole bunch of next-genners who just want them to get the hell out of the way so they can take the positions, salaries, and security the hipsters had when they were the next-genners age. They obviously can't lead. They will never follow. So they need to get the fuck out of the way!