Death By Austerity

The elections in France dealt a blow to the ubiquitous and bizarre belief that the way to improve the world economy is by ceasing governmental spending.  Only a handful of economists with access to media have decried this folly, and Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Joseph Stieglitz of the Independent come to mind.  But no one has, as of yet, connected the dots as to how we came to worship at the altar of austerity.  Because when you begin to connect the dots, you see who it is that is being sacrificed on the altar and being sentenced to death by austerity.

The Global elite (let's call them) who own most of the world's capital didn't get where they are by accident.  And they didn't get where they are on their own and without intense and meticulous coordination with their other fellow Global elites.  They understand that power abhors a vacuum, and that they had not just some mutual interests - but the most important mutual interests of all.  They together seek to preserve and aggrandize their wealth.  Although this is rarely noticed, and even more rarely actually spoken, it makes perfect sense.  And there is no need or reason to blame them for this.  It is borne of economic necessity.  It is what anyone would be perfectly expected to do.

Pension funds, the 401k, retirement accounts and other wealth all began being diverted into the financial markets.  It was automated, tax-deferred, and absolutely tailored for those with the most power in the markets to control the wealth of everyone else.  It was like an intravenous tie in to the life blood of the regular folks, the peons, the workers, the 99% (let's call them) hoi polloi -- those who did not constitute part of the Global elite.

Any money that hoi polloi could set aside and that would potentially give them the escape velocity necessary to escape the Iron Law of Wages would go right directly into the hands and control of those who needed most to enforce the Iron Law of Wages.  It was a beautiful and brilliant plan, and it has worked in spades.

And, interestingly, over the past decade or so, after all of the excess wealth from the hoi polloi has been skimmed and stored for good keeping in the financial markets, they have flattened out.  Years go by and no one has made any money.  Much of the marginal amounts that have accrued are sucked out by parasite money and fund managers.  They manage the capital that has been now transferred from the hoi polloi to the power of the Global elite.  And the Global elite know better than to share this with their less fortunate fellows.  They know that they want to keep it there and suck as much out of it as possible, further aggrandizing themselves and solidifying their hegemony of wealth.


Meanwhile, the financial markets take from higher education the "most brilliant minds" to figure out new and ever-more innovative ways to "create wealth" at the expense of the hoi polloi and to benefit Global elites.  It is a race to concoct new and ever more scintillating games to make the casino appealing to the fools who can least afford to pay.  And the fools who can least afford it are the ones so desperately determined to win at the casino, providing cover to their own slave masters.  They are the cause of their own slavery, so little do they even know.

So enter austerity.  That is the brightest shining lie of all.  Once you have the hoi polloi gaming away their only hope at the financial markets casino, and once you have depleted their pathetic additions en masse, then you take the money and run.  What about those who have just been robbed?  What do you tell them?  That's easy.  You blame it on the government.  You convince them that it was the government and its social services that brought about their loss of money.  You do this despite the fact that it was the government who took the tax it had received from the hoi polloi to issue bailouts to the corporations supporting the Global elite.

But you have to do a good job using the media.  Use some ideology.  Throw in some vitriol and make sure you have the highest paid, best actors hired to sell it to hoi polloi.  But don't worry, they will eat it up with a knife and fork.  They will listen to you tell them, "We report, you decide," when, in fact, the decision has already been made.  It was already made a very long time ago.  You just need for them to back up their little non-decision with their little bit of money.  You can't leave them anything, and they're happy to give it to you.

Because the government has got to cut back.  It has got to stop spending so much money.  It must cease providing social services (to hoi polloi) and begin paying that money instead to the Global elite.  This is the systematic dismantling of the social net -- indeed, the dismantling of hoi polloi's whole society.  Because hoi polloi are the only ones who really need anything from the government.  All that the Global elite require is a police force and military to keep the hoi polloi working, from taking anything, and in its proper place.

So you have hoi polloi now blaming the government.  The same government that provides hoi polloi with social services, but don't tell them that.  Make them think that there is an army of freeloaders taking from them and using the government.  That way they will gladly do away with what little bit they get back from the whole rigged system.

Hoi polloi gladly, gratefully, places its head on the altar of austerity, and the Global elite bring down into a long, slow death.

Your Lying Eyes

"Who are you going to believe -- me, or your lying eyes?"

-Groucho Marx

"Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth,
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth."

-Rush, Subdivisions

"This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters."

-F. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

So let's start with a basic and undeniable set of premises:

1.  There is a limited amount of wealth in the world; and
2.  There is an ever-expanding number of people in the world to possess that wealth.

Then you come to an undeniable set of conclusions:

1.  Those who do not have wealth will have to acquire it from those who do; and
2.  Those who have wealth will seek to aggrandize and protect it from those who do not.

It is game theory.  Call it the unattractive truth.  And the rest is just mythology, a fancy and fanciful lie.  All of the other ideologies and sloganeering theories and economic models and governmental systems are just noise, something to distract you from what is right there for all to see.  All of the slogans and values and capitalisms and communisms and "self-made men" and economic systems are just a clear bright shining lie.  There are those who have.  And then there are those who have not.  And they will inevitably, forever be in conflict.  Just accept it.

Because once you have accepted this truth, then you can appreciate the difficulty presented to you in your situation:  If you don't have wealth, and you desire it, you must come up with a way to accumulate it, and your time is limited to just this life time.  You see, most of the wealthy weren't limited to just this lifetime to accumulate it because they made it the old fashioned way, they inherited it.

And once you have accepted this truth, you are better prepared to deal with it.  You can see through all of the ideologies and sloganeering theories with economic models and "self-made" men inheriting sunshine and better living nonsense.  You are better prepared to deal with it, instead of wasting your life laboring, as did Sisyphus, pushing a rock up a hill incessantly, thinking that just one more time ought to do it, only to see then the false summit, and yet another hill behind it, and yet another rock to push.

And once you have accepted this truth, you can transcend it.  Wait one second.  "How do I transcend it?," you may ask.  How do I go about undoing this game board that has been put in place for millenia or longer, and that is reinforced not just by laws, governmental and extra-governmental institutions, but by all of those who still believe the lie, who still buy into the mythology, who will remain forever locked in their Sysiphean struggle?

And once you have answered that existential question, my friend, you are most of the way there.