I didn’t follow the markets to the closing bell yesterday so I don’t know where it ended up but from the comments here and there I’m going to guess I wasn’t the only one who was, er, ‘mystified’ by the spike…which is rumored to have been sparked by ‘better than they’ve been in a long time’ employment figures.
Naturally, we need not look too far for a more sober assessment
As the real economy is being gutted to the bone, the rising markets are nothing but a mirage, a talk-to-the-hand scheme devised by the spin masters who know what all of you like to hear and who feed you exactly that. Until their masters decide the time has come when they can't squeeze enough money out of you anymore to justify keeping the game going.
And then it will all vanish into thin air. And you won't even know what hit you. You’ll be left with a whole load of nothing. No services, no benefits, no jobs, no homes, just a huge bunch of empty bags. Don't let the markets fool you, look at the situation on the ground. That reflects the future much better. We will probably see another set or two of positive numbers for jobs, and the stock markets may not have reached their highest peak. But it's all the hot air of false optimism: the economy is irreparably broken. For a while, you can delay debt payments by creating more debt, but that is a dead end street, and the piper waits at the other side.
Understand, yesterday’s 200 point ‘spike’ in the Dow was driven by millions being added to the ‘not in the workforce’ figures compounded by 192,000 jobs gain by the labor markets FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH!
Being back amongst the unemployed has me searching the almost non-existent ‘Help Wanted’ ads and I’m here to tell you that there is no truth to the claim the economy added more than a hundred thousand jobs. They simply ‘don’t exist’.
What we’re seeing is the Freakazoid ‘birth/death model being used to add ‘imaginary jobs’ to ‘adjust’ the less than wonderful real data.
Remember, its not what’s happening that’s important, it’s what you THINK is happening that matters.
The frightening truth is once ‘reality’ alters your perception of the situation from what you’ve been gulled into believing it will usually be TOO FUCKING LATE to DO anything about it!
The thing YOU HAVE TO KEEP IN MIND IS:
Yes, the ‘corporate media’ HAS AN AGENDA! It is their job to keep you from RIOTING IN THE STREETS, burning down banks and city halls.
They accomplish this mission by lulling you to sleep with the ‘everything is under control’ message.
Because if you woke up to the FACT that things are SO FAR OUT OF CONTROL that the only thing keeping the ’lid’ on is perception management, the streets would run red with the blood of a panicked populace!
Take a good look around you good citizen and marvel at why nobody is running around like a chicken with their head cut off (because they should be!)
Hell, fifty percent of us are on some type of ‘food assistance’, that 43 million (oops, now it’s 44.1 million) isn’t ‘individuals, it’s households! If you aren’t worried, you damn well should be if only because of what this means to you when these programs, er, ‘expire’.
Or is the following a better indicator of how our collective mind has been trained to perceive things?
Our western economic thinking is Flatland 1- (or maybe 2-) dimensional, in the sense that we think we can always buy what we don't have or can't make. That's not how it works, though. In Sri Lanka, or Guatemala, or some small town in the US in the future, you can't just come into a community and offer them a bunch of gold in return for the scarce or only water they have. There are circumstances in which water trumps gold, hard as that may be to believe living in Flatland. In a world in which water purification plants are ever more energy extensive and that energy ever more hard to come by, communities even in locations (think cities) in the US will find it increasingly harder to maintain them.
The money used to save our zombie banks, and with them the entire mortgage and finance systems, could have been used to save things like water purifying plants, and roads, bridges, sewer systems, and don't let's forget jobs, and, ultimately, people. But it wasn't. And that will turn out to be a fatal mistake for many.
Not that our inner capitalist gives a crap what the, er, ‘disadvantaged’ thinks! The true ‘wake up call’ here is this is the kind of arrogance that will quickly get you DEAD in a world living under ‘gun rules’ (the ones with the guns makes the rules!)
How much you want to bet that our ‘arrogant-ignorant’ gold fiend would be ‘dumbfounded’ by people’s refusal to snatch his shiny gold coin for as much water as asshole can cart off?
What do you mean ‘a drink’? I’m buying the whole damn pond!
Well, stupid is as stupid does…and we certainly haven’t run out of stupid people.
Meanwhile:
Lest you get roped in by the ‘happy talk’ being spouted on the corporate owned media we have this reality check from Financial Armageddon which is to point out that the employment data isn’t the only thing being, er, ‘stroked’…
On the flip side, if you’re looking for some witty commentary regarding the people responsible for our current situation, this should fit the bill! which is to say if we don’t learn how to laugh at this crazy crap then the only alternative is to scream in horror.
Naturally I mean that ‘figuratively’ because if all we do is scream in horror it isn’t going to do anything to resolve what is, in the end, a ‘perception problem’.
Yes good citizen the ‘common thread’ that runs through all of our collective woes is ‘mis-management’.
Until we start managing our resources for the benefit of ALL of our people, the few who have grown to think they are, er, ‘entitled’ to the lion’s share of societies output will continue to drain us dry.
Why we shouldn’t march them all into the badlands with nothing more than the clothes on their backs remains a mystery?
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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