The Thing Is.

Apparently ‘The Thing’ movies are on their third incarnation since the sixties, each reflecting the current zeitgeist. Anyway being in the latter stages of a cold here’s a new proposal for a fourth. 

For

thousands 

of years the human race

has suffered from the common cold. 

Innocuous enough but strangely resistant to any form of cure. It’s just two sickie days and a runny nose that firms up into gooey lemon curd. But what if that lemon curd has been slowly dissolving some lower part of the human brain responsible for individuality? Yes I’ve just read on the internet that this has been know about for years. Since the 1800’s the elite responsible people in power have been working relentlessly to counteract this long-term condition affecting all of us. After the smogs of the fifties they created an explosion in advertising and spent millions of dollars on television networks just to help us make our individual choices. Their slow sickening realisation that the masses would dissolve into pointless dissolute eccentricity made them redouble their efforts. They expanded government, provided us with an intricate framework of laws and provided us with wars just so we wouldn’t fall victim to the malaise of the common cold. But after all this valiant effort we just kept catching colds, atchooo, and our condition worsened. They provided countless hours of sit-coms to help us remember what it’s like to have a sense of humour, hours of reality programs to show us how non-suffering individuals can have fun in the jungle and Essex and bitch about other people’s cooking. And all interspersed with those vital ads should we succumb to not knowing what to buy. Sadly their superhuman efforts on our behalf have come to no avail and it is widely runed that 2012 will be the year of their final defeat. How we will cope without them God only knows. With our unique power to pursue being an individual gone what will be our fate as we finally succumb to, ‘The Thing that makes us Sneeze’? A nondescript oneness, a sort of pointless freedom? Who knows. So coming to a cinema near you, the scariest film you’ll ever see, “The Thing from Wolverhampton.”

Flattened by Stats.

I was sharing a few beers last week with a huge Stiffmouse fan who is, if not the actual person, Matt Cardle. That is when the X Factor star fancies inhabiting an alternative body to sling back several incognito pints in the dingy marquee behind one of Sheffield’s most disreputable pubs, lit only by a weedy string of post apocalyptic Christmas lights. This meeting and noticing Stiffmouse page views for November are heading for 500 made me for a moment feel quite bullish. But after a further moments analysis I figure there are less than thirty people consistently bored enough to follow my blog. So how do I feel about thirty? And in itself isn’t that a question that could shake our numerical world like a CGI earthquake, conflating as it does the pre-cision of numbers with the inde-cision of feelings? I suspect numbers are merely our way of applying a fanciful post accuracy to, in more simple terms, what is or isn’t enough. Anyway thirty is somewhere between a pitiful percentage of world population and a decent audience for a pub gig. Similarly in terms of large and small numbers the numerous millions in the government compensation fund for the damage caused in the summers riots has so far paid out £3,500, and the £6 million available in the bankruptcy settlement to pay the swindled but hopeful Christmas savers in that collapsed Christmas saving company of a few years ago has been reduced by £8 million legal costs to -£2 million. How do we feel abut that?

Life on Balls.

I’ve just watched a robot demonstration. It was like a miniature 3’ tall office block balanced on top of a basketball. It sensed any inclination and rotated the ball to right itself 160 times a second. It could stay where it was or move around in response to being pushed, follow a person and dance to music. And then there’s the Arab Spring. OK this is a bit tenuous but go with it. Now perhaps it’s just me but balancing on a basketball and righting myself 160 times a second to counteract dangerous inclinations is an apt metaphor for my cognitive condition. I exist in a constant succession of micro tweaks this way and that so as to appear, outwardly at least, sensible. I call it thinking. God forbid some ripple in the carpet should send me spiralling off into an uncontrollable wobble, but then again I might perfectly maintain my basketball balance whilst imperceptibly drifting around on the inclines of my circumstance. So now lets look at the long standing Arab leaders, Gadaffi et al. For thirty years they’ve been on a steady incline tweaking themselves upright 160 times a second. Everything is and always has been perfectly ‘sensible’ so “why on earth has the world suddenly gone mad?”

Surely it would benefit the human race greatly if we took into account that however upright we may appear our individual cognition has no way of identifying where it is in the overall cognitive landscape. All we have is the facility to right ourselves 160 times a second. If we did recognise this universal proclivity as fact it would dramatically alter our approach to social organisation. “Power corrupts…” would no longer be a whimsical myth but a scientific fact that must be designed out. Anyway skyscrapers on balls is a great idea. They’d bend with the wind, we could move them around and when it’s time to demolish them just drive them to a land fill and tip them over.

Grapes of What?

So the Republicans wouldn’t give an inch on increased taxes, I guess they didn’t need to because the automatic result of stalemate will be spending cuts to reduce the $15 trillion US deficit. I’m amazed no one’s done the maths behind income distribution and the effective funding of society. My guess is they would prove extreme pay differences cause government debt. The average cost of Medicare, etc per individual will be x say. It will vary only slightly between rich and poor. The unemployed poor though will absorb vast amounts in welfare. These people require a framework to be profitable, a job in a company. Now when the top people of that company take excessive pay they help to starve it of capital. As monetary asset strippers they reduce the blood flow down the pyramid and one salary of £3 million at the top will starve 3,000 jobs at the bottom. These 3,000 move from profitability to absorbers of welfare, and government debt grows. In these recessionary times if the top salaries were reduced the company would have extra resources to grow and in growth bring more individuals out of welfare back into profit. The resulting company growth would benefit workers, companies and the government in higher tax revenues and less welfare i.e. double whammy debt reduction. It’s not about taxing the wealthy more because that would just be swallowed up in welfare, it’s about proving to them that their greed is harming everyone, themselves included. Don’t they remember the depression and the dust bowl and that they were only saved by selling arms to their western allies?

Meanwhile this year there has been a drought in Oklahoma. Time to read John Steinbeck again.

Passive Aggressive Machines.

Do you enter into conversation with lifts and Sainsburys automated checkout stations? Where are we now? “Ground floor.” Are you going to open the bloody doors? “Doors opening.” Thank you, etc. Only by entering into conversation with these messages do you realise how passive aggressive they are. “Have you used your Nectar card?” No I’m just trying to find the bloody thing, it’s in here somewhere. “Have you…” OK OK, ah here it is. “Card accepted.” Oh thank you, very kind of you, I feel quite fulfilled by your sincere endorsement. Oh and “Approval needed”, which insinuates gently but categorically I have to ask an embryo to verify I’m in fact old enough to be his grandfather. Yes thank you very much, I’m well aware I’m fifty years the wrong side of eighteen. Then there’s “Unexpected item in the bagging area.” This means ‘you cheating bastard, you’ve tried to get away without paying for something.’ I tell the machine an unexpected crow has just landed on my six-pack of sausages and is pecking at it to get it open, but it takes no notice. The embryo looks at me suspiciously and swipes his magic card again. Finally it gives me permission to go, “Please take your shopping. Thank you for shopping at Sainsburys.” But this is just a taster of what’s to come. Imagine switching your fully automatic robot hoover on to clean the front room carpet and its sweat cleaner voice reporting, “Perhaps in future Gordon you would like to pick up all the small Lego pieces before you turn me on.” Or your programmable dishwasher suggesting, “Gordon this is the second time I’ve had to tell you you’re not pre-washing your dinner plates thoroughly enough.” No, mark my words, we’re heading for robot servitude. And then on leaving our Sainsburys I hear, “The travelator is coming to an end. Be prepared to step of.” Well quite frankly, at my age that’s offensive. 

Youth Unemployment.

 I’m angry at the way my generation has shafted our children. We’ve given them false expectations, a false sense of maturity, largely debilitating schooling, a huge bill for higher education of dubious benefit, and to cap it all no outlet for their skills and enthusiasm. Though it’s no fault of theirs our children are trained consumers of product and entertainment just as19th century kids were trained to labour or starve. Where those kids, though they were never fairly paid or credited for it, built a cushion of wealth for our nation that’s taken a century to dissipate, our kids have entered on the downward curve, indebted, contracting and soft. Today’s wombs are holding leveraged babies. So much for blame, it’s never useful. 

So kids forget your jumping-through-hoops education and enjoy some real learning of some kind that feeds your enthusiasm for life itself. Forget your TV training in consuming, celebrities and luxuries from our ‘Taste the Difference’ range. Beneath the surface of life is a cave of many riches, understandings, emotions and the twists and turns of your own Arthurian legend. It is your duty only to strive to be the best you can be not to just fulfil some employer’s needs. Be that and they will come to you. Pick the fruit that’s within your grasp; you will be taller tomorrow.

And to my generation. Remember that times have profoundly changed. Challenges and solutions are not the same. Remember that your ‘never had it so good’ was built on a million previous struggles and sacrifices, and now it’s your turn. Not this time in Christmas presents but holding, supporting and encouraging our young to find their fulfilment and prosperity. We don’t know the answers, not now, and neither do they, but it is they that must find them with our help, not us.

To politicians. Begin to think. You have too long mouthed. Take risks to be loved and supported, for the answers are no longer in the box.

And to Jeremy Paxman. Well done for not strangling those two shites, I would have nutted ‘em.

Raw Rats Arse.

In our kitchen there has lurked for no small while a petite jar from ‘Deli Continental.’ It contains, ‘Shiitake, Paddy Straw, Nameko and Porcini mushrooms in vegetable oil.’ Someone paid good money for it and gave it to us as a present. I can see why. It has the familiar look of a Bush-tucker Trial. It wouldn’t take much to convince me it contains lambs eyelids, rats pituitary glands and assorted baby eagle offal. We’ve never found the right occasion to open it. Presumably if we ever do get around to opening it it will also taste like the latter. So Mark out of Towie is, this very pre-recorded moment, in the Australian jungle in a Melbourne back garden attempting to eat his own Deli Continental fare. Good luck mate, good on yer. I like people with arrogance, it’s a much misunderstood virtue. I admire someone honest enough to say, “bring it on, sure I’ll do it, up for anything me, what? Fuck that” followed by “ It’s not humanly possible”, after watching Freddie Star down a bowl of raw rats arse. Granted Freddie was hospitalised as a result, so technically Mark was right. No I won’t have anything said against mark, he’s as translucent as a wet t-shirt and I prefer a wet t-shirt any day to Teresa May’s murky obfuscations. OMG I’ve just imagined Teresa May in a wet t-shirt! Give me that Deli Continental jar.

Teachers Attractive Bottoms.

Teachers have two failings, enthusiasm and optimism. Other than that they’re lovely people. This unfortunate condition attracts a Pied Piper-esque following of people trying to shaft them. If it’s not the Department for Education, pupils and their adoring or neglectful parents it’s members of their own profession. My sonmouse, graciously saved by his ironic humour, lasted two years and recounted this example. His deputy head, obviously with an already firm grip on the greasy pole, asked a group of pupils for their helpful suggestions on how the school might enhance their educational experience. They duly offered, “lessons should be fun not boring, to be treated as adults, more group work, and more learning of all this fascinating material than stupid tests.”  Duly noted this Dephead offered his findings to the whole school in the following day’s assembly. This thoughtful initiative was roughly the equivalent of getting teachers to bend over so he could spread jam over their bottoms. It’s like the management of Costa Coffee coming back with the results of a customer survey. “So you want us to serve topless, spill milk on our breasts, lick it off, give them free use of the privilege stamp and trust them to come back and pay the following day after they’ve done a runner?!!” It seems climbing the greasy pole takes one out of focusing distance of reading between the lines. Then there’s in-post training to continually refresh and invigorate a teachers skills and commitment. Where sonmouse came out expecting a conversation of hearty derision after an hour of banal stupidity, which in itself would have been a much needed moral booster, he was met with, “Mmm, interesting. Informative yet provocative.” What! Page seven of my IT handout covered ‘how to hold your mouse.’ With helpful diagram!” No doubt if I assiduously read further chapter two will go on to cover the tricky situation of wanting to go further left after reaching the edge of your mouse mat. ‘Carefully lift your mouse, gently slide the mat to the left and then lower your mouse again.’ Somewhere this very moment there’s a teacher practicing this delicate maneuver. Sonmouse went on to explain what he did during his ten-week course in Craft, Design & Technology. “Sanding.” Sanding? “Yes, it allows you to drift around and chat to all your friends.” So there you have it, the current state of education, ten weeks spent making a bit of wood slightly smaller.

Economics Again.

Well Radio 4 has just hosted a lecture by a famous economist, Richard Kean, who outlined his new ideas to get us out of this mess, i.e. Variable Income Pricing, which, yes, you heard here first on Stiffmouse. Buoyed up by this coupe I’ll go further. Richard talked of Darwin as an economist, that natural selection, though it could favour the individual or the species, chooses to favour the species. In other words where slightly bigger breasts might favour an individual female’s capacity to attract a male partner evolution hasn’t allowed them to continue to grow to the size of weather balloons because copulation would become impossible lying on a bouncy pair of Space Hoppers. So evolution is directed towards the benefit of the species not the individual. Now it’s widely recognised the rich/poor income ratio has grown out of hand lately and our system has mutated towards favouring individuals, and that regulation of some sort is needed. But what sort of regulation? Currently as the best salaries are paid to the regulated it likely they will find ways around regulation put in place by the less well-paid regulators. So we can’t keep these horses in by regulatory fences. What we can do is create rules that are in the brightest minds best interests to follow, i.e. the brighter they are the better they will follow them. Where a strong horse will jump out of a square coral it will run to its hearts content between two circular fences. Variable Income Pricing is a case in point. Another more subtle approach might be to enforce a simple rule that one must take a day’s holiday for every £2,000 worth of income. That way not only would high earners become increasingly non-productive, they would have an increasing amount of leisure time to find a better meaning to their life. These type rules attempt to bend the economic trajectory of all layers of society towards the common good rather than building more and more complex fences that will inevitably be jumped. Then of course there’s electric fences. I wonder how they would work out?

Goodby Food Friends.

Stop doing this to me! Providing irresistible blog material. Today Mothermouse gets a letter in the post offering us friendship with a tea bag! That’s right, two young women (pictured) from Yorkshire Tea are offering us two free teabags (enclosed) in exchange for our friendship with a teabag. That’s just one each. If one of my existing human friends offered me a teabag on my birthday I’d be offended and they’re not, well they’re not teabags. My friendship cannot be bought with a teabag! And besides that how am I supposed to have a meaningful relationship with one anyway!? Is it going to forgive me for pouring boiling water over it and, when I’ve thoughtlessly extracted what I want from it, throw it in the compost bin? No it wouldn’t work, we’d drift apart, cite musical differences and come to hate each other over who’s going to get custody of the children. What would they think of me breaking up the family for an illicit relationship with a small bag of leaves? And then said young ladies go on to recommend I add it as a friend on Facebook! What’s it going to do, post me pictures of comical teabag t-shirts and tell me it’s just been for a lovely walk? They then go on to suggest I can follow it on Twitter! Follow a teabag on Twitter?!!!! What like, “I’m going in….I’m coming out… oops now I’m lying in the remains of yesterday’s cottage pie.” I’m not interested in the private lives of teabags, I don’t want to be their friend, and I’m definitely not going on to You Tube to follow the hilarious exploits of one. In fact I’m so incensed I’m going to delete all my Face Book foodstuff friends. I have my pride. 

Struggle.

I was not enlightened by Melvyn Bragg’s quizzing of four philosophers yesterday so I feel I must step in where centuries of debate have patently failed to get a grip on our relationship with reality. The core of the oneness of all things is struggle. Rocks struggle with gravity and weathering, plants with getting nutrients and Japanese Knotweed, and animals with digesting other animals and/or plants. Humans though are in a class of their own having a forehead brain extension to aid our struggle. Imagine if you will, being in a darkened, soundproof room alone. You put on headphones, turn on a 3D monitor and plug in an olfactory/gustatory transducer into your nose and mouth. You feel in the darkness for joysticks connected to your manipulators. With the aid of these inputs you begin your forehead brain extension’s struggle with what appears to be an external environment. This isolation booth defines the parameters of our cognitive Matrix-like struggle. And that’s it. The so-called philosopher’s struggle is just the same as David Beckam taking a free kick. It doesn’t address the root of our relationship with reality, it’s just another aspect of our struggle because that’s what we’re programmed to do; it’s all we do. It’s called 'struggle.’ Then of course there's the other old question. "Is there anyone in the room with you?"

My Football Mouth.

Having a mouth like the Somme battlefield after a heavy night’s shelling I’ve just returned from another visit to my dentist. I realise now there are some who watch Strictly giving marks out of ten for dentistry. Brucey, 9.5- top and bottom sets by Revis and Hughs Labs, Epsom, excellent work; Russell Grant, 8.0- front four incisors  slight mismatch with own canines, Robbie Savage, 11- Oh my God, get a room! etc. And that’s with their mouths closed; God knows what he makes of the X Factor contestants with their molars exposed in full gob extension! He’s probably mentally toting up the cost of the work they need doing while they’re singing, “I need your vote, god speed your vote, god vote for me, my y y yy y y love” for survival on a Sunday. But I have to admit, Russell Grant has been a surprising find, managing to combine the attributes of a Tele-Tubby with the spirit of Martha Graham. No dis Russell, you’ve got what it takes, incisors aside, whereas I, falling into the trap common to all commentators of saying they’re useless at everything, am useless at everything. My score for dancing would accurately reflect my dentist’s opinion of my mouth, “abysmal Garry.” (as in Alan Hanson’s view of Chelsea’s back four) But at least now I’ve got a presentable front four; I’ve named them Belotelli, Rooney, Drogba and Hernandez, nestling between my own canine stalwarts of Scholes and Giggs. But then it’s still the back four molars, Vidic, Ferdinand, Smalling and Brown who do all the hard work. I had Ashley Cole out. 

Bernard the Prick.

OK now here’s another world-beater, I like this one: VIP. We’ve had VAT so how about VIP, Variable Income Pricing. It’s very simple. We each have a taxable income worked out by the Inland Rev. This simple information is added to the data on our credit cards. Then, when you go into a shop to purchase an electric toothbrush or flatulence tablets etc the base cost of the item is multiplied by some factor related to your income. Thus flatulence tablets would cost 65 pence to an unemployed cosmetic surgeon but only £5.95 to a hedge fund manager who’s just got out of his Ferrari parked on a double yellow line. Yes it taxes the rich more than ordinary people but only if they buy something, they can still have low income tax. I mean they love buying expensive cars and houses and jewellery so lets increase their enjoyment by making them even more expensive. “Oh yes Sid, this Lambo cost me ten times what you’d pay for it, but you see I can afford it, unlike you.” “Well Damian that’s amazing. I’m so impressed, I never dreamt anything could be that expensive!” “Oh it’s nothing Sid. Work hard and one day you’ll be able to spend money like I do.” They’ll love it. Bankers who’ve fallen on hard times will get depressed, ashamed by the low prices they’re being changed. “So how much did that Nigella Lawson cook book cost you?” “Don’t remember.” “Oh come on you’re just avoiding the humiliation of paying £6.95. Mine cost me £87.80. Bernard got his for £127.95 but he’s a prick. Ha ha ha.”

The History of Crowds.

Today I was interviewed by Juliana Vandergrift from the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of an oral history of the UK toy industry. To be honest I’ve never come across a name that would 99% of the time upstage its owner. ‘Juliana Vandergrift’ is a super model of a monica. She would at least have to be the woman Sven Goran Erickson ditched Nancy Dell,Olio for to have better sex and a decent conversation, or the spy that finally made James Bond celibate. It’s like calling your kid ‘Goliath Hulk’ and expecting him to have a successful career in dentistry. But if I was a filmmaker I’d employ her just so her name would appear in the credits. Anyway Juliana turned out to be a very normal, sensible young woman so I put away my preconceptions of our steaming up the windows of her Bentley Continental in a lay-by overlooking Monte Carlo and rabbited on about the toy industry for two hours. After wishing her a safe trip home to Ipswich, Ipswich for God sake! I watched the student protest on wall-to-wall TV. It’s so easy to see a crowd as just ‘a crowd’ rather than a few thousand individuals each with their own life story, hopes, understandings and motivations; so easy to dismiss them on mass. Strangely, after talking at length about the toy industry, it reminded me of any product you buy. You may see it as an electric kettle that’s just failed, but involved in that product was a small crowd of people from designers to engineers to managers, assembly and packaging. That fault, assuming you haven’t just thrown it across the room at a marauding befuddled buffalo, is probably down to one of that crowd making a small misjudgement. It just helped remind me we’re all in the midst of crowds, of so many different oral histories. So let me tell you about the toy industry.

Downton Abbey.

Downton Abby, it’s the sort of TV you can rest your eyes to, only opening them periodically to admire the dresses. The only downside, unless you achieve complete comatosis, is you can still follow the plot from the dialogue. Here is a smattering as if penned by Misstequilashots (Blog- 11/12/2010)

Downton fuck off pad with servies and doesn’t look nothing like an Abbey is happy before war came but all get uniformed and screw around and one gets shot in the willy which pisses him off cos he can’t marry the woman he loves but it starts working again which pisses him off cos he’s already shacked up with another woman who dies of flu which pisses him off again so he can’t marry the first one who he still loves which pisses him off and then one servy kisses the duke or whatever he is and marries the butler who gets arrested for murdering his ex wife who’s a complete shit unlike the chauffeur who really loves the Duke’s daughter who’s a bit wet if you ask me and wants to take her to Ireland but the Duke gets mad whereas he’s happy about his other daughter who’s stupid and loves the guy who’s always pissed off even though he’s got his willy working marrying a wealthy bastard no accounting for taste as they say and someone who really got shot as in you know to death fathered a baby by a servy who won’t give it up to an arse hole and a nice lady they being its grandparents an’all. The End. Well end of series one. 

The Mule's Kick.

Ah now I understand! Europe is a Mule, a bastard marriage of many countries with one currency. OK there are the obvious problems of the different countries having different economic strengths, surpluses and deficits but it’s not that. It’s that the rest of the world economies are one country, one currency horses and they don’t know what to do with a mule. If a single country Europe would have enough money to fix itself but one region, Germany, won’t fully support the ‘other regions’. The IMF is there to support individual countries but Europe is not one country, and it can’t support one country like Italy without that support leaking to the other countries with the same currency. And other world countries don’t want to help if Europe won’t help itself as a single country, which it’s not. So though it’s in everyone’s best interests to sort this impasse out it’s not in the best interest of any one of the major players. It’s a variation on the Lifeboat dilemma; “Who’s going to jump out, or in this case in, to save us all from drowning?” OK with men, women and children there’s a chance but a lifeboat full of politicians?

Perhaps Greece is right, get out quick and become a single country, single currency horse again, a sort of Trojan Horse backing out through the gate, “Make way please, oh sorry was that your foot, I’m coming through, oops pardon me, thankyou.Just….”

The 1% Bubble.

Oh and get this. Ever since the South Sea Bubble, which as I remember was something to do with a market collapse in turtle testicles, through to the Wall Street crash, a collapse in share prices, to 2008, a collapse in the housing loan market, there has, preceding these events, always been a ludicrously unsustainable rise in some commodity or other. Only when this ludicrousity became undeniable was there a violent readjustment. So what commodity preceding 2011 has ludicrously risen in value? That’s what these ‘take over Wall Street’ sit-ins are about. Where the bottom 99% incomes have risen 10% to 50% the income of the top 1% has risen by 300%. It’s the same old rhetoric but instead of “buy Turtle Testicle stock, it’s on the up” it’s been, “we have to pay the top salaries to attract the top people.” Our new South Sea Bubble is the top 1% together with their ethos. It’s not envy to think they’re not each worth between a few hundred to a thousand nurses, it’s undeniable ludicrousity. And what we’re currently experiencing is the seismic shifts of this bursting bubble as our indebtedness rises unsustainably to feed their wealth creation schemes. So who will step forward to say, “I won’t do it for the money, I want to do this job because I love being able to contribute. Just give me £300k pa to cover anything I could realistically need. For me to take this approach, as many studies have shown, will, contrary to our entrenched beliefs actually enhance my quality of life. Thank you.” But I suspect, just like turtle testicles, once you’ve been the flavour of the month there’s little possibility of them converting into iPhones when the wind changes. 

My Own Euro Crisis.

I go to see good mice friends in Buxton on my trusty but not rusty Yamaha SZR660, carefully putting my waterproofs, wallet and loose change in my backpack. I go onto reserve 5 miles from home then realise I’ve left my pack. No problem, I’ll go back today and collect it. Mothermouse goes to town and I realise I have no money to buy petrol to get to Buxton to collect my wallet. After much searchification of old trousers etc I find £2 and borrow £3 from next-door-but-one. After a pleasant ride to Buxton I retrieve my wallet and don the waterproofs as there’s a slight shower. Two minutes into my return journey the sky goes black and the heavens open. If I close my visor it mists up and if I open it rain gets on the inside as well as the outside. I peer into the darkness through two layers of droplets and mist. This is unhelpful at 50mph in traffic. Now I know how Angela Merkel feels.

Go Papa!

Go Greece! Papandreou wants a referendum and is currently being tortured in Strasburg or somewhere by the Forces of Euro. I don’t know but I get the impression the Forces of Euro want Greece to play ball, i.e. remain in hock to the Empire, while Luke Skywalker Papandreou is heading a plucky effort to save planet Tantuine just south of Thessalonica. Greeks by culture and geography are individuals as with the aforementioned island dwelling bazuki playing gyros seller, their concept of central government could be summed up on a postage stamp. Basically if the gov has got into debt let ‘them’ pay it off, a view secretly shared by the rest of us. So should Greece borrow money so generously offered like a bank’s offer of a mortgage you could never pay back or cut and accept insolvency? I’d imagine with their own devalued currency their tourist industry would flourish as it once did. And maybe the rest of us would be left muttering, “if only we’d had the balls to do that.” Bring back the days when banks refused to offer a lone because “it wouldn’t be in YOUR best interests.”

The Giant Paddle.

So the crisis lingers. The 2008 crisis was about millions of people being provoked into borrowing on a rising house market. When house prises fell their investment turned into a debt many couldn’t pay. The debts were real as were the houses but their notional value inflated and then deflated. Everything was real apart from the arbitrary nature of their value. These debts were finally left with the banks, which in some cases were bailed out by taxpayers. In effect we were all lumbered with the product of over valuation pumped up by aggressive bank lending. And now as in 1928 we are experiencing the very real after effects, slow growth, unemployment, devaluation/inflation and higher taxes. The profits from this over valuation went to the many strands of finance and those wise enough to sell when optimism is too high. Stocks rose in 1927 by 50% in one year and house prices rose dramatically prior to 2008. These rises bore no relationship to any underlying increase in value. So these rise/falls in value act to pump wealth from the majority to the financial minority. It appears that by a million small, uncoordinated individual decisions in capitalism money migrates to capitalists, and in communism money migrates to the centre of the communist structure. Even if we invented some new ‘ism’ you can guess where the wealth would flow. Maybe the strange thing is this is not due solely to avarice but friendship. We want to be good to our friends so if we find ourselves in the centre of the current ism we share our perspective with them. We are not friends with those outside it and leave them ignorant of our good news. This suggests the only ism to work for the majority will be Mixing-ism where society is stirred by a giant paddle placing rich with poor, powerful with powerless, tall with short etc in a sort of constantly changing partners folk dance. Maybe then the million small, uncoordinated individual decisions would benefit the whole.