I can’t say that I’m actually pissed about this. Mood stabilizers are wonderful drugs if you’re the sort of person such that the combination of a bad day and a strong breeze are all it takes to push you over the edge. And people who were too lazy or stupid to understand some of the complexities involved in our current economic situation were often the focus of some of my more elaborate homicidal fantasies.
OK, I shouldn’t exaggerate like that. I generally would try not to think about them until they said something so moronic that the feelings provoked were really all homicidal with very little patience left for fantasy. Except now that I can be more objective about such things, although I do still believe a lot of people are not as intellectually curious as they ought to be, I no longer think of them as the shit eating fungi I once did. Rather, I think what we are seeing is a convergence of trends, all of which we were warned of, but all of which I think are starting to unravel.
If you’re not at least 40-50 years old, then gather round boys and girls and let me tell you a story. Back in the 70’s and early 80’s, we had something called stagflation. That word ‘stagflation’ was brand new by the way since it described something no one had ever seen before - a stagnant economy with high inflation. All sorts of things were tried to deal with it but nothing worked. It seemed as if no one understood anything about the economy or how it worked.
So finally our President at the time resorted to magic and told us that we should too and that if we all used the same magic that it just might work. Thus was born the fashionable line of “Whip Inflation Now” buttons, signs, t-shirts, ear rings, watches and all other manner of tchotchke. But alas, the president’s magic was weak as was that of his successor. It was not until a washed up B-movie actor and ex-governor of California became our leader (with a wife who could read horoscopes) that things began to change. They would have changed anyway, but I suppose I shouldn’t say that as if to imply that it should matter.
The ex-hacktor/governor was a much better magician than any of his predecessors though. During his 8 years in office, he was able to convince the American people that no matter how complex the problem, there was always a simple solution. And that if you didn’t listen to the ivory tower know-nothing egg heads that had gotten you into most of the messes in the first place, none of the problems were really complex at all. It was really all just a bunch of gobbledy gook and double talk.
Those mellifluous words were all bullshit of course, but you were entranced because it was a line of bullshit so thick and pure, primeval in it’s perfection, like the first sisyphean ball of shit being rolled from West to East by the great god Khepri on the day of the first sunrise. None of it could possibly be right, but oh dear sweet Jesus how you wanted it to be so.
And from that day forward boys and girls, there were no longer any complex problems. The world was all candy canes, smiley faces and skittle-shitting unicorns. But if for some reason you actually looked around one day just to double check (you evil child) and found out otherwise, it wouldn’t be because someone had sold you the biggest lie since ‘no really, your ass isn’t fat’, it would be because the govt was broken - destroyed by the bureaucrats and egg heads that had once been banished. If there was only one lesson we should have learned those many years ago it was this: if the people who understand a problem are telling you that it is too complex to solve with simple solutions, then the solution is to get rid of those people.