Dianomics—
Musing Outside the Economic Box

There is a reason that reading economics makes my teeth hurt. Oh it’s not the mind-numbing dryness, hell I devoured Michener and liked it.  Nope, it’s not the techno-jargon either, I speak fairly fluent medicalese for a non physician. It’s more the underlying feeling that I may as well be giving due diligence to every nuance of the Flat Earth theory in order to ever understand fully spectral shift of moving objects in space and why time slows down at the speed of light.

It’s not real, man.  The Economy isn’t a thing. It’s an agreement made by people who are buying into a mass delusion. It’s like going to a conference on which leeches best purify the blood then using that info to splice DNA into a stem cell to treat leukemia.  

A derivative is something based on another concept, stocks are something you make soups out of, and a hedge is something you trim, or not, if you hate your neighbors.  

It’s the study of lies. Its goat people bleating endlessly, in an ego-fest to figure out who the fuck gets to cross the bridge when everyone should know there really is no troll and we should just walk across the stream already and ignore the rat bastards.

But nooooo, pack mentality says it is what it is Galileo, and take this can of shut the fuck up.  It’s trying to explain about the man behind the curtain at a convention of curtain seamstresses.  “Yo! Leave my reality alone!  I make CURTAINS for a living, and without stitching these everyday, what would become of me?”

 

“My, Diane, what a Big Ego you have.”  “The better to shock you with, Little Red Sheeplehood.”

They’re my metaphors, I’ll mix them any way I want at three o’clock in the morning.

Lets talk about those egos.

They are really the reason we are in this mess in the first place.  

You see, here outside the box, we know that the village idiot in the corner of the classroom sharing youtube videos with the slackeristas just aren’t as good as you, who are diligently taking notes, working two jobs to put your orphaned brothers and sisters through the colleges you walk uphill to and from every day in the snow.

You deserve all the rewards you can get, because, you put in the time and effort to get that extra vacation/home-theater/Porsche/lifetime-free access to streaming frustrated sorority girl porn.  Right?

You mess with that?  You’re going to get a fight. Fighting is what we humans are best at.  Oh, not just for selfishness, but even to defend our friends.  Don’t believe me?  Check any Political Page and watch a flame war for a while.  “You didn’t just say that to my friend did you? I’m gonna take you down bitch!”  Humans will entrench instantly to any threat real or imagined to their reputation, integrity, or ability to typo less than the next guy.  Competition.  It’s more in that than Prego, and gets more action than Yo’ Momma on Woodward in a leather miniskirt.

So, how the hell do you convince people competition isn’t a thing to be admired, while still preserving that nurture instinct that may protect the weakest among us?

I guess, first, you have to make them understand the risk of getting eaten by an actual troll isn’t real.  Not just on the internet, mind you, though the analogy is priceless, but in that wider voodooland of (cue tragic music: duh, duh, dummm) “Global Economics.”

Throwing away the system doesn’t mean you can’t aspire to having cool shit if you work hard for it.  I mean, once you change the basic value system of people to quality of life from shitpile of possessions, it may make it even easier.  Personally?  I’d rather live in a tiny cabin, work less and spend endless hours on a pontoon fishing.  You want to work more, and blow by me in a Cigarette Boat straight out of Miami Vice?  Have at it dude.

Socialism will not, does not, and should never aspire to take your personal shit away from you; nor should it deny you any rewards for working harder.  Instead, it’s about meeting the most basic needs of everyone, and ensuring those rewards are not made at the direct expense of someone else.

Ever see the movie called “The Box”?  The idea is to remove the part where you have the option of doing better while someone else dies for your sins.

I can hear lizards hissing now.  “I came up with this idea, you sssseeeee, and like Bill Gatesssssesssss I deserve the besssssssst.”  

Deserve?  DESERVE?  By what criterion I ask, and what neo-liberal fucktards appointed themselves god and told you so?  Great ideas are meant to be shared by humanity, so that we all get the best.  What it doesn’t mean is that some woman in the Congo gets to work herself to death in a mine, instituting your idea so that you can reap top profits selling the product of your idea to the other lizards. It only means that society itself may give you acclaim, honor you, perhaps leave a few gifts on your doorstep.  Who doesn’t like an extra basket of eggs, a fresh chicken, or teenaged groupies?  You can keep that part.

But picture Mr. Lizard, a world in which people’s basic needs are met.  Food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care.  So now that they are not bogged down in the fight to survive, are they smarter and full of vigor?  What becomes of their excess time and efforts?

Perhaps an idea that they come up with that makes YOUR world a shit-ton better.  Expendable income to spend at your shop. Wait.  Did I say shop?  Well, by golly, I did!  Its ok, take a breath, try and keep up with me here.  In the land of Dianomics, small businesses do exist, private property does exist. I know Marxism is the big bad scary, and the anti-thesis to your lizard Armani suits, and bootleg Cuban Cigars…. but here’s a newsflash, bucko.  Private property is still private with limits.  Okey dokey?  Got that?

So, you have a lovely restaurant, that is so wonderful, you want to patent your recipes and make a national chain?  What now, Mr Wizard?  Well, I’m thinking that you could be able to do that.  Here’s the rub.  It wouldn’t be doing that well in an impoverished nation.  No tickee, no taco.  So, in order to ensure your success, you have to pay into the system that created you.  Hang on to your hat, I’m about to drop a T-bomb on you.

Taxes. Yep, you’re gonna pay them out the ass.  There will be a cap on how much you can extract from the community you serve, and to ensure that community still serves you?  You have to pay back into it.  

Any other process?  Ends up draining your customer base in the end. No expendable income? No ticky-tacky for you.  Call me the soup nazi.  I’m good with it.

Still? With your tax dollars?  You don’t have to pay for little junior to go to school.  You have no heating bill.  You have no electric bill. You have no water bill.  That is unless you go ape-shit an use 100 times what ordinary people do.  Then? You pay into the system for using more resources than you reasonable should.  In my world?  No one down the street is going to have to freeze to death because you want to crank your house up to 85 in the dead of winter, bring a plastic pool indoors, fill it with water, and have an authentic Winter Jimmy Buffett party every weekend. (I did that once.  Seriously.)

Nopitty-nope, my loves. Like a Monday morning hangover, you play you pay.  Why yes.  My Karma did just run over your Dogma.  Check your ego at the door and have a nice entitlement enema on me, mmmmmk????

Let’s take a big step back for a moment.  Remember that self-preservation instinct that makes you protect your little posse?  If no one is out to “get you” your posse gets a whole lot bigger.  Every kid is your kid, and every parent out there is protecting yours.

Hard to imagine I know.

You take away the competition?  I mean life and death Lord of the Flies competition, not your favorite friendly sports team competition… and suddenly people become entirely less touchy.  More apt to listen, really listen to your concerns.  

You don’t have to have an economics degree to learn what they told you in kindergarten. (then spent the rest of your life forcing you to unlearn) Mean people suck.  Sharing is good.  Don’t throw sand.  Cats don’t go in the microwave.

Whatsoever you do to the least of your brother, that you do unto YOU, dickweed.

It’s ok. No need to duck and cover, Henny Penny.  The sky will not crash down without the Atlases of Industry holding it up for you.  You don’t need a Daddy.  Pull up your big boy panties and think about it.

Who hasn’t had an asshole boss?  Now, what if you owned the company? Yeah, king of the world sounds nice, but calling the shots in the cubicle complex sounds even better, right?  Not so fast.  That nerd next to you owns the company too, and you know, without his coding you would never have that inventory spread, and without that engineer over there, the light rail engine would have failed, and without that inside sales girl… you see where I’m going with this?

People who work at a big industry should own it.  Have a vested interest. It’s the EXACT opposite of the scary no-incentive fable they told you in anti-commie class.  If it meant no disposable income?  People wouldn’t slack. Not at work anyway.  But if everyone had an interest in making production on time, making an awesome product, shit might get done so well, who knows?  Think 4-day workweek.  (Or less.) Think a month-long paid vacation. (Or far more.)  Think Costa Rica, baby.

Company meetings suck, I’m right there with you.  However, you can hire smart managers, who also own your company, and this is the internet age, baby, we’ve come a long way, and you can vote on things via a click of the button. All reporting would be public, and no one could cook your books and steal from you.

You think I’m naive, don’t you.  What if another company in Topeka makes the same product, aren’t you competing with them?  Hold up the pony wagon, there’s an app for that too!  Shrink your market a tad.  It’s a concept called sustainability.  They can serve their area, and you yours, and the more little factories, the more jobs, and the more we all have quality TIME to spend, rather than more imaginary market chips.  Even should your company be the sole purveyor of any given niche?  Put a cap on it, baby… you can do well, but there is no need to profit above and beyond, because you already have everything you need.

Here’s an even crazier thought about Flat Earths and Investment Banking.  We don’t need either one.  Seriously.  You could cancel all debt everywhere, make trading of stocks illegal tomorrow, and the world would not end.  Not even a tiny bit.  Not unless we, in our collective panic and addiction to our fairy tales decided it was the end and all started acting crazy and stupid.  

In a truly unified world economy working for the benefit of all, the dollar could be worth exactly what we decide it is.  The yen too.  But all things not being equal in this reality?  We can decide by common consensus that from here on in all currency is equal no matter what we call it.  Duuuuuude, I am not smoking anything.

Sure, there could be Banks to hide your money in, if you are not a spender, and ran out of mattresses.  There it could sit.  Interest? Not so much. You see, that bank would serve your community, and perhaps loan money to young people starting out in your neighborhood.  They could pay it back.  Thing is, usury is dead and buried.  What you put in is what you get, what you borrow is what you pay.  No more, no less.  No interest checking, no interest loans, the only interest you need to have is why you want to hoard your money, when every week you will get more, and there is no gain to be made from it.  So you spend, they spend, we all spend, and its the land of Canaan, honey. No need to milk it anymore.

Wow, I didn’t expect it to be this loud, this sound of heads exploding.  I can hear from here.  Not just all the good little incremental regulatory capitalists, but the biggest booms are from economic theorists.  I love a good fireworks show.  Pretty!

What would be the incentive to invest in research and technology?

Remember your very high tax brackets?  Good ideas get dineros. Really, if a small group of people weren’t making bazillions of the filthy wasteland of our oil addiction, do you not think by now with our ginormous brains, we could not have implemented technology that creates a green and limitless power source?

Am I the only one on this planet of mine?

To expand on that?  What if we built stuff so amazingly well, that it never needed replacing?  What if eventually we eliminated the need to work at all?  Durable goods, limitless food supplies, means of housing and utilities. What if every man, woman and child was educated, healthy, happy?  What if love was free and hate nonexistent?

Talk about a party.

Talk about a land of philosophy, arts, energy spent on coming up with ever better ideas…. we wouldn’t need Gods, we would become them.

Kind makes everything we have previously thought fall, well FLAT.

DIANE GEE’s main turf is The Wild Wild Left.  She also helms a provocative radio program at BlogRadio.