The Mezunian

Die Positivität ist das Opium des Volkes, aber der Spott ist das Opium der Verrückten

Waiting for Summer to End

I fill my rucksack with pine cones & acorns,

stuff closets with branches & boughs—

sap so sticky, so golden under the sun—

collect stacks o’ grass in pillow cases—

tickling my nose with sweet dirt-filled fragrance.

They try to stop me.

They say I’m crazy.

What’s wrong with crazies?

What, are they Nazis?

‘Cause I know they’ll take it all ‘way someday—

the sky & the clouds & the rain,

the moon & the stars & the sun,

the blooms, the bushes, & the dirt,

the trees & their fall-fallen leaves,

the bees, their precious honey, & their wicked hives,

the wind & the rain & the snow,

my skin…

So I squeeze it ‘tween my shoulders,

huff it up my nostrils,

like one deserted in a desert, just coming into contact with water for the 1st time,

‘fore someone warned her that huffing water is bad for one’s nostrils.

No!

You can’t have it back!

Just give me a few mo’ minutes with them!

No!

You always say you’ll give them back later—

but I know you plan to destroy me ‘fore that comes.

You always plan to destroy me ‘fore summer comes ‘gain,

& I always barely miss destruction.

But I know this time won’t go so well.

This time’s different.

You’ve got me just where you want me.

Checkmate.

I’ll miss you, sweetie.

(Kisses oak branch.)

Posted in Crazy, Poetry

Noah Smith’s Brilliant Cure for Racism: Ending Racism

Noah Smith might be in the running for the whitest white guy e’er to exist, so I’m always eager to hear his surely experienced wisdom on race issues.

After misinterpreting Cornell West’s rant gainst Ta-Nahisi Coates o’er who’s indier than thou1 as being purely ’bout evil capitalism, when the very quote Smith puts in his article includes a list o’ problems, only 1 o’ which being capitalism’s vileness (although I guess the imperialism stuff might be connected) & giving some simplistic history lesson ’bout how revolution & vile communism lead to Stalinism—’cause all critics o’ capitalism go round slaughtering monarchs & o’erthrowing governments, you know,—Smith offers this jewel o’ advice:

If history is any guide, the only option is to increase tolerance.

¡It’s so simple! ¡We can end racism by not being racist! ¿Why haven’t we tried this? That’s right up there with that guarantee o’ becoming rich by making a lot o’ money or laissez-faire libertarian’s solution to government being not to have it anymo’. In fact, I’m not sure why Smith’s criticizing revolutionaries so much, since his advice is quite common: ¡let’s just not have the system we don’t like! I don’t know why silly black leaders like Coates or West have all o’ these complicated arguments when Smith, Certified Expert in Black Issues, made it all so simple—& therefore mo’ efficient in economics thinking. Why, it’s so simple that it’s utterly thoughtless—¡you can’t get mo’ simple than that!

I have a better idea: let’s just do what privileged ditzes like Noah Smith do without external stimulation & sedate our minds from all issues with drugs so that in our mind’s there’s no mo’ racism, poverty, responsibilities, or nothing. Let’s just completely ‘scape from reality & just babble o’er & o’er ‘gain sugary phrases like “¡Hang in there, Jere!” & “¡Be Something!”

Actually, now that I think ’bout it, that ‘scaping from reality thing truly does sound nice. ¿Where can I get those drugs you’re taking, Smith?

Addendum:

Also, can I think Smith for warning me gainst this “o’erthrowing capitalism in a bloody revolution” idea & warning us ’bout this “Soviet Union” thing that happened ‘hind all our backs. I can’t count all o’ the Americans who’re thinking to themselves,—’long with “I ought to start my own business” or “I ought to go to a protest,”—“you know, I think I really ought to try o’erthrowing capitalism & putting into power the dictatorship o’ the proletariat.” But then they read this blog post & slapped their foreheads. “¡I forgot all ’bout the Soviet Union & Stalin & all that stuff! & here I thought communism would be nothing but us all sticking our vaginas & dicks in each other’s bums. O well, I guess I’ll just have to douse the misery in my heart caused by 60 hours a week o’ minimum wage work that is slowly whittling my body into dust by getting drunk & masturbating, like usual.”


Footnotes:

1 I’m not taking sides in this delightful fight; I’m just criticizing Smith’s vacuous comments. Unlike Smith, I react as whites should to black people having arguments ’bout racial issues: nervously tiptoeing ‘way.

Posted in No News Is Good News, Politics, Yuppy Tripe

Problogger Is a Website that Focuses Mo’ on Commercial Factors than Intelligence- or Creativity-Based Factors, o’ which I Am Not Particularly Fond OR Problogger Fucking Blows

I’ve oft risked mental deterioration—e’en mo’ than what has already transpired—while perusing these money-grubbing hacks’ simplistic top-14 lists, but Problogger.net‘s so shitty it almost crashed my browser with its artery-clogging ads—the equivalent o’ having a trash can dumped onto your face. I know they’re the McDonalds o’ writing, but do they have to give my computer a heart attack as badly?

For god’s sake, they actually have a link in the top bar called «Make Money.» One with a smidgen o’ self-awareness would’ve realized that such lofty promises o’ riches are a stock joke.

Which made me realize: these websites are the modern form o’ those after-midnight infomercials. You know the 1s: with their tacky production values & lecherous ol’ men gripping tightly to their books in all-caps like drunken millennials1—«MAKE MONEY WHILE SCRATCHING YOUR ARMPITS.»

The web design certainly fits. Let’s gander @ all o’ the «business website» tropes seen in a million websites already:

1. Ugly bar @ top pestering me to join their newsletter.

Problogger‘s isn’t so bad, however, ’cause it disappears inexplicably after a while—so much so that it took me a while to make it reappear, to the point that I almost thought I only imagined it.

O wait, now I see: it’s s’posed to change, but that other stuff hadn’t loaded yet.

2. Ads to themselves—nobody else wants to waste money on their crap—that stay on-screen no matter how you scroll.

These are like telemarketers who breathe into your ear, «You can’t ‘scape from me darling»; & as hot as that is, rather than making them just stay in the same place using basic CSS, they for some reason added this delayed screeching animation like Wile E. Coyote.

O, & sometimes it doesn’t work, ’cause Problogger‘s scripting just sucks that much.

3. Content that’s inane or obvious.

Not only does this article have a title that screams, «¡We have all o’ the answers!» like a cult, their answer is simply «stuff that people want is what they want most.»

This article gives immensely rare advice, such as «be original,» «use storyboards,» & «understand how money works, dumbshit,» for planning.

4. Their style & diction makes me want to tear my eyeballs out.

Let’s face it.

Faking emphasis.

Through over use o’.

Rare breaches o’.

Proper writing style.

Doesn’t work.

When this rare tatic.

Is overused.

Any questions?

Yeah, ¿do you expect me to answer you through my monitor? Otherwise, ¿why would you be asking me a question?

¡If you have any questions, post a comment!

To be fair, «Let’s get hacking,» is honest.

They also use buzzwords like «effective» that Dilbert’s been making fun o’ since the last few decades.

5. They take ideas from that hack Goins.

This brilliant idea involves manufacturing a «struggle»; make oneself an artificial Cesar Chavez, but ‘stead o’ the goal being to help fruit-picking workers not have to use said fruit as their toilet, make the goal ’bout oneself getting as much money as possible. An honest person would call this «emotional manipulation»: tricking dopes into loving you even though you only love their money. This is, indeed, an effective trick, though 1 that doesn’t need the silly euphemism o’ «fight.»

6. They praise not doing anything as the key to success.

I never understand how this fits with the optimistic tone: success isn’t based on how much work you put in, but that you think & look as some hive mind wants. Where I come from, this is called an Orwellian nightmare. ¡No thanks! Silly ol’ me would rather succeed by working hard & still maintaining a shred o’ individuality, thanks.

7. They created this eldritch nightmare o’ English, the apex o’ cottonswabbery.

Please don’t make me discuss it.


Footnotes:

1 Just ’cause I’m in their age group doesn’t mean I’m 1 o’ them, ¿you hear me?

¿How can you hear me through this article? ¡Stop that wizardry, now!

Posted in Web Design, Yuppy Tripe

Peanut Butter Sonnet

Accompanying music.

Soft caress against my swollen

tongue, so sticky, O so sweet,

smells like honeyed springtime pollen,

tastes like roasted coffee beans.

Friends with butter, bread, & jelly,

but best friends with creamy chocolate;

but just ‘lone it still fills bellies:

scrape a spoon & take a long lick.

In the time the pantry’s light,

how you filled those lonely nights

just before food stamps arrive.

Posted in Metered, Mezunian Sonnet, Poetry

Whistle While You Work

What bristles me most ’bout bohemian bourgeoisie is that though they like to depict themselves as free-thinking libertarian types, their views are actually quite soulless, repressive, & bleakly conformist to the point that they remind me o’ those cheesy stepford-smile dystopias mo’ than anything else.

I came to this epiphany ‘pon reading a Smashing Magazine article giving the usual career “advice”: look for careers that are good. As usual, the focus is on “career culture,” an incentive buzzword companies made-up as a way to sway attention from falling wages & rising work time—aspects that workers actually care ’bout. That this writer would write so blatantly as if she’s the Pointy-Haired Boss is curious. Then ‘gain, I should expect this from the “Talent Ambassador” @ “Digital Telepathy”—a truly “zany,” as you hiphoppin’ stompin’ kids say it, enterprise, you can bet your pogs.

Anyway, she says that one should only work with companies that are just like oneself, since she assumes her readers are as shallow as she is. Then she lists off specific attributes o’ companies you should look for. ¿Notice something there? She already assumes your personality & culture. You should look for companies that embrace risk ’cause surely you embrace risk. You’re looking for a computer business that puts shiny colors ‘bove actual programming quality like Apple ’cause ‘course all web designers mistake well-designed with vacuously pretty. & ‘course you value the creepy quality called “togetherness” ’cause you, too, urgently demand that your occupation simultaneously serve your needs for a cult as well as a paycheck (so much for capitalists being “individualist”—I’m kidding: no one who isn’t blatantly lying to themselves believes this).

This is a common occurrence ‘mong bohemian bourgeoisie, as I noted with Goins & those assholes @ Lifehacker: they assume everyone has the same desires, goals, & beliefs as them & damn those who don’t while @ the same time depicting themselves as open minded.

But I love the creepy implications o’ her advice:

While waiting for the interview or when exiting the office, look around you. How do people look? Happy? Miserable? What do they have on their desks? One study suggests that messy desks indicate a creative environment (perfect for designers). If you make eye contact with someone passing by, do they smile or quickly walk by without acknowledging? These are all ways to better understand the corporate culture in which you might be working.

Yes, ’cause nothing’s mo’ professional than being an anal asshole who refuses to work with anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their shallow, specific criteria o’ keeping their desks messy. I always thought creative businesses were all ’bout diversity & that shit; but I guess there has to be a line we can’t cross. I mean, if we accept coworkers with clean desks, we might as well accept coworkers who greet us by sticking their hands in our pants & stroking our genitals (for the record, I only work @ companies whose employees do this—that’s the only company culture I’m comfortable with).

& I love how while there are children who every day have to worry ’bout sawing their fucking fingers off on the machine they use all day, this asshole’s all like, “¡How dare you ruin my creativity with your neatly stacked papers! ¡How dare you distract me from thinking with the deep depression I feel after not being smiled @ when I said hello! I can’t work in these conditions!”

Also, it’s good to know that “one study” hiding somewhere out there in the wild shows that people with basic cleaning skills are incapable o’ creativity & should be avoided like AIDS. This is as opposed to our “Talent Ambassador,” who has done nothing but show her creative streak by spewing the same narrow-minded assertions every other business blogger does.

The obvious takeaway is that wise employers punish employees who don’t smile so that they can maintain the same happy-slave facade all totalitarian regimes have—including corporations. After all, the ethos o’ loving your work—“¡Whistle while you work!”—comes straight from Soviet propaganda.

This is 1 o’ the few times I’d put my coin in with Keynes: I’d rather have less work, like anyone who isn’t lying to themselves—or are privileged ditzes who aren’t truly working—thank you. However, since the left is an utter joke, I don’t see that cute “15-hour work week” will e’er happen this millennium1 & will stick with my 40 or mo’ hours o’ misery & despair per week, thank you.


Footnotes:

[1] I love how the masses o’ moderate-liberal Keynesbots mock Marx for his ridiculous optimism ’bout capitalism’s collapse, but don’t mention the laughable absurdity o’ Keynes’s own predictions.

Perhaps 1 reason the left’s such a joke is that it’s impossible to find a member who doesn’t base one’s economic views on economist-worship ‘stead o’, I dunno, some semblance o’ independent thought.

Posted in No News Is Good News, Politics, Yuppy Tripe

Careerealism Proves They Have the Mental Maturity o’ Teenagers

In this article, Careerealism teaches readers how to be invited to the cool kids’ table on imaginary social media that the average person doesn’t give 2 shits ’bout. This makes sense if they’re like Careerealism’s writers; if one is a hollow husk o’ vapidity & ignorance, then I can understand why one would crave other people to fill the hole that is their own person’s emptiness.

According to J.T. O’Donnell, founder of CAREEREALISM.com…

“WHEN OUR FOUNDER TELLS US TO DRINK THE PURPLE KOOL-AID, WE DRINK THE PURPLE KOOL-AID.”

So, like, as the writer talks like a dipshit teenager stereotype ’cause they, like, totally think their readers are fucking morons, they advise you to be a matchmaker ’cause people don’t find them annoying @ all.

The idea is that you should make connections by matching the connections you already have… which means you aren’t gaining any connections. ¿Or am I to believe that this writer truly believes that some businessperson would be thrilled to have some complete stranger confront them—which I think requires one to pay for some extra privileges in LinkedIn, & you don’t want to pay that shitty website anything—& trust said stranger to give good advice on whom to get help from?

Yeah, that sounds careerealistic to me—fuck, I hate that god damn name, it’s so stupid.

Posted in Yuppy Tripe

Candy Constellation Sonnet

Accompanying music.

I know that you taste just like

lemon heads or gummy worms;

your bright stars with just 1 bite

blow up in raspberry bursts.

Drink up all your empty black,

drown myself in cherry cola;

don’t care if I rot with plaque—

my sole hope is super nova.

Then I’ve eaten all the stars;

now my universe is starved—

as ‘twas my eternal start.

Posted in Metered, Mezunian Sonnet, Poetry

Keynesians Don’t Talk ‘Bout that Thing They Always Talk ‘Bout

May the Invisible Hand bless Austrian-schoolers & their laughably unearned hubris.

In 20141 Hunter Lewis @ the redundantly-named Against Crony Capitalism proved he had his finger on the pulse on economics by revealing the communistic secret Keynesians have been hiding from us in their dark-gray submarines: they used the “D” word.

That word is not, “dumbshit,” “dipship,” “douche bag,” or any other colorful term, but “depression.”

Most Keynesian economists do not want to admit that we are in another depression. They find the word painful.

Somehow, 1 o’ the most famous modern Keynesians, Paul Krugman, was able to withstand this agony to write 2 books—The Return of Depression Economics and the Crises of 2008 & End this Depression Now!, the latter o’ which predicted the depression before it happened—with these dreaded eldritch words. Please send your regards to the hospital in which he currently resides as he recovers.

‘Course, anyone with a minuscule knowledge o’ history—not the uneducated audience that Austrian-schoolers love to exploit—would know that Keynes became famous ’cause o’ the Great Depression; they’d remember that Keynesianism didn’t exist till the economy was already ruined by neoclassicalism & their dumbass paradoxical name. Such people would find Austrian-schooler’s claim that Keynesians are ‘fraid o’ the word “depression” ’bout as absurd as the claim that Marxists fear the word “exploitation” or that Christians fear the word “prayer.”

‘Course, the normal reaction to works o’ Austrian-schoolers is to laugh & go, “¿Are you fucking high, man?” That’s what makes it so entertaining.

They find it painful because it contradicts the idea that Keynesian economic ideas have ended depressions forever.

“…in the version o’ Keynesianism that resides purely in my fantasies.”

It also contradicts the idea that the massive and continuing Keynesian stimulus applied by world governments since 2008 has worked.

(Laughs.) ¿“World governments”? ¿You mean the ones in that postapocalyptic thriller you’re writing? Since there’s only 1 world with significant human societies, how are there mo’ than 1 “world governments”? ¿Or is he referring to regular national governments that happen to exist within the world, like just ’bout all human stuff? ¿Does he also call economies “world economies” or schools “world schools” to distinguish them from the intergalactic variety?

Considering the depression is blamed on neoclassicals, I don’t see how this proves anything gainst Keynesians. But then I keep forgetting that “neoclassicalism” doesn’t exist & is just a conspiracy theory drummed up by all those economist haters who be hating. In truth, neoclassicals’ supremacy is due to their superior intellect to both Keynesians & Austrian-schoolers: they’re smart ‘nough to avoid attention as much as possible, knowing that no matter what they say, the economy’s still going to be puke, anyway, since people are just going to believe their own superstitions & rich people & government officials are just going to exploit this for fast cash. ¡Like Misesians!

I argued that we were in a depression in a January article and again in April.

Well, aren’t you special.

I fucking love narcissists who act like they’re the only ones talking ’bout whatever trite bullshit they puke. Come the fuck on. ¿You know who else has been saying we’re in a depression since then? My high-school-dropout parents & siblings. I don’t see them asking for the “King Obvious 2015” award.

…Brad DeLong, one of the most prestigious Keynesians…

All right: now we’re just outright lying here.

These are after all the people who call the government creating money out of thin air “quantitative easing,” “ bond buying,” and the like…

I’m quite sure Keynesians—as well as most economists—would agree that would be called magic, since it’s impossible to create anything from thin air. ‘Gain, you shouldn’t mix up authentic governments with the warlock governments in your fantasy airport novels.

Ironically, Keynesians will be the 1st to tell you that the government doesn’t have control over how much money is created2 & that, thus, attempts by the government to do so are futile. What he’s describing is Monetarism, which was created by laissez-faire libertarian Milton Friedman.

When Keynes did this, he was often being impish, as when he called newly created money ““ [sic] green cheese,” echoing the old nursery nonsense that “the moon is made of green cheese.” His acolytes have adopted the style of dissimulation, but without the slightest trace of a sense of humor.

(Laugh.) ¿What the hell is this guy babbling ’bout? ¿Did he read The General Theory? ‘Cause I did, & if this shit’s in it, it’s tucked far into a corner. “¡Damn Keynes & his green-cheese standard! ¡It’s just a way to deter savings by having money that goes moldy!”

¡How absurd o’ anyone to treat pieces o’ paper people made up as having any value divergent from that set in stone by God himself!

Although we are in a depression, it is not a depression for everyone, as is by now well known. Even so, the full hit on the middle class and the poor relative to the affluent is not adequately understood.

As opposed to the usual depressions where everyone suffers. What Lewis describes here is less the vile deeds o’ Keynesians & mo’ “economics as usual,” ‘less he can give me some situation—’gain, not including his personal historical fiction ’bout the glorious agrarian colonies o’ the 18th century—wherein poor people & rich people were treated the same. That’s ’cause the very definition o’ “rich” & “poor” is that 1 has mo’ economic benefits. “Poor” literally means “person who gets fucked o’er, economically”; if one isn’t, then one isn’t truly “poor,” ¿now are they? So ‘less he’s attacking the existence o’ economic classes—in which case I am befuddled by this magical “communistic capitalism” he seems to support—I don’t see what his prob—

Wait. ¿Is this ‘nother Marxist troll? ¿Are these Mises websites the equivalent o’ “Libertaripedia,” where every “member” is just a troll trying to sneak subversive info in? God damn it, I’m on to you sneaky commies.

He then plays the same card conservatives usually play: only accept data by certain people. Government data is untrustworthy, ’cause he says so, but data from a government official under the administration that got us into this depression in the 1st place isn’t. No rationale is given why: as is common with intellectually-authoritarian Austrian-schoolers, they decree, & you obey unquestioningly.

In Keynesian theory, it doesn’t matter whether money is spent or invested or what it is spent on or invested in. In this cockeyed view, spending more money to put people into Medicaid, paid for by borrowing from overseas or printing new money, is just as good as Apple investing in new jobs.

Um, no: that’s paid by these things called “taxes.”

Also, the latter class can also be paid for by just borrowing, which can blow up in companies’ faces if the investment doesn’t turn out well, which can cause a ripple effect that also contributes to depressions. Lewis doesn’t make any solid argument, but just strawmen: he assumes Medicaid is an inferior use o’ money than Apple investment without evidence, despite the former being used to keep people ‘live & the latter being used to make o’erpriced, inferior software that exploits those ignorant o’ computers.

Lewis would probably respond that that’s my own mean ol’ opinion & that I shouldn’t push it onto people, while giving his own biased opinion on what’s valuable & what’s not & demanding that the government enforce this through property protection. The only difference is that I acknowledge my bias & am a’least attempting to put logic into my beliefs, while Lewis just accepts whatever the great market god says arbitrarily.

The fact that corporations like Apple benefit to some extent through monopolistic business politics backed by government-defended capital control alludes Lewis, who, rather than acknowledging the complex power conflicts & cooperations ‘tween numerous economic powers, whips up some simplistic fairy-tale “government bad, rich people good” yarn. Probably ’cause they share the same simplistic white-&-black morality as conservatives—what they defend on an appeal-to-consequences discomfort with moral ambiguity that truly masks their inability to understand moral complexity.

He also assumes that the options are either government spending & private investment, even though it’s just as much possible for both the government & businesses to spend li’l, causing less products to be bought, causing business to have low expectations o’ success from lack o’ demand, causing businesses to invest less, & so on in a vicious cycle we call a “depression.” Government intervention isn’t necessary for this to happen.

Just ’cause nobody likes governments, that doesn’t mean you can just blame them for everything & give competing power structures carte blanc without evidence & expect praise for your “genius.” That’s as if I said Hitler caused climate change & called anyone who disagreed with me Nazi-lovers.

So, no, Keynesians don’t assume government & private spending are the same; if they did, they wouldn’t support the former so much. Ironically, it’s the argument that they are the same—based on Say’s Law—that is oft used to argue that government spending has no effect on depressions. ‘Gain, Lewis reveals his ignorance o’ basic economic castes by mixing up Keynesianism & neoclassicalism. Much as Christian fundamentalists conflate Muslims, Mormons, Satanists, & Christians who celebrate Halloween, Lewis conflates anyone who doesn’t dry-hump Human Action as a part o’ the Keynes-Marx conspiracy so that it fits better with the narrative that already exists in his head o’ the brave Austrian-school rebels fighting gainst the vile Economics Borg.

As a result, the first quarter was initially reported with a minus 1% economic growth, then revised to minus 2.9%. One idea floating around is that the Commerce Department’s revision reflected a decision to make the first quarter look worse in order to move healthcare spending to the second quarter and thus make it look better. If so, why would the second quarter have been deemed more important? Because it is leading up to the fall elections. The second quarter is currently reported at 4.2%.

Sharp readers may also notice Lewis’s use o’ weasel words—an “idea floating” round—to add an unsubstantiated accusation o’ the government tampering with info. It’s 1 thing to be arbitrarily biased & illogical; it’s ‘nother to be so much so that one would fail a high-school logic course.

The destruction of common sense economics by Keynesianism is a major reason for what has happened to the American middle class and poor.

When one evokes “common sense,” one should almost always translate it as “mindless obeisance to tradition.” In this case, the “common sense” is that Keynesianism caused the depression by… ¿hiding it purportedly? ¿But how did it happen in the 1st place?

But our governing elites and special interests do not just love Keynesianism for its own sake.

“Special interests” should always be translated as “those other people I don’t like.” It’s quite clear from this article that Lewis & the Mises Economics Blog have special interests themselves, & thus should be included in that class, other than that they’d deny it ’cause… they say so. ¡So there!

They especially love the opportunity for crony capitalism that it affords.

& “crony capitalism” can always be translated as just “capitalism,” since every economic system in the world has & always will fit the special interests o’ those who control it. That’s what happens in a reality controlled by humans & not imaginary disembodied hands. I’m particularly bewildered by how people who support an economic system defined by selfishness could complain ’bout what is obviously inevitably inherent: people selfishly using whatever tools they can—including government force—to get what supports their “special interests.” That’s what “special interests” are: selfish interests—& they’re the core to capitalist competition: doing whatever one can to get one’s interests fulfilled.

Keynes himself was not financially corrupt, and would have been appalled to see the corruption he unleashed.

Citation needed.

Nor did our present problems arrive in 2007-08. They can be dated at least to the beginning of bubbles and busts during the Clinton administration and arguably even further back.

It’s not “arguably”: ¿has Lewis never heard o’ the Black Friday stock market crash o’ 1987?

Hilariously, he notes that the “economic growth cut the rate of poverty in half between the end of World War Two and 1964,” & argues that that “proves” redistributive policies hinder poverty ’cause that’s when the term “war on poverty” became popular. Not only does the graph the study he cites show poverty continuing to fall after the “war on poverty” began, stopping round when stagflation hit & rising through the era o’ the rise o’ neoliberalism & Reaganomics—with 1 noticeable dip round the end o’ Clinton’s presidency—he claims that this proves that “growth” is the true factor to ending poverty, which is meaningless by itself. I’ve never heard anyone say otherwise; the main argument is o’er how much growth can be realistically accomplished & how best to do so. Lewis certainly hasn’t provided any proof that his religion—¡join now & get 40% off all membership cards!—will create growth, though I’m sure he can easily whip up a nonfalsifiable argument to argue so on the fly.

More importantly, he ignores that during the 40s, 50s, & 60s, Keynesianism was the reigning economic philosophy, while laissez-faire was considered a fringe view. This was the era when a Republican president, Eisenhower, said, “Every gun that is made… signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed.”

There are those among the top one and top ten percent of households who are working on this problem every day. They help the middle class and poor by working hard, saving, making wise investments, and hiring, or even by not investing or hiring until conditions are right.

& here we have ‘nother regurgitation o’ the benign capitalist aesop: worship the rich, & we’ll all win. Forgive me if I prefer Republicans who admit they think poor people are gross o’er smiling ditzes like Lewis.

¿Want to know the best part? According to data by Picketty—whose data is clearly tampered with, ’cause he’s part o’ the Keynes-Marx Borg—in the US, private capital was decreasing during the postwar boom, only to start increasing right round when poverty increased (public capital was almost reverse, rising after 1950 & falling round 1970). So it seems the best way to improve the economy is the opposite o’ what Lewis claimed. Big shock considering his tight argument.

I must confess, though: I do feel relieved that there are those out there valiantly not spending money. ¡Think o’ what a crisis I’d be in if rich people hired people when the conditions aren’t right! ¡That’ll totally make demand—money being spent—rise in this depression defined by a lack o’ demand!

It seems that Austrian-schoolers are the ones who don’t know what “depression” means. Then ‘gain, the # o’ numbskulls blathering ’bout the need to create jobs shows that most Americans don’t; it’s just when an economy’s “bad,” a situation without any concrete detail, & thus usable by any crazy ideology to be filled in with their own unique view o’ how the world works.

There are many others who make it steadily worse by feeding off a corrupt and swollen government and wasting trillions of borrowed of manufactured dollars.

Many o’ them are funding Against Crony Capitalism, no doubt.

I also love that “manufactured dollars” bit. As opposed to the dollars that grow from the ground. You’d think Austrian-schoolers would notice the obvious contradiction ‘tween a subjective theory o’ value & an objectivist theory o’ money, which is merely a symbol for value; but then, I’ve gotten plenty o’ evidence that consistency isn’t a priority for the Austrian school.


Footnotes:

1 Don’t make fun o’ me ’cause o’ my late publication (apparently I started this article on the very month Lewis wrote his): this shit’s still as relevant as it’ll e’er be; it’ll still be as relevant as it’ll e’er be in 2100, just as ’twas just as relevant in the 1930s.

2 Unlearning Economics. “Introducing Post-Keynesian Economics.” (2013) Piera. http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/introducing_post-keynesian_economics.

Lord Keynes. “Endogenous Money 101.” (2013). Social Democracy in the 21st Century. http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2013/04/endogenous-money-101.html.

Gedeon, S. J. “The post Keynesian theory of money: a summary and an Eastern European example.” (1985-1986). Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics. p. 208. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4537947?uid=3739960&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21104682120887.

Posted in No News Is Good News, Politics

Careerealism’s Close Encounter with Honesty

Ha, ha, ha. Look @ this letter they got from an anonymous writer:

Dear Experts,

I’m starting to think that all of you Career Experts are a bunch of liars. I’ve been out of work for 8 months. I’ve read tons of articles, tried all the advice given and I STILL am unemployed.

Is this all a bunch of rubbish you are feeding people to get them to buy your stuff?

Dear Anonymous Writer,

Yes.

‘Course, our grammatically-challenged (¿would you advise your readers to write professional works in cellphone speak?) experts respond by accusing the writer o’ bitterness, evading her question with an ad hominem. What they don’t do is provide any evidence that their advice is effective.

So, to reiterate: yes, they are lying to get idiots to buy their garbage (or get hits to their ads), as many o’ these cheap, after-midnight paid programming equivalents do.

Posted in Yuppy Tripe

Nondescript Bass Sonnet

Accompanying music.

You’ve been passing round my ears

since I was in kindergarten,

always growling soothing cheers

in your warblin’ Martian garblin’.

What’s the song you sing today?

Not the same as years ago,

though all share the calming waves,

many single-showing shows.

Who are you under those hoods?

On to work or buying goods?

Stay as shady as you should.

Posted in Metered, Mezunian Sonnet, Poetry