Monday, October 31, 2011

Unclear On The Concept

I was at my sister's house this Halloween, watching TV as my brother-in-law handed out candy. It's been a very, very long time since I participated in a kids' Halloween, for the last decade or so it's been grown-up parties where people drink just a bit too much, behave awkwardly and rack up a list of regrets they'll need to apologize for the next day. So past time to get back to the innocence of kid-centric night.
   But I noticed a disturbing trend. None of the kids seemed to get the concept behind 'trick or treat.' It was like they hadn't been completely briefed on what they were expected to do, so they were kind of winging it, making it up as they went along.
   Seriously. There were kids who'd say it before they knocked. Or some kids would knock or ring the bell and mutter 'trick or treat' under their breaths. Or some wouldn't knock at all or say 'trick or treat' and the only way we knew they were there was because they'd yell back to their parents 'no one's home.'
   What happened to the good old days? We knew how to trick or treat. If the light's on you run up to the front door, you ring the bell, and when the person opens the door you scream 'TRICK OR TREAT!!' at the top of your lungs. That's how you do it, none of this half-assed mumbling, or, worse still, ring the bell and just stand there with your pillowcase hanging open like someone owes you a handful of the good candy, the kind you only give to little kids.
   There was one group - just one - who knew how to ring the bell and yell 'TRICK OR TREAT!' And, guess what, that group was the one my sister was chaperoning. They rang the bell before coming back inside. Everyone else failed by smaller or larger degrees.
   Shouldn't there be a class or something? A remedial lecture for the Trick-or-Treat clueless? Hell, put it on the Web, make sure these kids know how the evening's supposed to go. How come they're not learning life skills?

Friday, October 28, 2011

Got Some Bad News, Gipper

Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office released a report showing that the top 1% of American wealthy has increased that wealth by 275% since 1979. This is compared to the mere 18% increase us non-plutocrats managed to eke out. The timing of this news couldn't have been better, what with the 'Occupy' protests gaining enough ground that police now feel the need to crack heads. More fuel for the civil disobedience fire.
   Your first impression of this might be righteous indignation, as well it should be. We're cultivating an hereditary aristocracy, and there's nothing more un-American than that. But there's more to this simple statistic, and I don't think it's any mistake that the CBO measured from 1979. Think about it. What significant change happened after 1979? Yup, that's right, the advent of the Great Communicator, that former actor and great-hair President, Ronald Regan. And what did the Gipper and his advisors bring to the table? Supply-side economics. It's the concept that got him elected and set the stage for almost thirty years of deregulation and corporate malfeasance. Well, guess what, neo-cons?
   Trickle-down economics utterly and completely failed.
   The evidence is right in front of you, direct from the people charged with tracking this kind of thing, the CBO. They're telling you that terrible economic experiment has been found to be bankrupt. There's no there there.
   The idea behind supply-side economics was a deceptively - one might say conspiratorially - simple one. Give more to the richest of our society, and they will in turn push that largesse down to the common man. It sounded like a load of crap back in 1979, and it's been found to be a load of crap thirty years on. When you give more money to people - not just to rich people - they're going to keep it. It's not going to charity, it's not going to job creation, it's not going to help anyone but the people holding the cash. Supply-side economics ignores the basic human tendency to grab what little we have and hold on tight; it's counter-intuitive and just plain wrong-headed.
   Yet the idea that this kind of thing works has been touted as successful ever since the Gipper took office. People have made early-retirement careers out of defending trickle-down theory. Even now, these 'voodoo economics' principles are what underlay current proposals like a flat tax or lowering the tax obligation of the wealthiest people. It's just a money grab, and letting the situation perpetuate itself for so long has caused the economic system to sputter and fail.
   I think it's vital that people understand this failure, because supply-side economics has been the guiding principle behind American economic policy for decades. To continue to govern according to those principles is to be the Soviet Union in the 1960s: everyone in the world could see their system was going to fail, it was just a matter of time before it happened, even if they were going down swinging. The American economic system as it now stands is failing everyone but the very wealthiest people, and unfortunately for the rest of us, those people are often our representatives in government.
   As a nation we're smarter than trickle-down economics; we were smarter back in 1979, we just got greedy and lazy and listened to charlatans who didn't have our best interests at heart. We know better than to allow the inmates to run the economic asylum. It's time to take back what's ours.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

What They Want*

By now I'm sure you've heard of the 'Occupy' protests, first on Wall Street in the city so nice they named it twice, New York, New York, then gradually all across the country and the globe. People from many different walks of life, with many different agendas, are camping out close to the places where people with power exercise that power, and they're not going to leave until they're heard.
   The media doesn't know what to make of this. Still, after several weeks and burgeoning numbers the news anchors and talking heads just can't wrap their minds around such a radical, populist uprising. It's kind of frightening to those who think they're in charge, when there's no central argument to try to refute, there's no effective way to marginalize and minimize these people. In my mind I had a bit of a role to play in this, given my appeal to the wealthy just a few days before the 'Occupy Wall Street' protest started. If I actually did, I can say I'm proud to have helped.
   But people still ask 'what do they want?' as if delivering one thing on a Santa-bound wish list could satisfy the protestors. 'What do they want?' really means 'how do we make them go away?' Well, I think I have some insight into this. Allow me to explain what I believe the 'Occupy' protestors really want:
   Everyone's encountered a bully in their lifetime. The big doofus-y kid in middle school who trips you going down the hall, and even though the teachers see it they don't do anything. That kid. The jerk, the kid who thinks he's beyond discipline, who thinks he doesn't have to follow the same rules everyone else does.
   So you confront him. You tell him to leave you alone. He asks what, specifically, has he done that you want to keep from happening. You tell him not to trip you any more. So he knocks your books out of your hands. And when you ask him not to do that, he hits your pencil while you're trying to take notes. And when you ask him to let you take notes in peace he aims for your nuts when you're playing dodge ball. You're dancing to his tune, until you realize that addressing things one at a time isn't going to get you anywhere. You realize that there is one over-arching consideration, one broad-spectrum request you can make that will cover every transgression this bully can throw at you.
   Stop being a dick.
   That's what the 'Occupy' protestors want. They want those people in charge of the economy - bankers especially but governments too - to just stop being dicks. That's a general enough mandate that people understand to mean any behavior that goes beyond the bounds of common decency. There's no need to list individual grievances because that diminishes the message.
   It's really straightforward, mainstream media. There's not much more to it, you wealthy few who hold the purse strings of the global economy. It is just as simple as that. You know what it means, don't pretend you don't. Just listen to the message, mull it over, consider it carefully, and then act on it.
   Stop being a dick.


* It's been two months since I last posted. I was kind of running dry there for a while and I needed to lay off. While I was not blogging I realized I came across inspiration at least once a day, proving that there is still water in the well.