We’ve come a long way baby. From crony capitalism to cry-baby capitalism. And I love it.
Some party poopers say the world has changed or is changing or needs to change. That Johnny come lately Barack Hussein Obama is coming up with ridiculous tax plans that assume taxing the rich is good economics and good governance and even Joe the plumber’s saw through his hollow claim. Way to Go Joe! That’s a leaky faucet you fixed real good. He’d be a real drain on our finances. That’s not how the World Bank propounded trickle down theory works and we have the financial meltdown to prove it. See how quickly the disaster has trickled down and in a couple more decades we’ll figure out a way to make the benefits trickle down to Joe too. McCain has rightly hurled the ultimate insult at Barack Hussein Obama – “Socialist”!! That ought to teach him. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is attacking “Wall Street greed and American arrogance” President Sarkozy is asking for a “new capitalism”. In all this madness before any Red Commies jump in and say “Oh we have an answer ready and its called Socialism” please get back to your position at the end of the line. If you’ve recovered from their shrill, irritating and supercilious voices President Sarkozy, please turn your attention to those of us more worthy of an audience since Monsieur Le Président, merci mais nous avon déjà une alternative. And that alternative is “Cry baby Capitalism” Ta da! And if you don’t agree I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
Markets the world over are tanking and every broker, businessman, fund manager and stock analyst is looking for the bottom, coming across several asses in the process. Butt seriously, no I mean enough bumming around, in behind-sight everyone’s a genius as recession rears its ugly posterior again. If you’re in the financial market the government’s got your back. No I mean really, our rears are covered by the RBI or the Fed or someone or the other. So quit worrying and drink up get back into the market – bottoms up I say. And if you don’t, I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
Alan Greenspan - he who was hailed by most as the wizard who knew it all, the Gandalf to all us Hobbits in the world of finance, is now being attacked by any and every irrelevant, inconsequential columnist who knows nothing about managing money since they’ve never made enough to manage. Die-hard free market economists are suddenly turning protectionists and regulation lovers and if this doesn’t stop I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
Over-reaction is king. No wait, that was profit is king That’s right. It is, and that’s the premise the whole superstructure of American Capitalism rests. To understand the true beauty of Capitalism, the brilliance of profit making and its elegant ways of providing for all allow me two examples. Example 1: Heard of death bonds? No wait, that’s a crass term, we sophisticates have come up with something far more cool sounding, we call them “life settlements”. Much nicer na? Anyway so the deal is this that we take someone say 65 year old, lets call her Aunty Adam Smith who has a life insurance policy worth $100,000 which will mature when Aunty Adam Smith is 70. She needs some money today so we in all our benevolence give her 40,000 dollars and take on the policy. She gets the money up front and we collect $100,000 when the Fat Aunty Sings. Not that we are counting on her quick death. Of course not. She should live long and healthy just as long as she kicks the bucket before we lose too much on paying the premiums or the interest. In case any of you are shocked and awed at our magnificent generosity, Hello! We’ve been trading such instruments bunged together as bonds for the longest time on wall street. Was invented by the brilliance that management factories manufacture and send to us every year. All the socialist and liberal lefty types might be put off by this but my free market profit seeking brothers and sisters can understand. Some of our philanthropic brothers in the US have come in for criticism for bundling together such life settlements of an entire African American community which they felt wouldn’t live too long, I mean gang bangers and all you know, minimized risks, hedged their bets and gave back to the community, for a small profit. I mean try and do a community a favour and see the thanks you get. Sheesh!! Those used to welfare will never learn. I say we go one better and securitize the LIC policies of an entire minority ghetto in Ahmedabad - securitize them, bundle them and create a bond and wait for the next riot. Would that be a grand harvest or what? Imagine the return on that fund? Or better still, the entire kid population at the Dhanbad mines, I mean get a policy out on the kids the premiums would be ridiculously low and in that environment people are lucky if live to be 40. Is that a business plan or what? And if you don’t agree I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
Chomsky had attempted to draw a connection between cutting welfare for single mothers in a certain black neighborhood in New York and the increase in the number of adolescents and teens getting into crime and forming gangs, thus causing an increase in the city’s spend on police patrol cars, cops, guns, ammunition, the works, which was a bigger drain on the exchequer than the welfare itself. Ya right! A theory mooted by lazy non-achieving losers! And next you’ll say that there is a connection between the types who opposed the right to information act and those who pushed for it. All those who opposed the Right To Information act tooth and nail (and failed, valiant effort though) are hard core free market cheerleaders (Yea! and a whoopee for them!!) and those who pushed the bill through are liberal lefty types. Now you’ll try to establish that crony capitalism thrives on non-transparency and these liberal lefty types are lovers of justice. Ya right. Its just a co-incidence, that’s all. And if you disagree I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
Example 2: T Boone Pickens, chairman of the BP Capital Hedge Fund, has bought the rights to drill for water in the Texas panhandle. So he’ll suck the ground water from miles. No permissions needed to be sought from other communities who might also depend on ground water He achieved this when certain favorable policy makers were in power. He’ll spend many more millions to get a pipeline ready to go all the way to Dallas. Now all he is hoping is for a drought in Dallas in the next few years, and he’ll make hundreds of millions. I mean how strong a negotiating position are you in when you’re dying of thirst? I’m not sure if the old geezer will be around to count his stash (he’s 80!) but he would have done a great service to our cause dear fellow crybaby capitalists. It’s not for nothing that he’s celebrated as a true American visionary by his admirers and friends in the government. He was one of the largest contributors to George Bush’s election campaigns. Both. That’s how big his heart is. Redistributing wealth. This is just an effort to level the already level playing field. That’s right, the world is flat, like Mr. Friedman has pointed out, good old Friedman who is the Eminem or Baba Sehgal of economics. And anyway who sells more? M S Subhalaxmi or Main Bhi Madonna. And I have established earlier that profit is king, and if you say that was Elvis, I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
Just one irritating little voice spoiling the new Capitalism is the small greedy whiners making the rest of us look bad. Not you Joe, you’re on our side, others like you. The small investor going Boo-Hoo!! I lost my life’s saving. Boo-Hoo! My pension. Boo-Hoo! My child’s education fund. Boo-Hoo! My hillbilly country cousin’s goat’s medical benefits. Get over it. It was greed that made you dream a dream you had no business dreaming. Leave that to Wall Street - the architects of the new world, the engineers of the brave new economy the ones who can take it in the jaw without batting an eye-lid. Those petty whiners make the rest look bad and if they aren’t done away with and dealt with severely I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
I could go on and on with examples that demonstrates the brilliance of the American Capitalsit model from mining in South America in the 50s to privatization in the 90s but then I don’t want to overstate a case that has been overstated by our friends in mainstream media for eons. But now there’s a new trend. Keynes it seems is back in fashion like those horrible bellbottoms from the seventies that reared their ugly rumps in the mid nineties but went out again (thank God) had once said. - “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most greediest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.” This year they gave the Economics Nobel to that Keynesian economist, Paul Krugman - victims of ideological fashion, the compensation for the poor sods who cant afford REAL fashion at Harrods, Melrose Avenue or 5th Avenue. But all this will go away soon and if it doesn’t I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and I’ll hold my breath till my face turns blue.
And for those of you who are wondering why my face will turn blue on holding my breath and not red, its because we never turn Red, even in the face of a suffocating death. Even if you cut me it shall be blue blood, I wont bleed Red and if I do I’ll whine and I’ll bawl and… you know the drill.
