Thursday, October 13, 2011

if you want the answer: deregulation



o no, i hate thinking about anything political. as a poet, i'm a tyrant. 'if i were running things, i'd do this, and i'd do that', all the while knowing any society manufactured by a theory ends up as a terrible dictatorship. you see, the theorists end up with all the money, the fine houses, and so on.

anything i could possibly say would end up creating a mess. yet...yet...i do think i've a few insights. see, i basically read headlines, snippits of stories. today, for example, about the president raising campaign money, hoping to hold off the billions available to his opponents. or, the story behind steve jobs' adoption and his biological father and novelist half-sister.

how could i possibly formulate any theories from such meager investigation. however, as hamlet said, 'i know a hawk from a handsaw.' and i have taken two classes in the russian revolution and one in the american. if you look at beginnings, you learn a lot. for example, the colonial 'rabble' with the help of the french, defeated the british. and the more educated 40 percent of the winners headed for canada.

doesn't that tell you something about the united states and it's constant wars? we've had one on the average every 14 years until recently. now they never seem end. can any addict stay high all the time without crashing? teachers go jobless, while soldiers get killed. the best educated nation will dominate the future, that goes without saying.

jeez, when i get polemical, i hate myself, even if it makes my evening walks go like wildfire. i'm having so many conversations with the myself, the scenery doesn't distract me, despite it's magnificence. shame, shame. and i haven't even addressed my headline.

all you have to do to unravel the present economic debacle is watch the newsreel of ronald reagan signing the bill deregulating the savings and loan companies. he gives a big smile, almost with a little dance, and says, 'we've done it! we've done it!' during his reign, the income of people went from the most equal across the nation in history - to the most unequal in history.

what's a little savings & loan crash? i think it only cost two hundred billion. more and more deregulation and the costs spiral upward. and those cashing in cry bloody murder when you try to hold them back: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman

unfortunately, the lesson luther learned when the princes squashed the peasant revolt: he'd need those high-powered guys to oppose the pope. you have to have big bucks coming from somewhere to promote any cause you may have.

in 1976 i celebrated the bicentennial with a work called murphy's rebellion.you can peruse it here and see how awful i'd be were i in charge: www.pbase.com/wwp/murphy