You gotta be worried when the Prime Minister is doing his damnedest to keep the economy “strong”  and I think times are going to be pretty tight if not hard, very soon. I have this sense of doom invading my psyche and it isn’t just my general neurosis speaking. It goes somewhat deeper than that. I have a premonition that when the going gets tough I’ll cave into a blubbering mess. It’s already difficult enough trying to keep my head above water and if extra struggles are piled on top I’m not sure how I’ll react. I guess I lived through one recession and I can somehow get through another. At the end of the day there isn’t much I can do about the impending doom so it serves no useful purpose in imagining the horrors to come but my mind excels in catastrophic mind games.

Two sides are on every coin and the silver lining on the face of one side of the coin is an appreciation of how good things have been for me to date. If anything, a lesson can be drawn from the economic crash 2008 and that is to always appreciate what you have because it could always be worse and the ethereal “good times” ought to be celebrated more so, if only because they can be short lived. Only time will tell if Capitalism can draw us out of the rut in time to save us from the nonchalant face of hardship.

In some sense the natural state of being is surfacing. From Dionysian excess, the fall back to the nourishing earth to decay for the next regeneration and rebirth. The cycle of decay and rebirth, chaos from order, order from chaos, excited molecules reaching the end of their life to morph into more stable associations. The economy can be no different, how can it escape the natural order anymore than we can?

It’s self evident that we exceeded the confines of Evolutionary Stable Strategy when we started writing blank cheques to the real estate market thinking inflationary theory could be unconstrained and the elasticity was infinite. I guess the people who masterminded the sub-prime scheme benefited but once the yield strength of the elastic band holding it all together started to spring back the tension was more than the rest of the market could contain. So we are just beginning the momentum to perhaps land back further than where we began.

So it is with this imaginary entity that we worship at the alter of the Multi-Plex:

Capitalism has made it this way. Old fashioned fascism will take it away.

The Beautiful People – Marilyn Manson – Antichrist Superstar

And perhaps we will see fascism take it away because if the current President of the United States of America – our esteemed G W Bush, uses his Patriot Act powers to declare a national emergency and extend his Presidency, as the conspiracy theorists claim is within his powers, then we may well see a fascist state incorporating a new capitalist agenda to suit the whims of some madman who is at the helm.

When all is said and done, it is extraordinarily profound, this system we have; when blank cheques can be written to manipulate a market (isn’t that exactly what the sub-prime scheme was about?) and when defaulted mortgages can be bought and sold like they were gold. When trillions of so called value can be wiped in the blink of an eye and yet have no physical currency disappear. When debt is the measure of prosperity and wealth. These things certainly defy logic and then to have Governments prop the economies up with real cash slaps us in the face with indignity.

Is this the society and system that we hold so dear and indeed are willing to lay our lives on the line for? All this anguish so we can wear our Calvin Klein underwear and display the label over pants that are falling off our arses? So we can have our KFC and McDonald’s on every corner block. So we can watch the latest installment of “reality” in an unreal house with Big Brother watching on our 50″ plasma and LCD HDTV’s? So we can be in a constant state of yearning – that happiness is only a sale away. “Capitalism has made it this way”….indeed, prophetic words from a zoid wearing gothic makeup – Go Figure!

Remind me again – What is the definition of insanity?

Yet again have the markets tumbled into the abyss and the poor bastards which cop it the hardest, are the small time investors trying to make a quid for retirement. It beggars belief that leading banking institutions can so readily fall to the wayside and it certainly doesn’t instill confidence in a system that idolises money as the all powerful arbiter of social adhesion.

What I find extraordinarily peculiar is that a government would be willing to bail out the very institutions that are at fault. With corrupt and greedy practices abound, the gun toting financial gurus leading the banking sector who undoubtedly pay homage to the whiz-kids on Wall Street are seemingly the cause for this collapse in fiscal bliss. A clear message is sent, that is; if you’re just some poor arsehole on the street then you mean diddley squat, but if you are a large corporation then you receive all sorts of concessions for being a loser. Like give us a break! These dickheads give themselves multi-million dollar bonuses for fucking things up! Howz that figure?

I’m left here wondering what in the hell am I doing wrong. Give me hold of the reigns, I’ll show you how to fuck things up? “Show me the money!”…and I’ll drag the whole economy into the ether of self centeredness and give myself a little pat on the greenback for doing it properly, wryly smiling as the US Government funds my departure into financial certainty.

You’ve gotta hand it to these guys though, they take the cake when it comes to scamming. Forget about Nigerian scams they’re for petty criminals, the ultimate in phishing scams is just a bank manager away. The pure genius of it –

Slick wall street guy: “lets lend money to the economically disadvantaged”

Mr Fat Cat Banker: “What! How they gonna repay their mortgage?”

Slick wall street guy: “Don’t worry. By the time the shit hits the fan we’ll be sailing the Caribbean with our new yachts…They won’t know what hit em. It’s worth a hefty bonus – soon we’ll be swimming in it. We’ll create some fancy bullshit plan…call it something like sub-prime lending- none will be the wiser. It’ll just be like printing money and everybody will lap it up as the sale of the century…We can’t lose”

Mr Fat Cat Banker: (Eyes glistening. The joy as he thinks of the new bentley he’s had his eye. Clasping his hands) “Ok I’ll get my people to draw up some drafts. Gee, Slick, you might just be onto something.” (Putting his arm around Slicks’ shoulder as they walk off together, almost like lovers walking hand in hand) “Have you ever thought about joining the banking sector…I think an opening has just become available at Bank X Corp. Why don’t you drop by Monday and we’ll talk about it some more….”

The irony of it all…how often do we envisage organised crime as underworld syndicates plotting the corruption of youth with drugs, illegal gambling dens and crack houses with two bit whores waiting for their next hit on the pipe or junkies eying off grandma’s handbag. We’ve all been duped, the real crimes are being committed above board – indeed in the board room, with power brokers edging off the best scam to hit the masses with, all the while knowing “they’re too big to fail” and that their “friends” in Parliament or the White House are only a phone call away when the fall out of last years board meeting hits main street.

Now where’s those stock quotes on Gold….