My Take on the Economy and the Rest of Life

I find myself frustrated with all the jaw-ing on about the economy sinking and how to fix it while the same folks remain clueless on alternative solutions and the simple fact that THIS ECONOMIC SYSTEM CANNOT BE FIXED. Its own nature guarantees it will eventually collapse.
Rather than wasting time repeating what is wrong with this system, I thought I'd offer a comparison of what our current experts are suggesting through the model of 'a sinking ship'. The ship is slowly sinking, and there's no way to patch it because it was constructed of flawed material. Not only that, we've been at sea a long time, there's no land in sight, and we're running out of food.

Okay, we've been riding this ship so long we've forgotten there's any other means of transportation. We're hoarding our personal stashes and trying to grab whatever we can to secure our individual survival with the hope land will appear to save us. We're scared half out of our wits, and some are completely around the bend - we need the ship's crew on full alert with weapons drawn to protect us from them.

Just like real society, there's different races and cultures and levels of wealth, but we're all scared; the food supply is dwindling and the ship is springing leaks. We got folks on the oars being whipped to row harder, and we blame them for our predicament. We blame the poor and other races, we blame the wealthy, we blame the captain and the crew (some who are on the take, of course, being human).

We don't blame the ship, the ship builders, or ourselves. We're desperate to get to shore, but the waves keep crashing and we're in a panic. Small groups have banded together to ensure their own survival - we call them 'experts' and listen on edge to their advice.

What they're saying is that it's somebody else's fault and then point out scapegoats to throw overboard or sacrifice by stuffing them in the latest leaks. "It's the poor eating up our supplies, theirs ran out! Toss them off the boat!" (Never mind the poor are the ones working the oars and paddling harder because their lives depend on it.) "It's the whites / blacks / Christians / Muslims / gays / seniors / wealthy". The richest have prudently secured their place as long as the ship is afloat by paying off the captain and crew; it will difficult for the poorer levels to toss them off.

"Cut spending, increase revenue." Current talk is reducing social security, welfare, minimum wage (Bachmann to the rescue), raising taxes on everything - property, licenses, fuel, food, rich (who are still able to buy their way out of this for now). In other words, let's eat the old and poor and vulnerable or throw them overboard to see if the ship will ride higher in the water.

Problem is, we're on a ship, and it's sinking. The waves are like the weather, threatening whatever crops and supplies we do have while flooding our cabins and washing our own sewage into our drinking water. Folks are camped out in the hallways and fewer lights still burn at night, while the wealthiest dance in the ballroom dining on caviar and trying to pretend "we'll all get through this, somehow" - just toss off more of the poor and homeless. Even the recently homeless, those that lost their cabins and security in the last wave and didn't think it'd ever 'be me' they were talking about. (Hello, middle class, so eager to toss off the welfare bums just a few days earlier.)

The crew isn't safe, either, though 'job security' was the catch-phrase that got them to enlist. Those who are injured or unable to perform are getting their benefits slashed, questioned, or denied. The very folks they protected are now trying to pitch them overboard. They've become obsolete.

Who do we eat next, who do we shove into the next leak? These are the questions being asked today in our economic chaos.

The irony is that we have a massive blimp in the hold with room and supplies enough for all, and we don' t know what it is. The shipbuilders intentionally locked it up tight and deny it exists, because all it'd take is for every person to help inflate it and we'd be free of the 'economic ship'.

Instead we'll keep eating each other and warring and slashing budgets and sacrificing and squeezing what we can out of each other while the corporate players go another round of Monopoly, telling us the ship is the only game in town. And if we're smart, we can play too until we're One of Them. Never mind your soul, there is no afterlife in this world - anyway, it's legal.

Like I said, I'm totally annoyed, frustrated and fed up with the folks on the ship that won't listen about anything other than sacrificing each other. And we're on the ship.

But... In My World... I'm tearing apart cars, planting things, getting dogs, painting, and generally living busy. Those are different stories on life. Compared to the amount of misery going on in the world, I'm doing good! Dollar-wise I'm not, but Life-wise, it seems I do okay, somehow.

Best to all, please don't throw anyone overboard, just start inflating the blimp!