globalized money

After 9/11, when President Bush urged Americans to do the patriotic thing, help the economy by going out and spending up big, it irked Lanie that most of the spending Americans did was enriching China and all the other places that our manufacturers had offshored to and she couldn’t see how this was helping us.

"We were told that all the dollars China gained from selling us stuff we didn't really need to buy -- but bought anyway because that's what we were told to -- were coming back to us in investments," says Lanie, "and while it was nice to know, sort of, that the Chinese were investing in our country, it isn't so nice now, in an economic meltdown, to realize that we now longer own our own country.”

"I'm upset that the rest of the world sees Americans as greedy monsters who deserve to suffer an economic meltdown," says Lanie. "The housing bubble and the bailout may not have occurred if Bush hadn't urged shocked Americans after 9/11 to spend up big and incur debt in order to save the economy and the free world."

"It wasn't greed that fuelled the debt, it was patriotism."

"Back in 2001 we were already in an economic slump due to the dotcom bust," explains Lanie. "Hundreds of thousands of people had done their dough investing in dotcoms or had lost their jobs, and if nothing else 9/11 mobilized the country into patriotic action."

"Massive military recruitment drives sopped up the patriotic unemployed, and the rest of us did our bit for Uncle Sam by doing as Bush urged us to do -- go out and spend up big!"

"Had 9/11 not happened, I think Bush and his neocon cronies would have trumped up some other fearful event to whip us into shape," explains Lanie, "because the economy at the time was heading south big time."

"What really irked me was that, apart from housing, all the spending we did enriched China and all the other places that our manufacturers had offshored to -- and I just couldn't see how this was helping us."

"We were told that all the dollars China gained from selling us stuff we didn't really need to buy -- but bought anyway because that's what we were told to -- were coming back to us in investments," says Lanie, "and while it was nice to know, sort of, that the Chinese were investing in our country, it wasn't so nice to imagine that these investments were also being used by Bush and his cronies to fund the invasion of Iraq, line their pockets and do other nasty stuff."

"Anyway, it was the housing spending spree which really did us in," sighs Lanie. "After we had maxed out on our credit cards buying plasmas, electronics and whitegoods we were encouraged to take out equity in our homes to buy more stuff -- in our case a new kitchen and bathroom – and then the sub-prime balloon mortgage industry popped up to encourage poor folk to buy houses they had no hope in hell of ever owning and we started to become worried."

"We were happy to use equity in our home to improve its value -- it was our home, after all, and we intend to live in it forever -- but when the speculators moved in, churning sales for a quick profit, taking advantage of poor folk, and causing house prices to spiral way beyond their true value it was the end of the line."

"Houses are like food -- basic necessities -- you don't mess with them, and if you don't have a job and can't afford them, they should be provided gratis by the state. Isn't that what all enlightened democratic countries do for their poor citizens?"

"Sure, some Americans are greedy monsters just like some people are in other countries, and because we have a bigger population than most countries there are, unfortunately, proportionally more greedy monsters here," says Lanie, "but the vast majority of Americans, like elsewhere, are decent people who are appalled at the financial mismanagement of this country since 9/11."

"When Bush told us to go out and spend, we naively believed that it was the patriotic thing to do," sighs Lanie. "We were all in a state of shock after 9/11 and if getting into debt was what we had to do in order to save our country from terrorists bent on breaking our economy and world trade, then that's what we had to do."

"Greed didn't motivate us to spend up big and get into debt, patriotism did," says Lanie, "and as much as most of us disliked Bush, we trusted that his administration knew what it was doing."

"I blame the Bush administration and weak regulation for the mess that we are in right now," says Lanie. "By encouraging us to spend, and get into debt, the perfect conditions for exploitation were set up."

"Unfortunately, not all Americans are patriotic and, in encouraging a spending spree, the Bush administration created a lot more greedy monsters to crawl out of the woodwork and prey on us," explains Lanie. "And, in a global economy, greedy monsters everywhere were also sucking the dollars out of us."

"If we had been told to save and invest in our country ourselves, like the Europeans do, China wouldn't now just about own us," says Lanie. "Our national debt is mind-boggling and I fail to see how printing more money to bail out the banks is going to help."

"On a personal level, I am angry that money that we could have used to pay off our mortgage was spent, instead, on increasing our debt via equity release," says Lanie. "Sure, we have a nicer home now but a bigger slice of it belongs to a bank which, for all I know, may be controlled by some guy in Asia who is just waiting for us to lose our jobs in an economic meltdown and default on our mortgage payments before foreclosing on us.”

“Has anyone ever wondered who is going to buy up all the foreclosed houses at fire sale prices?” asks Lanie. “Immigrants, that’s who’ll buy them. And most of them will be wealthy, cashed up Asians who grew rich on our so-called patriotic spending.”

“That’s globalization for you!”

smoking milch cows

There are so many lawyers, anti-smoking organizations and government health departments stacked up against the tobacco companies that Eileen, a social worker, is convinced that the whole smoking issue is one big Milch Cow.

"It's not just the tobacco companies getting milked for all they are worth but us, the stupid smokers, too," says Eileen, "and I'm not apologizing for using the 'stupid' word for smokers because that's what both sides of the issue think of us, and frankly I sometimes think of myself like that, too."

"The smoking issue is the most convoluted thing I've ever come across and because lawyers are involved I believe it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

"What's a cosy legal battle in plush offices for them is a dirty war of abuse on the streets for us," says Eileen, "and I am angry with the tobacco companies as well as the others for turning the lives of smokers upside down, robbing us of our hard earned money and causing others to abuse us."

"On a social level, the 'suits' from the tobacco companies and their so-called enemy 'suits' in the other camps probably do lunch together every day, entertain in each other's homes and send their kids to the same posh schools," says Eileen. "And, if they ever DO think about the fallout abuse that their cosy little war costs us, the stupid smokers, it would be followed invariably with peals of sneering laughter because -- wait for it -- I have yet to find evidence that any of the tobacco company guys actually smoke."

"The tobacco companies make such an absolute fortune from us -- the stupid smokers -- that the other stuff, the legal war, is merely a game they enjoy playing," explains Eileen. "And because money is no problem for either side, they are going to keep their legal wars going forever -- and don't the lawyers love that!"

"Do you realize that we -- the stupid smoking Milch Cows -- get slugged with income tax and tobacco tax to pay the other side as well?" asks Eileen. "We are paying for the whole thing! How does that grab you? Doesn't it make you feel uber stupid?"

"In my social work I get to see the real victims of the smoking war," explains Eileen. "Low income and disadvantaged people -- including single moms, disabled people and the elderly -- who are already victimized by society because of their circumstances. On top of this, they then get abused for smoking."

"Most of these people smoke to make their miserable lives a bit better," says Eileen, "and every day I think how much better off they would be if they could stop smoking (impossible, I've tried) or if this stupid smoking war would end and give them back a bit of dignity -- and a lot more dollars in their pockets."

"In my social work I also get to see some of the BIG people involved in the tobacco war from the government's angle," says Eileen, "but of course I don't work with them like I do the victims of tobacco. I just 'see' them swanning around in their power suits, puffed up with importance, believing they're on a crusade to save us from tobacco when everyone knows what they're really doing."

"Oh sure, there are some genuine souls who naively believe that giving up smoking to spare yourself a horrible death is a good thing," sighs Eileen, "but they just don't understand that most of the people I'm working with would die a horrible death in any case, one that is totally unrelated to smoking."

"When they think of a smoker -- if they ever do -- they are probably thinking of someone like me," says Eileen. "Someone with a bit of education who should know better and, with a bit more pressure, might give up the deadly habit."

"Well, if I ever do succeed in quitting it will be to avoid kicking myself over and over again for being milked by these guys," laughs Eileen. "It will have nothing to do with the health benefits I might gain because I know I will suffer far worse health problems by quitting. My life may be better than those of the poor people whose troubles I try to resolve, but it is still miserable in its own way and smoking helps get me through it all."

"I get dizzy trying to count the number of do-goody organizations on the tobacco gravy train -- oops, sorry to mix my metaphors," laughs Eileen. "Every day a new one seems to pop up and our tax payer dollars just keep on flowing for them."

"Can you believe that all this has been going on since 1964 when Congress protected the tobacco companies from the effects of litigation by means of the Surgeon General's warning label?" sighs Eileen. "I was born a year later, so all of my life this rubbish has been going on and it is never going to stop."

"When the first of these do-goody organizations came into being its purpose was to educate the public and hold the tobacco companies to the same degree of accountability as other industries," explains Eileen, "and, as far as I am concerned, that purpose was achieved long ago. But, seeing the dollars rolling in and a life-time career ahead of them, these guys dug in and encouraged a multitude of other parasitic types to join in for whatever other purposes they had in mind."

"I make no apologies for using the parasitic word either," says Eileen, "because that's what most of them are. They feed off our addiction, our desire to smoke and the miseries of our lives that caused most of us to start smoking in the first place."

"Even if their purpose were genuinely to help us stop smoking so that we could save money and live a healthier life," says Eileen, "they can offer us nothing to fill the gap that smoking filled, a gap that we might fill with something far more dangerous."

"These people know nothing about 'gaps' or their myriad causes," confides Eileen, "and that's why they have no right to dictate what is good or bad for us. Like most think tank types, they think of other human beings as cohorts or metrics on a chart, stripped of all humanity. They make pronouncements from ivory towers that even they, in their saner moments, must find appalling."

"It has been said over and over again -- by smokers as well as non-smokers -- that if tobacco is the killer they make it out to be then it should be banned," says Eileen, "but these guys have no desire whatsoever to put the tobacco industry out of business or to make cigarettes illegal. They don't see the inconsistency of what they're telling us and even if they did, they don't care. Why should they? Parasites by nature only feed off hosts certain to keep the milk and honey flowing forever."

"The tobacco industry, as I see it, has fulfilled all of the requirements asked of it and the burden of responsibility has now shifted fairly and squarely to the cigarette smoker," says Eileen. "It's time for these do-goody organizations to go away and find some other milch cow."

"We are, of course, still stuck with the government -- the biggest parasite of them all because without tobacco tax it wouldn't be able to fund invasions and do other goods things," sighs Eileen. "So, even if the others disappeared off the scene we are still going to get milked."

"Moo!"