F@&$ The Stock Market

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1632

Abstract

efits, the rent is going to be paid for another month. Huzzah!</p><h2 id="2dfc">The ship is listing and will go down</h2><p id="9efe">I’m no expert but it seems to me that if the geniuses of economic growth want a consumer-driven economy to roar forward with sustained quarterly growth, they need consumers.</p><p id="1f97">We’re indoctrinated from childhood to be consumers in the United States and other industrialized countries. What do you think <a href="https://readmedium.com/slouching-away-from-bethlehem-bdce54b0bf66">Christmas</a> is all about? We grow up being trained from our earliest years to want more stuff. And that stuff makes us feel good for about half an hour. Then we need <i>more stuff</i>. And that’s the engine that’s been driving our society for over a hundred years. The benefactors of this system? Not the people making the stuff.</p><p id="e427">The people investing in the companies that make the stuff. Those are the “winners”.</p><p id="28c6">What do they win? All the cookies. Do all those cookies make them happy? Who cares? I don’t care if those rich, greedy fux are happy. They demonstrably do not care about the happiness of anything else on the planet. But in their grasping short-sightedness, they forgot that in order to keep their engine running they needed all those disposable people, the workers and the consumers.</p><p id="700d">Think they’re surprised to find so few people working and nearly no one consuming now?</p><p id="2353">I hope so.</p><h2 id="3a0e">Now what?</h2><p id="bb59">Most people, I imagine, just want this annoying virus thing to go away so they can get back to work

Options

and get back on that well-worn treadmill. The devil we know. But I’m rooting for the angel we don’t know. She’s the underdog, no doubt about that. She’s patient, though, and she’s not going away. Even if we manage to climb wearily back onto the treadmill and start the whole cycle up again, she’s not giving up on us.</p><p id="baea">This time she gave us a global pandemic and maybe it will be enough to get our attention.</p><p id="1049">But if it doesn’t, she’s got vaults filled with even more persuasive means of getting us to walk away from the system that divides us and enslaves us and kills us. (<a href="https://readmedium.com/how-often-do-we-know-whats-best-for-ourselves-or-others-18cdf2fbb716">Remember, sometimes healing is dying</a>) She won’t stop just because we survive this one. Her arms are open and her love is eternal. It’s up to us to wake the hell up and stop “consuming”.</p><div id="87fc" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/a-truly-interactive-experience-f565700c4c1a"> <div> <div> <h2>A Truly Interactive Experience</h2> <div><h3>A Philosophical/Political Rant Posing as Participatory Science Fiction</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*OaJoN-G3UFWtXu-L_7uYvQ.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><p id="41de">We get to choose.</p><p id="6a2a"><i>© Remington Write 2020. All Rights Reserved.</i></p></article></body>

Eat the rich

Bull and bear in front of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange by the sculptor Reinhard Dachlauer / Photo Credit — Wikipedia

At the beginning of the pandemic, we had a tiny window where it looked like even the billionaires were going to take a real hit. We were wrong. While millions of people are facing eviction, standing in lines at food charities, and selling off the family silver, the billionaires are raking it in. Discuss (Updated 10/13/20).

What do I know, but when the Market booms my life doesn’t change much and when it craters, as it did in 2008, my life…. doesn’t change much. However, I have a creeping suspicion (that’s probably complete hogwash) that what’s good for the stock market is bad for ordinary working people like me and vice versa.

Right now I hope the Bezoses and Bloombergs and even the Buffetts and Gateses are losing sleep as their precious fortunes bleed away, millions vanishing that they can’t do anything about.

Clearly my understanding of our investment culture is limited. It was probably a boneheaded move but I saw my little bitty 403(b) from that last job slowing sinking and, you what?, I can’t afford to lose even five bucks these days. I pulled that money and between that and my unemployment benefits, the rent is going to be paid for another month. Huzzah!

The ship is listing and will go down

I’m no expert but it seems to me that if the geniuses of economic growth want a consumer-driven economy to roar forward with sustained quarterly growth, they need consumers.

We’re indoctrinated from childhood to be consumers in the United States and other industrialized countries. What do you think Christmas is all about? We grow up being trained from our earliest years to want more stuff. And that stuff makes us feel good for about half an hour. Then we need more stuff. And that’s the engine that’s been driving our society for over a hundred years. The benefactors of this system? Not the people making the stuff.

The people investing in the companies that make the stuff. Those are the “winners”.

What do they win? All the cookies. Do all those cookies make them happy? Who cares? I don’t care if those rich, greedy fux are happy. They demonstrably do not care about the happiness of anything else on the planet. But in their grasping short-sightedness, they forgot that in order to keep their engine running they needed all those disposable people, the workers and the consumers.

Think they’re surprised to find so few people working and nearly no one consuming now?

I hope so.

Now what?

Most people, I imagine, just want this annoying virus thing to go away so they can get back to work and get back on that well-worn treadmill. The devil we know. But I’m rooting for the angel we don’t know. She’s the underdog, no doubt about that. She’s patient, though, and she’s not going away. Even if we manage to climb wearily back onto the treadmill and start the whole cycle up again, she’s not giving up on us.

This time she gave us a global pandemic and maybe it will be enough to get our attention.

But if it doesn’t, she’s got vaults filled with even more persuasive means of getting us to walk away from the system that divides us and enslaves us and kills us. (Remember, sometimes healing is dying) She won’t stop just because we survive this one. Her arms are open and her love is eternal. It’s up to us to wake the hell up and stop “consuming”.

We get to choose.