Re-Visiting The Economy: A Riveting Tale of Buzz-Words and Unkillable Myths

Macro Economics

The biggest surge/spike of hits that this blog ever received was in September of the Year 2011 when I wrote on the subject of Economy.

Here: My Mind on Economy and Economy on My Mind

It's a very silly article which sort of pokes fun at the absurdity of today's human world by attempting to create humor by using examples from a very old video game. The conclusion attempts to compare the concept of "Economy" to the concept of a giant dinosaur.

I'm not trying to offend when I poke fun at things, you know. I just don't think any topic should have a sacredness surrounding it. I don't think religion should, I don't think nationalism should...and I don't think a concept as presently in-style as "economy" should have any sacredness devoted to it either.

The concept of Economy is becoming the new religion of the times. It will or already has become the flavor of the week in our ever-transgressing human timeline. The results of elections in most countries are decided by how a politician talks about the Economy. Re-wind to 500 years ago, rulers and rule-makers were decided by how a person talked about Religion.

Now, we look back at the way things worked in the 1400s and laugh. We think, "wow they really trusted some king because he said he was sent down from heaven by some whacky god? Haha." Or we think, "holy crap, they really honestly believed that someone lived in the sky and watched over the earth? What a bunch of dorks."

Fast-Forward to 500 years from now and people will be saying the same thing about us. They might say, "Wow, those morons created a currency system based on shiny metals and then let the whole system take over and control their lives? Wow, that's stupid." Or maybe people in 2513 will say something like, "Holy crap, they used to elect their rulers by which ones used the cutest buzz-words to describe their currency system? What a bunch of dweebs"

Similar to Religion and similar to Nationalism...the notion of "Economy" has to be routinely subjected to satirical jabs or barbs to ensure that people never take it too serious or extreme.

Economy as Religion / Economy as Nation

The land of Economy is as much make believe as the lands in our minds that exist when we attempt to conceptualize Religion or Nation.

In the magical land of economy a great benevolent force known simply as "the Market" watches over us and makes sure we never come to harm. The Market will solve all problems, it will cure your aches and pains, it will make your penis 3 inches larger (or your breasts on cup size larger). The Market will never hurt you...it's your friend. You can pray to the Market...you can even ritually sacrifice small creatures to it.

Hey, if you were Ronnie Reagan you could hire an astrological see-er and have her cast astrological projections on the mysterious Market (100% true occurrence). If you live in the Asia, you can read the Book of Changes and throw sticks on the ground to try and figure out the future of the Market.

The funny thing is, just like the deities in all Religions and the heroes of all Nations...there never was and never will be a divine force known as The Market. A "free market" is literally people doing whatever they want...and you can tell by how many white collar rules and laws exist that no one can do whatever they want.

The "Market" is rigidly chained together by texts, books, sheets, and copy books of LAWS. The businesses who talk about how "free" the "market" is are the same businesses who spend billions of dollars to lobby the governments of the world to change laws to customize the playing field in their favor.

Lawyers are CEOs best friends. Don't believe me? How come mp3s and other formats are so easy to share online within seconds...yet it is 100% illegal to put an mp3 on the internet for others to save to their computer terminals? Because someone lobbied to the government of your country to make a law which disallows you from doing that. The simplest way for human A to share a song he/she likes with a human B is just to send the mp3 to their computer....but that's 100% illegal. When the simplest way of doing what you want to do becomes illegal then you know something is up.

Yo, fucking Apple has paid lawyers to patent EVERYTHING. Another company can barely even offer a service using the alphabet without being attacked by Apple's lawyers. They paid billions of dollars to get the patent on things you wouldn't even believe could be patented.

In this blueprint, Apple applies to patent "turning a phone 45 degrees."

Apple is not a huge success because of how "free" some made-up buzz-word is. Fact is, it (and many other businesses) have meticulously carved away the laws it doesn't like through litigation, lobbied to customize the rules to conform to their strategies, and purchased through bribery the patents on concepts that cannot be patented by any sane judge.


Buzz Words

Certain words, even simple and obvious words like "market," take on a new aura of ridiculousness in order to surround a concept in a multi-colored smoke.

Lingo, terminology, language. Whatever you want to call it.  Words that develop some sort of hidden character behind them are very important in large scale doctrines.

For a taste of full-on business man lingo try some of these random bull shit generator sites:
(just hit the button on the sites and be filled with business wisdom)


Gobbledygook:  http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/gobbledygook-generator.html

Corporate Jargon: http://www.changedesigns.net/public/other/leadership-jargon.html


The one that always bugged me in these retarded "meetings" and/or "evaluations" with so-called "super-visors" was the term "you gotta think outside the box!" This term has become so over-used in the last decade that society might want to think about officially retiring it. A standard business meeting with your super visor at work probably goes something like this:


Team Leader: Hey Team! The higher ups just told me our productivity is way down this quarter!

Team: Oh.

Team Leader: Ya! It's really bad you guyz! This quarter we're trying to work directly with the customers to facilitate theirs and the movements of the stakeholders so that we can change the way we project and transform accounts so the innovations are maximized! But, it seems you guyz are slipping and we can't achieve our mid-year goal. Any suggestions on how we can remedy this?

Team: No....but something tells me you have one.

Team Leader: Ya! I do! Get ready for my trouble-shootin', problem solvin' solution of the century you guyz!!!!

Team: Okay...

Team Leader: This coming quarter....we just have to start THINKING OUTSIDE DA BOX!

Team: Sigh.


That's the truest definition of a buzz word. It doesn't solve anything, it doesn't help anything, and it ultimately doesn't mean anything to anyone. It's easy to talk like this and the sad thing is people will actually think you're smart.

To truly be a fire-brand preacher in the religion of giving the business...you need to watch that Gordon Gecko movie a few times, buy a nice three piece suit, and fill your brain with enough buzz words to last you through the next decade (don't worry they never age or go out-of-use or obsolete because they never meant anything in the first damned place).


How 'bout we Make some New Buzz Words?

Look, I honestly believe one thing that will strengthen any economy is raising the minimum wage. If you look at common stats that economists look at like Consumption, Savings, and others you will quickly realize that no matter what country you live in...

...Consumer Spending is at least 2/3 of your country's gosh darned economy.

No joke. No matter how many times you're told otherwise by some lobby group or your government...your county's GDP is over 60% internal consumer spending.

Knowing that, what do you think wrinkly old guys like Allan Greenspan or Ben Bernacke (or the equivalent wrinkly old dudes in your country) do when they notice a drop in consumer spending (i.e. the consumption of consumer goods in a nation)?

Do they,

A) Increase minimum wage to increase the spending cap of millions of their citizens to create an influx of consumption.

or

B) Lower interest rates to almost 0% so everyone can BORROW money and go into DEBT to buy the food and items they want/need in order to artificially create an influx of consumer consumption.

The answer in real life is, of course, (B) they lower interest rates so people borrow money to buy the homes, vehicles, and other items. The down side to this of course is the average debt of the average consumer in your nation synergetically rises in reaction to this.

While if they went the course of (A) and increased Wages to create an increase in Spending...it would not have been an artificial increase but a tangible increase.

It seems quite logical, yet anyone who speaks about increasing minimum wage in any nation is met with scorns of "yer a commie" or shit like that...even though it makes pretty ligit and economically structural formulaic sense.

Thus, we need to create a buzz word...I guess. Arguing to raise minimum wage in a nation should not be referred to in those terms any longer. It should be referred to as Maximizing Consumer Consumptional Power.

You think I'm joking? I'm not joking. Hey, if you go around town going "hey let's raise minimum wage!" you're gonna be called an ingrate, a commie, a bum, and a hundred other things. Yet, if you walk around town going "hey you guyz! I suggest our nation think outside the box here and attempt to Maximize it's Consumer Consumptional Power!!" you probably wouldn't even get one angry look.

Business buzz words are so ingrained in today's society that you might even be met with awe and wonder when you phrase it like that.

Conclusion

A large central core of humans abide by the religion of economy in today's dog-eat-rat world of worlds, and word on the street is...

...you gotta learn the language of business no matter how dumb and absurdly retarded it is.

Raise Consumptional POWER.

Great Moments in Literature: The Evolution of "Bob Backlund"

From Howdy-Doody to Criminally Insane to Loved and Accepted, the wonderful character development of Bob Backlund is one of literature's greatest moments.

Glossary of Terms to be Used in Article:

Howdy-Doody: This was a puppet that appeared on NBC in various forms from the 1940s to the 1960s. It was "a freckle-faced boy marionette with 49 freckles, one for each state of the union" who represented polite All-American boys around the great nation of the U.S. of A.

Criminally Insane: To display behavior so anti-social and violent that the only recourse is to either jail, hospitalize, or exile the individual from society.

Love and Acceptance: The concept of an individual being welcomed and appreciated in a group of multiple individuals of varying quantity.

The Cross-Faced Chicken-Wing: An unstoppable, unbreakable, and ultimately undefendable arm-lock submission hold that if you refuse to tap-out will leave you with a fractured limb.

Bob Backlund

Who's Bob Backlund? The Double B was a pro-wrestler who was famous from 1973-1984 and then made a reemergence and was doubly famous from 1994-1997. As everyone knows pro-wrestling is a shtick and not a competition of athletics. It is governed by a rule structure referred to in the business as "kayfabe" which replaces athletic skill competition with over-the-top choreographed drama. Most of the time this "drama" is fantastically and laughably retarded but in some cases it manages to create some interesting characters and satire.

One of the earliest precepts of "kayfabe" was to maximize drama by pitting "heroes" against "villains." The terms were refered to as "baby faces" versus "heels" where a babyface is a well-liked good looking person who the crowd relates to and the heels were foreign people with strange customs who the viewing audience could not relate to. Examples of "baby faces" are Hulk Hogan whilst examples of heels are guys like Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik.

In Backlund's first incarnation he was the aforementioned baby face character. Baby faces, naturally, are relative and dependent on their environment, meaning if the audience was Japanese then the baby face would be someone like Rikidozan and the heel would be someone like the Classy Freddie Blassie. In the case of Bob Backlund, he was operating in 1970s America and to pull off this role in that environment it required being a clean cut white "boy" who was constantly draped with American flags.

American flag jacket, American flag undies, American flag singlet. That's what you needed to be the "All American Boy." They should have gave him 49 freckles on his ass to symbolize the 49 states in the union then he'd be perfect.

Many probably know that America went through a cultural revolution of sorts during the 1960s and 1970s featuring all sorts of movements from civil rights to women's rights to aboriginal rights and many others. This "All American Boy" persona did not sell as well as it used to as Americans were becoming less religious, less nationalistic and thus more adults than "boys" so to speak.

click to enlarge

This was the case in other sports as well. A famous case in baseball was in the Yankees organization where Mickey Mantle was regarded as the "All American Boy." You probably don't know that Mickey didn't exactly like being known as a "boy" and he didn't like the howdy-doody persona one bit. In a famous 1973 letter (shown to the left) when asked to speak about his favorite Yankee moment, Mantle responded that it was that one time he got head from some chick in the bullpen in right field, and he sarcastically signed the letter as "The All American Boy."

Wrestling noticed a drop in sales due to their "All American Boy" champion not drawing the crowd's support as it once did. Backlund was made to lose the belt to the Iron Sheik (who in turn lost it to the body building hollywood rockstar 80s babyface Hulk Hogan) and by the year 1984 Backlund faded out of wrestling, into obscurity, into the the no-man's land of "has-beens."

The Hokey Dokies and Howdy Doodies time in the sun was over. These rinky-dinks weren't entertaining anyone and were quickly being regarded as ultra lame by the society they were meant to be accepted by.





Reemergence and Total Character 180

Backlund was out of wrestling for a full decade before making this appearance in the squared circle in 1994,

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFwtjILNN28)

I was about 11 years old in 1994 and I saw this bit as some kind of boring little tribute to some old dinosaurs from when wrestling was super boring and stupid. Then Backlund comes out and goes on some angry vicious diatribe culminating with him putting the poor old Arnold Skaaland in the dreaded chicken wing arm-lock! What the fuck is he doing!?

The All American Boy had lost his marbles. This wasn't a one time isolated appearance either, he went on a nation wide chicken-wing RAMPAGE in which he put announcers, managers, wrestlers, fans, old dudes, and just about everyone under the sun in the divine unbreakable arm-lock. No one was safe from this mentally unstable kook and his patented chicken wing.

All-American Bow-Tie?

He wore these silly bathrobes that looked like they were made in the 1930s...he looked like a relic from a past age that was dug up by an archeologist. He still wore the American flag on his person...but as a bow tie.

The bow tie is like the encapsulation of lame, no one can look tough or bad ass in a bow tie. Yes, Bob Backlund still represented America but now he was an encapsulation of everything that was wrong with it. He was a status-quo conservative backlash that wanted to place all of society in a cross-faced chicken-wing and caste it in place so it would never change. He basically wanted to put all of America into 1930s bathrobes and force them to read the dictionary 24 hours a day.

He displayed ultra-conservative views of morality and preached that society was a mess that needed intervention. He was like a fire-brand preacher spraying ludicrous invective on anyone who would approach him, observe:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVEyE9F-fGQ)

Bob is now the ugly side of America...he's a living embodiment of the John Birch Society. Hold up though, did you notice something in that clip above? That he's got the belt? Yeah, in 1994 Bob was once again the Champion. Yup, the megalomaniac chicken-wing madman was now the most popular wrestler on the circuit. I'll say this right now, Bob Backlund was my favorite wrestler in that era, hands down. He was entertaining as hell.

He's a criminally insane old man...but he's so darned likeable. It was so weird to watch him look at his hands (sorta like Ren used to on Ren and Stimpy) after the aftermath of a chicken wing atrocity just took place.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JdY9ZxyH64)
THANK GOD THE MACHO MAN WAS AT RINGSIDE TO SUBDUE THIS MANIAC!!

Iconoclast

Fast forward to 2012,

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58DwRdpluAs)

Look who rises up from the ashes to challenge today's heroes...it's a relic from the past. A beloved relic from the past who the fans cheer for and chant his name. Bob Backlund is an icon, maybe even a folk hero.

Is he an icon for being the rinky dinkin' howdy doodin' All America Boy? No. He's an icon for portraying a criminally insane status-quo obsessed homogenized pasteurized marauding psychopath who wants to put today's society into a permanent cross faced chicken wing.

In Conclusion

Not through patriotism did Backlund achieve love and acceptance from society...he achieved his L&A through good old fashioned satirical kookery.

So next time you see an old bastard in a bathrobe, slicking his hair back with Wild Root Cream Oil, kicking cats around, speaking in tongues, and putting random passersby into vintage submission holds...don't hate on him, just see him as a window into the past...a chilling past where everyone was crazy.

Montréal Expos Revival Taking Shape as The Cro Continues to Let 'Em Know

The Great Legend of Baseball Warren Cromartie and the president of the Chambre de Commerce du Montréal (Montreal Board of Trade) Michel Leblanc have just released the results of the Ernst and Young feasibility study commissioned by the Cro. 

The 62 page Document (this word is always capitilazed within the Document and it should be because it's a pretty slick Document) is available for the public to peruse at their leisure:

http://montrealbaseballproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Feasibility_Study.pdf

It's 10 pm eastern standard time, and I seem to have some leisure time right about now...so I'm going to do some perusing. Why not? In this following article we shall be highlighting key components within the Document in an attempt to convince nay-sayers of the return of the Expos that...Yes, Major League Baseball in Montréal is 100% viable.

Summary of the "Document"

The Ernst and Young study is broken down into sections. The main conclusion of the report is for Montréal to adopt the methods of the Minnesota region and what they did with the Twins.

"The centrally located, open-air stadium (in a similar climate) was essential to retaining the Twins in Minneapolis, and the stadium has been a success for the MLB, for the fans and for the city’s development."

The comparison of Minnesota and Montréal is a good comparison because the cities are fairly similar in many data metrics. The populations are fairly similar, the weather conditions are very similar, the average income per household is fairly similar, etc. They also cite the similarities between the cities extend to baseball as well. The Twins and Expos were both slated to be contracted in 2002 by Major League Baseball and both cities played in huge dome style stadiums with astro-turf.

The Twins, however, solved their stadium woes and became viable again by contesting contraction in all levels of court led by the Heroic Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura (I like this guy, it was cool to see his name in the Document). Eventually they built a nice, new, baseball-style, non-cavern stadium and have been doing well ever since.

The statistics they provided for the construction and financing of Target Field in Minnesota are the following:

Construction start date: August 30, 2007

Date opened: January 4, 2010

Architect: Populous/Hammel, Green and Abrahamson

Capacity: 39,021

54 suites, 2 mega suites

Funding: Combination of Minnesota Ballpark Authority
(64%) and Minnesota Twins (36%)

Ballpark construction cost: $390M

City infrastructure cost: $155M


It states that the Minnesota stadium was linked to the downtown core in order to be a very accessible and chill area. They "constructed a large plaza in the outfield to connect the stadium to the downtown core" in order to syngergize the stadium with other local business (i.e. restaurants, pubs, boutiques, etc.).

When they talk about accessibility they are referring to how how easy it is to get to and out of the stadium. Target Field has 2 major freeways connecting to it, 20 busses passing by it, 7,000 parking spots, and hundreds of bike racks.

If you remember, Montréal's original stadium incarnation was buried way out of the downtown core at Pie-IX metro. They are suggesting to build a festive and accessible hub in the downtown core that will lure locals and tourists to the area which is a great idea.

They cite in a Minnesota based economic study,

"According to an independent economic impact analysis, Target Field also generated at least $169.3 million in economic activity in its first year of operation"

That's not baseball related, that's due to the area surrounding the stadium becoming prime real estate for opening enterprises and drawing investors to open businesses in the area.

The study found that the ideal division for the Montréal 2.0 team to play in is the AL East citing that,

"The new franchise should ideally play in the American League East – the team would have natural rivalries with several cities including Toronto, Boston and New York. The presence of these teams in Montreal would enhance the business case as well as the local television broadcasting rights deal – playing against more popular teams results in a larger television audience"

I hate the Designating Hitter rule, but hey, beggars can't be choosers, eh? I have to 100% agree with this assessment. Just like Canadiens vs. Bruins or Canadiens vs. Leafs...this set-up will maximize rivalry multipliers and get fans all rabid. Nothing works me up more than losing to Toronto at something. If we were in the same division, forget it, it will be mass hysteria bro...I'm talking mass hysteria, dude.

The Document covers data from a poll of a sample size of Montréal citizens and business leaders and the data is used to from projections (or you could call them prognostications too). These projections are pretty meaty numbers and would make quite of few entrepreneurs mouth water while reading them. Taking into account the demand and the average income per household they create a maximization algorithm for ticket pricing and the numbers look very good.

The study has a great section on economic impact for the region which has some pretty meaty figures in it too. Synergizing the construction phase, the operation of the club, and the tourism attracted to the city... it shows the positive economic impact of the return of baseball would be immediately noticeable. They provide figures for GDP generated and the jobs created by this venture. They conclude on this matter,

"In total, the new ballpark would support approximately 1,500 jobs annually in Quebec during the construction phase with the impact on GDP being approximately $130M annually – two thirds of this effect would be in Montreal

Operation of a new ballpark would support (annually) 825 direct jobs, plus 600 indirect and induced jobs, with an approximate contribution of $96M to Quebec GDP"

This Document is a pretty good read, if you're interested in data and baseball and things like that (like me) then you should probably peruse it.


Common Rebuttals to Nay-Sayers

Some of the most frequent statements by nay-sayers countering the viability of Montréal will likely be of the following nature. One common point that will be brought up is something along the lines of,

"It's cold in Montréal...how can they play in an open air stadium without a roof?"

It is stated that Minnesota has a very similar climate to Montréal and the study presents these factoids on the matter,

Average Montreal Temperature during Baseball Season: 15.5 C
Average Minnesota Temperature during Baseball Season: 16.2 C

Look, it's pretty hot here in the summer during baseball season. Yeah in April and October it's going to be cold but less than one degree celcigrade isn't going to be the end of anyone's world.

The Document insists that roofed or retractable-roofed stadium is not needed. The production costs are almost cut by a third by using an open-air model as opposed to a roofed model and the drawbacks to being open air (even in a colder climate) seem to be little if not none.

Nextly, the BIGGEST issue from nay-sayers is going to be that that study suggests the provincial government put up 300 million for building the stadium. Everyone's gonna be all,

"But the bridges are broken! How can you even think of putting money into a ball park!?"

First of all bridges fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government of Canada. It's federal tax dollars that are used to alter infrastructure or to repair bridges. Bridges are not the jurisdiction of the provincial government.

Secondly, look, this is a pretty big business and businesses are taxed by the government. This enterprise will generate quite a lot of tax revenue. How much? The Document projects the following data,

"The government’s share of costs would be recouped through direct tax payments generated in the construction phase ($55.6M) and during each year of operation ($23M annually), as well as by dedicating sales taxes generated annually by stadium activities ($18M) and income tax on part of players’ salaries ($10M)"

The minimum tax they can collect off this in a construction year is 55.6 Million and during an operational year they would get a minimum of 51 Million per year. You don't need to be a genius or a Master Cross Multiplier to figure out how quickly they will recoup the money on their investment. Three hundred divided by and average of 53 million is about six years. Following the sixth year all the 50+ million in tax revenue becomes 100% profit for the government.

The Document even lists measures in the case the provincial government refuses to put in any money (even though they will benefit over 50 million per year from this venture) and also lists several faster methods for the government to recoup its initial investment in the case that it makes a huge deal about making the capital investment back faster than six years. They have all their bases covered ok? These guys are pros.

Conclusion

Mr. Cromartie concluded the press conference today stating that,

"Baseball is a game of history and numbers. Montréal has the history and now Montréal has the numbers."

I made an amateurish projection piece in this blog once (Speculation/Prognostications), but this data in the Ernst and Young report is not speculations...this is HARD DATA. Montréal has legit numbers now that should make both the business community here and MLB take notice.

Mr. Cromartie proceeded to call out to the business community and implored for a "champion" to step up to the plate and make history. Hopefully somebody or a combination of sombodies heeds the call.

Montréal? We got the history, we got the numbers...hey, we got the food, we got the ladies, we got the fresh beats, we got the jams, we got the style....hey, we got it all....we GOT THE TOOLS AND WE GOT THE TALENT!!!!