Economics...You're Doing It Wrong

fig. 1-1 Yes, A Monkey Fucking A Football

As I was sitting at my desk today eating lunch, I heard a very, very loud farting noise off in the distance. While my office is near the staff bathroom, it was not any person that ate the wrong thing.

It was our economy taking a massive dook and stinking up the whole place.

Dropping well over 600 points in one day, the news websites are now littered once again of people at Wall Street looking all sad-trombone-faced and pitful. (Which I don't understand, I mean, it's not their money)

While I am not an economist by any means, what is going on with our economy is a big pile of bull shiite. While I have no silver bullet for the economy, I can generally see the following a problem:

- Politicians duking it out until the last possible minute with this latest "debt ceiling" debacle, and acting like complete children in the process. Screw the Republicans for being dominated by the Tea Party nuts, and screw the Democrats for being ineffectual and rolling over on pretty much all fronts. And screw all involved for the self-congratulatory back patting and hand shaking on a "job well done" while over 80% of polled Americans think they acted like complete douches.

- Volitility. It seems in this day in age that if a mosquito farts in Central Asia, our Dow drops 100 points. I don't get this. "Consumer confidence"? Confidence in what? If Allen Greenspan sneezed the price of oil takes a shit and everyone loses their 401(k)s. How did our system get to this point when it used to be just about buying pieces of a company to make a profit? From what I understand, our giant point loss today was from our loss in credit rating (which, I think we deserve, because we're TRILLIONS of dollars in debt) and from fears of what's happening with Europes economy. Dude...really?

- Visas and Foreign Aid. How in the french fucking toast does our government rationalize dumping millions of dollars into assisting other countries and allowing work visas when our economy is going to hell in a handbasket and we have roughly a 10% unemployment rate. Oh sure, we'll cut spending to domestic programs such as medical benefits and mental health services, and yeah, the 1 in 10 Americans are unemployed, but lets go ahead and send millions of dollars over to Ethopia and give a bunch of Europeans the ability to come over and take our high tech, high paying jobs...get trained, and head home. Look, I'm not saying build a giant wall around the country and change our name to Deutchland. I am saying, we need to focus our financial priorities internally. We can't help anyone if we're going down the pipes. And from where I stand right now, I know when people are crying at Wall Street, bad things are happening.

- Subsidies. Okay, so we're giving money to companies who post annual profits. What? I mean seriously? We pay oil companies to produce oil? The same companies that bend us over at the pump (wow that is rife with innuendo) and have a strangle hold on our energy economy even now? And we're paying farmers to not grow crops so the cost of the individual units go higher? WTF. Who thought of subsidies?

- Tax breaks. I'm not claiming to know anything about tax code. That being said, whatever the tax code is, stick to it. Whatever tax breaks are provided by the President, regardless of the President, should be repealed. Just start over.

- Outsourcing. Yes, I get it. Companies that outsource have a higher profit margin because they capitalize on cheaper labor markets in expanding economies. That being said, I've cancelled credit cards because I didn't much care for the idea that someone literally half the planet away was looking at my stuff and trying to troubleshoot me in broken English. Don't get rid of outsourcing, but tax the holy bejeesus out of it to encourage companies to stay local. If more than 20% of their labor pool is out of the US, then just mark them as a non-US business and hammer punch them fiscally.

While I'm not going to jinx myself by saying I'm in a semi-economy resistant job, I kinda am. And unlike last time when this happened, and I was unemployed for a year, I'm glad I am where I am. But it's about time politicians pulled their heads out of their asses and fixed our shit. And no, don't do it for re-election, do it because it's your fucking jobs.