The Economic Outlook

Don’t believe a man who laughts loudly at his own joke. He’s not really laughing. Neither are you.

Everything is meaningless and chasing the wind. Perhaps. The curious states of the nations rumbles on. Nobody is any the wiser. A few get richer.

I live as though a midnight nurse might appear anytime and ask for my symptoms. Of course they vary hour by hour. Dawn cracks open like a soft boiled egg and pretends everything’s fine. I no longer step in puddles. I detour. I strategize. A relaxed stroll in cheap shoes can apparently lead to pleurisy or some Victorian style inconvenience. First you get the sweats. After that you’re on your own. Free and easy. In your own head.

The Knitpick café doesn’t make money. It just washes its face when a white tour bus coughs up some retirees. Lochs, Glens and Bridges road trips. Then it closes on weekends, because logic is optional. Those fine toilets are closed too. They will be OK. You can probably guess my financial future.

I have a feeling of not knowing. It stays with me. I stand outside of things and watch them move. I do not always understand how they move or why.

I think about the men and women who design birthday cards. The ones who draw flowers and bright balloons and write small jokes in some careful, playful script. They open Esty shops. I think about the people who shape up plates and cups, or print patterns on tablecloths no one will really remember a year from now because they’re not Ikea. They must earn their keep somehow. Most of it is made far away, in China, where the provinces are each bit different from one another but the work is hard and constant. So I imagine. I’ve yet to visit. There is science, talk and energy there. A work ethic that does not stall or complain. Production is a natural force for good. Stuffed into containers and waved away, across the sea. Brutal, cynical or just some natural thing, in a knowing, climb the human staircase way. The dark factories don’t tell many stories.

Back here it feels slower. European decay in thought and bodies. Slowly drugged and in a paralysed state that doesn’t know what it’s here for. A man who must be nudged out of bed. He must be promised money before he will bend to lift. And even then he gives no more than he must. But why should he give more, when the men above him take more than their share? When managers talk of discipline, tight lines and teams but reward themselves first. Who has more “rights”? Shareholders don’t care, they’ll let you drink the poisoned water if there’s a profit to be made.

Finance is a dim room to me. The Rothschilds are our true masters and mistresses and have been for the longest time. So long that we have forgotten. The serial unfairness hardly matters anymore. Investment and industry are words spoken with confidence by men in good suits that fit their bad moods. We are told the markets will correct themselves. Regulations shall be light weight but robust. That traders will be honest and respectful. That prices will find their proper level. It is like handing the keys for the shop and the till to a man who has already shown you his dirty and money stained hands. He still calls on you to trust his speculations. I smell phoenix schemes. Robbery in the gift shop.

There is a faint ringing in my ear. It comes and goes. It sounds like a signal carried on under the noise of the day. As if something unseen adjusts the dials. Turn down what is good. Turn up what is bad. You will have what we decide. They say it plainly. We will have what we can take. Easy money. Avert your eyes and don’t trust your senses.

The ringing stays.

Toothpaste costs seven Pounds a tube. Oral-B. Instant coffee costs seven Pounds a jar. Nescafe. A pint of beer costs seven Pounds in a clean city bar with polished taps and a quiet floor. 777. The perfect number. Bible scholars, accountants and alchemists know this. Perhaps you didn’t until now.

Seven British Pounds - might be Bucks or Euros where you are. The numbers increase and repeat themselves like a joke told too often. Don’t believe any man who laughts loudly at his own joke. He’s not really laughing. Neither are you.

People shake their heads. They are angry. They are tired. But they get on with it.

The ringing goes on.

Now I blame Richard Nixon. I found the root. Well a place to begin the modern blame cycle. A lot of things grew up from that. Nests of snakes. Still putting their eggs out and about. There, that’s your economics lesson.