Economics 101 And Angry White People

I have had it.

I have had it with the ignorant mother fuckers, and angry white people. I have had it with the politics of hate, and this effin goddamn "Tea Party", a movement born of hate and fear and steeped in so much mis-information, the more these people talk, the more foolish they sound.

And it's not just the Tea Party yahoos either, but this entire "populist" mentality, the seems to have taken over the lunatic fringe of BOTH parties.

And there in lies the danger. The extreme of anything is a bad thing. Read your history. When you step out beyond the edge of reason, and science, of intellect, and just plain common sense, there is nothing left but fear. And Master Yoda was right. Fear does lead to the dark side. Follow fear and an agent of evil you will become.

And so what are all these "Tea Baggers" and "Populists" so mad at it? Well I will leave the really crazy shit alone here, such as death panels,the racism crap, the hatred, and the "Obama is destroying the Constitution" stuff. I am pretty sure there are not many constitutional scholars in the crowd anyway.

But I do want address the economic part of this.

Now, see I'm not a constitutional lawyer either, but unlike most of the pundits on Fox, or even CNN or MSNBC for that matter, I do actually have a degree in Economics from a respected University. And I did work in the Wall Street world (yes that evil entity responsible for all of our ills) for fourteen years. So while I am no Paul Volcker, I am willing to bet I have a deeper understanding of macro economic issues theory than your average M-16 carrying, Luger packing, Obama-hating, Sarah Palin-loving Tea Bagger.

So here we go, just the basics.

Economics 101:

All monetary activity in the economy can only come from one of three places.
1) Consumers
2) Businesses
3) The Government

Now when the economy is in a severe state of contacting, consumer spending, and business investing dries up. That leaves only one place where economic activity can originate, the government. And financial activity can be stimulated by the Federal Government in one of the three ways:

1) Tax cuts
2) Fed lowering rates
3) Spending

Now lets remember back to September 2008 when the Economic crisis hit.

It was a severe shock wave that nearly crippled the financial system. All monetary activity instantly dried up. Banks were in survival mode instead of lending. Businesses had no way of securing loans for even basic payroll let alone investment. And consumers saw their retirements vaporize overnight in plunging stock market, and their home values crash as much as fifty per cent in the worst real estate meltdown in American history.

The bubble had burst, and devastation was upon us.
Drastic action had to be taken and taken fast.

There was no supply side solution to this crisis.

With a collapsing banking system,a stock market on the verge of testing 5000 on the Dow, and foreclosures running amok across the country, tax cuts were impotent in the short term (and 30% of the Economic Recovery plan was tax cuts btw), and there was no more room to lower the fed funds rate already hovering near zero.

There was only one course of action to be taken.

The financial system had to be stabilized.
City and State governments on the verge of shutting down from a dwindling tax base had to be saved.
The confidence of world markets, and consumers had to be restored

And the Federal spending was the ONLY possible way to do it.

Did it work?

The financial system is stable.
Corporate and business spending is back on the rise again.
Consumer confidence and spending is up dramatically from a year ago.
The latest GDP numbers show a 5% plus accelerating economic growth rate from year to year fourth quarter.
The stock market is up over 40%.

And by the way, a rising stock market is a GOOD thing.

Historically it is always an indicator of the FUTURE of the economy. Yes we do need to reform and Glass-Steagall needs to be reinstated and should never have been repealed. But Wall Street is not the enemy people. Just put some simple rules in place so banks and mortgage companies can go back to being banks and mortgage companies and not speculators trading like a drunken sailor in the derivative and option markets that should be entered only by risk taking Gordon Gekko wannabes adrenaline junkies like me.

The stock market is the very first thing that turns bullish during a recovery, then GDP, and the very last lagging indicator is always jobs. And in a recession this severe, that is going to take awhile no matter how robust the recovery becomes, especially in an economy with so many transitional industries where people must be re-trained and often re-educated to obtain a new set of skills.

So are we better off today than we are a year ago?

The GDP says so.
The stability of the financial markets say so.
The stock market says so.

And at least where I live, the real says world so.
A year ago, it was a ghost town in the metropolitan area where I reside. And this past holiday season, it was humming with activity like I had not seen in several years.

Maybe the teabaggers would have preferred that the financial system collapse and the banks shut their doors, and chaos and anarchy reigned. After all, they are the ones with the arsenal of automatic weapons stashed away. They are the ones who would have been in power in post-meltdown Road Warrior scenario.

Maybe that is why they are all seething with such anger.

They had their chance for power and it was snatched away from them, and now Sarah Palin is their only hope.

Avatar And The Beast Man

"Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him;for he is the harbinger of death."

Planet of the Apes 1968

It was true in 1968.
It was true 5000 years ago.
It has been true since the dawn of the modern Homo Sapien.
It is true in 2010.

I have overheard a lot of conversations lately about Avatar.
Debates going back about the social, cultural, and political meaning behind this event movie (beyond being perhaps one of the 3 or 4 for most revolutionary films ever made. One that like The Jazz Singer, King Kong, Star Wars, will actually change the way we experience a movie).

I heard talk about the American corporate and military imperialism and arrogance practiced by the Cheney gang for eight years and (as those on the left would tell you) continued by the Obama administration.

This thematic subtext of Avatar interconnects beautifully with the corporate weasels of the "company" in Aliens, and the apocalyptic inevitability of the Terminator films. And it has been a running thematic thread in all of James Cameron's work, as omnipresent as the strong female characters, the mushy romance, and the adrenaline fueled pounding kick ass action sequences.

Ironically, the one part of Avatar that has been the most praised, the stunningly executed final battle, is the only insincere part of the movie. In truth, the Na'vi would stand no chance. Those that did survive would struggle for centuries, existing as second class beings in the world of man. And Pandora would be raped for the precious mineral so the "company" and the powerful men behind it could get richer and fatter.

"...for he will make a desert of his home, and yours."

But it is not just about American neo-con imperialism, or the genocide of the the native Americans.
It is not just about recent history at all.

"Beware of the beast man..."

It is about the nature of man.

Invade, destroy, smother, plunder, profit, consume, and above all make sure these people worship the same invisible man in the sky as you do.

Yeah, sure the United States did it. Just read your history books. But so did the Persians, and the Mongols, and the Romans, and the Spanish, and the British...and every civilization or empire who has ever achieved enough power to begin to wield it against and over anyone else who might possess something they might profit from.

I have always been a big Star Trek fan. But found the optimistic philosophy of "mankind is getting better and overcoming our barbaric past" to be utter non-sense. Much closer to the truth was what Khan said to Kirk in the episode Space Seed "Technology may have gotten better, but how little man itself has changed."

I watched the Hope For Haiti event last Friday. It was a beautiful night in the wake of a horrible tragedy. And for one night, I felt a glimmer of hope for the Homo sapien race.

But then I remembered that for every one George Clooney there are ten Rush Limbaugh's. I remembered the one day at work many years ago when an educated fellow stockbroker tried to convince me the earth was only five thousand years old. I remembered that Micheal Vick was honored with a courage award last month. I remembered that the next potential President of the United States slaughtered wolves from a helicopter with an automatic weapon for sport and does not even have a sixth grader's knowledge of American history and basic science.

I remembered my human history.

"Beware of the beast man."

Then I remembered a quote from another famous James Cameron film.

"It is in your nature to destroy yourselves."

"Beware of the beast man"...indeed.

In Search Of Lost

I have now finally caught up with season 5 of Lost.

I was sitting here at my desk, right after finishing
"The Incident part 2". I was jacked up and ready to roll for the big final season. Then suddenly, my head began to swirl amid a chaotic tapestry of time travel paradoxes, intricate emotional relationships, fate versus destiny debates, and a whole bunch of other mind expanding fodder best dwelled upon during late hours in a college dorm room somewhere, preferably under the influence of some illegal brain altering substance to further expand one's horizons, and break though those seemingly insurmountable obstacles of time and space and the barriers they present us with.

Then I remembered what an old screenwriter teacher once taught me.

"What is the story about?" the teacher asked.
"Well, it's about this group of survivors who land on the island and then..." I said.
"No," the teacher interrupted me. "That is the plot. What is it about? Tell me!"

So what is Lost about?

The last great genre phenomenon, The X-Files, was about the "other". The shadow, the looming monster under the bed, or living the next door, or watching from above...or working at the corporation you punch in at, or operating from the secret underbelly of the government who only tells you want they want you to know. The X-Files was about, angst, and paranoia, and the dark forces lurking on the shadows. It was film noir in the absolute purest form, in the great tradition of German expressionism and the American horror films of the 1930's, and crime films of the 1940's. The X-Files was as its best in those early seasons, when the show was unrelentingly dark, brooding, and pessimistic. That is because Chris Carter (and his team of writers including most notably James Wong and Glen Morgan) have a dark side. And anyone who has ever watched that other Chris Carter show, Millennium, can attestify to.

J.J Abrams and his team of superbly talented writers and filmmakers are coming from a different place. Sure Lost has thrills, chills, a smoke monster, ghostly apparitions, and maybe the greatest villain in television history. But Lost is not about the scares, the thrills, or the pulse pounding action adventure it so expertly delivers in each and every episode.

Remember what happened when they left the island. Jack was a mess. Kate had to face some cruel realities. Sayid suffered a tragedy and his heart turned black. Hurley went crazy. Sawyer stayed on the island and found peace and happiness for the first time in his life.

What is Lost about?

Lost is about getting to that special place. That elusive place. That place of darkness, and wonder, and magic, and lost love and great adventures. Lost is about fighting through the darkness and marching on into the unknown in search of what is missing.

Lost is about lost love and found hope.

Lost is about getting back to that place, that place of dreams.

The Politics Of 24

As I look back on the last ten years of television and began prepare to make my best of the decade list, I wanted to reserve my top spot for a show, for THE show that not only represents cutting edge quality entertainment in terms of cinematography, writing, editing, formatting, pacing, performances and the sheer rush of adrenaline. But I also wanted to pick a serialized television program that captured the pulse of the decade in the same way that (as noir author James Elroy pointed out in a recent Total Film interview)The Fugitive encased the turmoil, political, and cultural landscape of that the 1960's.

That show is 24. Kiefer Sutherland as the tortured (often literally) Jack Bauer is the embodiment of the decade's ultimate brooding anti-hero, much in the same way as David Janssen's man on the run Richard Kimble was to that era. And contrary to the way the show has been misread by the liberal AND conservative press, 24 is not a showcase of right wing propaganda or a dramatic extension of Fox's infamous news channel.

24 is, and has been from its inception, an insightful, superbly crafted, and expertly executed piece of fiction that has its pulse on what IS happening. The writers of the show do what all crafty and shrewd entertainers and storytellers do. They use the premise, milk it, get inside it, and fully exploits it for every bit of tension possible in order to make for the most exciting and dramatically entertaining hours of television of the past decade.

So the politics of 24? To entertain, to thrill, to shake you up and leave your heart pounding and emotions soaring and adrenaline cascading into a crescendo with each tick of the digital clock. Right wing, left wing...it can be and is both, yet it is neither. And let us not forget that 24 gave us a progressive African American President 7 years before Obama and last season gave us the greatest villain in the storied history of 24 villains. A Halburton/Blackwater government subcontracted corporation created and helmed by a Dick Cheney inspired paranoid, power obsessed control freak played with frightening realism by John Voight.

I cannot wait to see what season 8 has in store for us.

My best of the decade list in television.

1) 24
2) Taken (2002 SF Channel Emmy winning miniseries)
3) Six Feet Under (best depressing show ever)
4) Lost (watching year 5 now and loving it)
5) Soprano's (except for his damn kids and that finally)
6) MSNBC (Made the 2008 election year alot of fun)
7) American Idol (hey, guilty pleasure)
8) Curb Your Enthusiasm (the Seinfeld of the decade)
9) Fringe (the X-Files of the decade)
10)HBO Sports (anything narrated by Liev Schrieber)