Don't Let The Door Hit You...

If that's the best they can do for a threat...

Banker fury over tax ‘witch-hunt’:

Bankers on Wall Street and in Europe have struck back against moves by US lawmakers to slap punitive taxes on bonuses paid to high earners at bailed-out institutions.

Senior executives on both sides of the Atlantic on Friday warned of an exodus of talent from some of the biggest names in US finance, saying the “anti-American” measures smacked of “a McCarthy witch-hunt” that would send the country “back to the stone age”.

There were fears that the backlash triggered by AIG’s payment of $165m in bonuses to executives responsible for losses that forced a $170bn taxpayer-funded rescue would have devastating consequences for the largest banks.

“Finance is one of America’s great industries, and they’re destroying it,” said one banker at a firm that has accepted public money. “This happened out of haste and anger over AIG, but we’re not like AIG.”

The banker added: “It’s like a McCarthy witch-hunt...This is the most profoundly anti- American thing I’ve ever seen.”

5 thoughts:

1. Revenge is a very "American thing."

2. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out! If that's talent I would hate to witness incompetence.

3. It's amazing to hear someone whine, "I can't believe you hate me," after running everything into the ground.

4. They should do the right thing and jump out a window. The world would be a far better place without them in it.

5. Another example of intellectual inbreeding...

Propaganda: On Decadence

On Decadence

i. Decadence is the exhibition of cultural and social decline. It may be considered a manifestation of disorder turned inward. As progress destroys the ordered life, decline is inevitable. The past is idealized and romanticized. Essentially, a symptom of increased isolation from the base physical world, decadence has many shapes and faces sometimes mistaken for something else. Rather than as an expression of apathy, a skilled propagandist may portray decadence as a sign of increased freedom and tolerance. The present social order is maintained at the expense of it culture. Once the decay sets, legitimacy is the next casualty. The idle need something to occupy their time. Mental pursuits simply fall short in a materialistic culture. The isolated feel a need to be part of something. Oppositional solidarity may be divided and conquered through enabling decadent pursuits. The spectacle becomes a need. Some would rather participate than spectate, but all are products.

ii. As long as vested interests profit, cultural decadence represents a safety valve. What happens when the party is over? No matter the effort, the organized opposition will never satisfactorily channel decadent energy. The walking dead do not answer serious questions. The decadent are mostly lost. Some are awaiting something new. One needs to pass the time. Opportunists note failure. Associations are easily exploited.

Classic Propaganda Studies References

Classic Propaganda Studies References. Live it, learn it, know it.

Breaking requires devolution for a time.

No Ethics in a Moral Society

Why Does the World Feel Wrong? describes the reasons behind the complete lack of ethics in a so-called "moral society." There are simply too many psychopaths controlling things and, since these sort are most motivated to claw their way to the top, always have. Only a decentralized society has any chance of escaping their grasp. Unfortunately, "ours" will tear itself apart before becoming so.

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #8

Any assertion contrary to the myth of progress will be met with circular arguments or proof by example. However, any system has components neither provable nor disprovable within itself. The whole is different than the sum of its parts. These theorems are true; it requires one sufficiently alienated to document this system created by the technical morality. The only self-awareness required is the extent of that disenfranchisement, and the ruthlessness to pull the wings off a fly... However, most believe such freedom from fear requires strength beyond them. Their perceptions have been lead like cattle. Under Maximum Advantage, "Nothing is forbidden; everything is permitted," may be allowed but will never occur in the resultant mediocre compromise. In truth, rather the opposite, but sweet lies are better. Some errors are necessary as a step forward.

[End]

Intellectual Inbreeding: Corporate Free Traders

Here's an example of intellectual inbreeding. Although not the point, Wall Street and Bernanke by Dave Lindorff illustrates the flawed thinking of the corporate free trader crowd. Just like Marxists, this bunch began believing its own B.S. Its feedback did nothing but reinforce a flawed ideology of economic internationalism. It's interesting to note that both Marxist and "free trade" reacted similar: both grasped the remedies of its flawed rival.

Excerpt:

The same kind of analytical brilliance has been routinely ascribed by economic pundits to investors when it comes to business decisions--particularly mergers and acquisitions, or divestments and breakups. If Bank of America announces that it is going to buy the foundering Merrill Lynch and shares of B of A fall, then the merger is a bad idea. If the shares rise, it's a good idea. And so it goes.

The whole idea that a bunch of people who sit around at computer screens betting on stocks and eating cheese doodles all day really know much of anything, or that taking their herd responses collectively as some kind of delphic oracle has always seemed the height of folly to me. But if you really wanted proof that investors taken collectively are idiots, you could simply look at today's stock market. Yesterday, every index plunged by about 4%, pulling the overall market to lows not seen in 12 years, because of concerns that the recession was deepening, that the big banks were toast, and that the government's economic stimulus plan was not going to help much.

There was every reason to expect the downward trend to continue, but up stepped Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, and, in a statement presented in Congress, said that in his considered view, the current recession could be over by the end of this year.

Relieved investors jumped back into the market and bought stocks, pushing the Dow and the S&P indexes back up by almost as much as they'd lost the day before.

But wait a minute! Isn't Ben Bernanke the same guy who was chair of the Fed last year and the year before? The same chair who completely failed to see the coming credit crisis and global financial collapse? And if that's the case, why on earth would investors take seriously anything he says about the future direction of the economy?

Why indeed? Maybe they're smoking a little too much hope?

The herd mentality can never be more than mediocre, and probably less. Anyone believing in its wisdom is a tool.

See also How the Economy was Lost by Paul Craig Roberts.

Intellectual Inbreeding: Achievetrons

The latest issue of Harper's has an article called Achievetrons by Lewis H. Lapham, which describes the consequences of intellectual inbreeding when influenced by Maximum Advantage. The resultant products all thing the same: Me First.

Excerpt:

It also illustrates The recommendation deserves to be ranked with the ones until recently in vogue at the Palm Beach Country Club among the members acquainted with the achievetron Bernie Madoff. For the past sixty years the deputies assigned to engineer the domestic and foreign policies of governments newly arriving in Washington have come outfitted with similar qualifications—firstclass schools, state-of-the-art networking, apprenticeship in a legislative body or a think tank—and for sixty years they have managed to weaken rather than strengthen the American democracy, ending their terms of office as objects of ridicule if not under threat of criminal arrest. The Harvard wunderkinds (a.k.a. “the best and the brightest”) who followed President John F. Kennedy into the White House in 1961 hung around the map tables long enough to point the country in the direction of the Vietnam War. Henry Kissinger, another Harvard prodigy, imparted to American statecraft the modus operandi of a Mafia cartel. The Reagan Administration imported its book of revelation from the University of Chicago’s School of Economics (“privatization” the watchword, “unfettered free market” the Christian name for Zeus) and by so doing set in motion what lately has come to be seen as a longrunning Ponzi scheme. Take into account the Ivy League’s contributions to the Bush Administration—Attorney General John Ashcroft (Yale), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (Princeton), director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff (Harvard)—and I can imagine a doctoral thesis commissioned by the Kennedy School of Government and meant to determine which of the country’s leading institutions of higher
learning over the past fifty years has done the most damage to the health and happiness of the American people.

The higher educational system has sold itself to capitalist ideology (as opposed to ideas) and the military-industrial complex. Although the people and examples cited above hail from different academic backgrounds, the most corrupted reside in the intellectually bankrupt economics departments whose theories and models where large contributors to the looming financial disaster. As was the case with Marxists, these sort too readily believed their own B.S.* Science is not about building a model and calling it reality. Ideology has been mistaken for fact. A real science would recognize the inherent limitations in its models. Assumptions are not laws; their economics has none. Complexity has more potential for instability. Constraints almost always exist. Standing on the Earth's surface, one does not float up. Perhaps they forgot where they were? Achievetrons indeed.

As such, the "best and brightest" can be described thus:

1. In advertising law, best means as good as any other.
2. The brightest create by burning.
   

When these sort promise to "fix" something, expecting the worst is completely justified.

* (The initials are not coincidence.)

Addendum
From Hope latest victim of economy (Seattle PI):

"Right now, more than a crisis in mortgages or in housing, we have a crisis in confidence. That is the biggest problem in trying to analyze the current market," said James Stack, president of market research firm InvesTech Research in Whitefish, Mont. "You cannot analyze psychology."

The lights are on, but nobody's home...

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #7

Occasionally, the technical morality will miscalculate actions and reactions. The difficulties must be handled effectively for Maximum Advantage. For example, an incompetent national foreign policy may lead to reprisal terrorist attacks, but these events allow and provide justification for retaliatory attacks, increasing intrusive regional influence, enriching the arms industry, and even facilitating the establishment of increased domestic restrictions on suspected internal threats, thus enriching the prison industry, etc. The chains that bind have many parallel links. All approaches must be extremely malleable and reducible. Goals are accomplished by overcoming societal inertial forces, or merely providing the perception of change.[14] Obscured by the spectacle of instantaneous gratification, this system may expand or contract relatively slowly in actuality. A perceptual shift is far more efficient than even the small level of actual change demanded by technical requirements. This state is not an automatic consequence of adaption of technique, rather a result of anti-natural and unbalanced development. Efficiency encompasses everything. A mixture of belief systems must be accommodated or manipulated for Maximum Advantages. Those beyond a certain mean (in the base sense of the word) are easy prey for exploitation as well. A common enemy is a most efficient means for instilling unity in a suitably divided and pacified population. A jester is even better. For instance, UFO believers are ridiculed, perhaps rightly so, but every unidentified flying object is not an alien from outer-space. An aborted military test flight might unfortunately stray into civilian territory, but most potential witnesses would likely avoid talking much, beyond the anecdotal, concerning a "far off streak in the sky." (Let alone file an official report.) Lest reputations suffer, only the attention starved would bother. The government need not even bother with a cover story. Technique does not just apply to machines. The path of least resistance is identified then utilized for Maximum Advantage. Any potential difficulties will also receive a refined, most efficient, non-invasive response as possible, which further pacifies the populace. Sensationalism swells and overloads the senses, and earns a tidy profit to boot. "Infotainment" is not real news, but amuses and pacifies. The constant stimulation makes nothing very noticeable, even the corrupt and absurd. The technical morality does not care about cynicism, merely coopting expression for Maximum Advantage. The technical morality does not recognize any emotions, rather utilizes their effectiveness for Maximum Advantage. The unknown is exploited for Maximum Advantage. Any resistance is a measure of societal and cultural inertia, which may in turn be exploited for Maximum Advantage. Economic bad times create higher crime which may be utilized to saturate the media, which encourages fear and citizens stay indoors. Why bother with brute force methods like general curfews, when the population will do so by its own accord and pay money for it? Passive entertainment is the strongest American industry. Any unrest is vilified and demonized for Maximum Advantage. The meek stay meek. Maximum efficiency is constrained by thermodynamics, but may always be presented otherwise. Surpassing the natural, the technical morality will move into the realm of the anti-natural. No distinction is possible in the mythical realm of progress. The improvement can never end, although it must and will.

[14.] Hope is easily exploited as well (because it wants to be).

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #6

Often society and culture become are erroneously perceived as synonymous. A blurring effect is maintained for Maximum Advantage in all Things, thus eliminating any possibility of distinction. History is erased, not by decree, but by context. Everything hitherto has lead to this height of attainment. The shining examples of strip malls and lame entertainment, are rationalized and excused by real accomplishments such as sanitation and infrastructure. Successive generations score higher on cognitive intelligence test, but becomes more stupid. The current crop will be eaten alive when the global economy depresses. The social dynamic has been supplanted by allowing malleable popular culture free reign across the consumer landscape. Decadent instincts become ascendant in any anti-natural environment. Nihilism eventually decays unto death, but may be mitigated for Maximum Advantage. Prime time snuff films bring high television ratings. Discontent is disbursed, then exploited for profit. The proper response is directed by consumer culture, which demands cash for overpriced goods and services even at the consequence of massive debt. Bankruptcy rates soar, but no matter. Credit may cold always be easily re-established (until 2008 anyway). Lifestyles must be maintained as required by progress, which means meeting or exceeding preceding (de-)generations (one way or another). Hence while the technical world spirals upward, the natural slowly declines. Even the decadent becomes less creative. A short attention span would not even note any passing of stronger instincts, merely run with the herd mentality. Even the propagandist is affected by the induced perceptions. The eternal present becomes manifest. Our memories become surreal. The question is permitted, yet still forbidden, and non-existent besides. The critical becomes blunted by contact vectors, which slowly drain vitality by overwhelming with constant over-stimulation. Befitting a spent technological dream, in the end, only rusting hollow shells will remain.

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #5

The higher technical morality supersedes older traditional moralities by smothering. Good and Evil are re-defined, but not re-evaluated, according to the dictates of technical efficiency. The absolute adherence demanded has created a higher morality above all else. Propaganda is the language of the new mediocre religion of progress for purposes of a lowest-common mean unity. Stagnation, while scurrying about, supposedly promotes stability. The clergy are simply supplanted by technicians, which even a thinking atheist[13] might admit is alarming. In the modern incarnation, the priest has only verbal authority, rather than the full trappings of the ultra-rational and re-definable progress. One cannot see God. The protestant reformation is long over. The religious types have no power beyond annoying rhetoric. The possible social consequences inherent in cultural rejection of religion may pose serious difficulties. According to the 19th Century themes of Dostoevsky, the removal of God from peasant societies leaves a void. Mass murder is this enabled with a good conscience. Stalinist Russia certainly proved his predictions correct. The opportunistic will sight upon any available target. The population is a different matter. Its restraints must be removed. The priest would see slaves, but the technical would eliminate all humanity from consideration, ideally replacing it with a stagnant rationale. The result is lower than slavery. A slave can at least aspire for freedom. At least religion becomes decadent and decays into something tolerable, or at least easily ignored. Technical morality was born decadent. Development is hampered by religion, but denied by technique. Nothing is produced different only better. Absolutes are anti-natural. Faith in the anti-natural leads to ruin. However, the technical insulates through its inherent efficiency, effectively obscuring everything outside its spotlight. Hence, the individual becomes unable to discern differences, and therefore may be exploited to Maximum Advantage by the most efficient means. Socialization is blunted by unstable environments masked by the delusion of stability. The force required to maintain the facade must be legitimized by propaganda techniques. Intertwined among short and long term concerns, a double-spiral guides the ascension of technical reality. The most effective delivery vectors often act through the mechanisms of market bastard capitalism. The populace actually pays to be propagandized in the ideal docility required for the efficient operation of this technical society. Even elite classes become complacent by propagating the resultant system, because these groups benefit most rapidly and maintain their position. They believe their own bullshit. The most adaptable may become the new ruling class, but will see their heirs generally stagnate due to intellectual inbreeding and otherwise. Hence, dynasties are quickly toppled, although a parasitic leisure class by-product often emerges to be replaced by fresh meat. Hence, some artificial circulation occurs, thus enabling certain myths like the American Dream.

[13] As opposed to a rational or reactionary atheist. Progress and rebellion are both lies. Prayer is an order of rank higher than faith in progress. A mechanical contrivance is the worst god. The result is slaughter. Do you really want deities beneath humanity?

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #4

Altruism is not conducive nor compatible with Maximum Advantage. Its appearance has ulterior motivation. A large corporation may donate large amounts to charities, but will milk it for Maximum Advantage.[12] Big Business supports cancer research, because its pollution is a cause and represents a potential profitable business venture. Issues become entangled and confused. Any debate regarding globalism grinds to a halt in a maze of pros and cons. The larger questions are not even considered. Progress is not viewed as a myth, but rather a definition drawn by little more than sentiment. Value judgements are supplied by propaganda, both pro and con. Most just ignore large-scale concerns and continue with their daily lives. Some things are simply never contemplated by those seeing potential for financial profit. The big picture is far away but the rent is due on the 5th of the month. Immediate concerns supersede all else. The periphery is less tangible and easier to manage. A landscape is constructed where before only a monolith existed to be venerated or assaulted. How could anyone, besides the “obviously” insane, completely question an all-encompassing vista?

[12] And receive a tax break (also to Maximum Advantage).

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #3

Though not the cause, the strict positivist mentality pervading industrial societies, while infecting others, produced two World Wars and the Cold War. It then spread across the world, like a cancer, to those societies incompatible with its dictates. These Fall Apart and threaten the stability of the whole as primary loyalties take the place of the state.[9] The human factor has failed to develop at the same pace as its tools and toys. Human cultures appear incapable with ultimately dealing with these rapid pace stresses. The inertia is too great. Mental energy is directed toward progress. Rigid mechanistic doctrines fit the times but not the future. Victory was assured by the dialectic, which proved itself wrong. Nothing is inevitable except death and taxes. Nationalism proved stronger than international worker solidarity. Properly utilized, tribal rivalries are easier to promote and maintain. Xenophobic propaganda does not rely upon reason or rationale. Unrestrained, as in the case of the Cold War, an unstable condition was created thus leading to nuclear brinkmanship that culminated in the Cuban missile crisis. Excessive rhetoric can be exceedingly antagonistic, and required toning down. Propaganda became less inflammatory and over-stated. Employed too readily, blatant propaganda becomes extremely hollow. A softer touch used to Maximum Advantage in All Things was required and developed accordingly. Art was co-opted by both the propaganda and advertising industries.[10] The emerging technological society would not allow itself to be destroyed. Rather, quick destruction could be averted while still enriching the arms industry. The combination was simply the most efficient societal means. The technological system encroached upon all others. The approval of the positivist mind set was met, because its parts may be measured. One cannot quantify emotions. Hence, the qualified has no value except to be exploited for Maximum Advantage in All Things. Manipulation assures concern to be a liability. The mediocre becomes ascendant. Slave and master moralities were quickly absorbed into the technological framework, and synthesized into a common median. The resultant system, developed by exploiting and encouraging conflict, allows justification for increased efficiency essential for technical propagation. Unlike harsher systemic schemes, the minimum effort necessary for maximum gain is the approved standard applied. The resultant mythos created is a hollow mockery. Progress rolling over everything, defining all valuations by drenching the earth in blood if necessary, is perceived as good in a world long past such quaint notions. However, progress does provide some continuity for us drones chained to its capital-controlled economic system. Else all would perceive the drift. A supposed link with past traditions has been a common error during all ages. The current era is no different. The base means are dredged for Maximum Advantage, a value system which attaches parasitically to any available host as a means of least action. Rebellion is subdued by commodification of its products. The elite gain by the stability necessary for maximum technical efficiency. The resultant cultural inertia often produces weak worthless decedents, whom mean absolutely nothing, slowly withering away in stupid angst. Only their money saves their useless existence from being stomped into mulch. The slow mediocre spiral drags all down by subduing natural reactions in favor of anti-natural meaning. Inefficiency is evil, but the walking dead are an abomination. Maximum Advantage is not destined to be long lasting, but will permeate everything of value in a skewed technological society. The hyper-rational must allow outlets for expression, but never enough to upset the established order. Any popular appeal will be bought and sold to a hyper-stimulated populace craving new diversions. Existing pathways are exploited to natural advantage in all things by superceding nature itself. Corruption is a by-product which must be minimized by expending very little, thus little may be corrupted. Hence, decay is evidenced over collapse. While allowing less room for discontent, passivity is always encouraged and valued over submission. Populations do not rebel over boredom.[11]

[9] See the writings of William S. Lind, and John Robb.

[10] Is there a difference?

[11] Except, for a time, as a passage of youth. Church burnings in Scandinavia are an example.

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #2

Maximum Advantage is the moral code for the successful wielding of power in the United States.[4] Maximum gain for minimum effort is desired in all things. The forward view is very myopic.[5] Mitigation is attempted through subtle mutation but cooptation is the result. Maximum Advantage in All Things is desired. The unity is all-encompassing. Nothing is perceived beyond its scope. Power must be unrestrained. Hence, economics becomes progressively more abstract. Reinstating the gold standard would be an economic disaster, but its abandonment spawned another. The old verbal worlds has been superseded by the more evolved. Hence, outright coercion has be replaced by less direct methods. Two-million plus fill our national prisons. Yet we are free. Drugs have been exploited to Maximum Advantage in All Things. One might wonder how many proverbial birds are being slain by the stone of the drug war. The technical morality learns from past mistakes. The American public only cares about body bags. Hence, we have bloodless wars where the only military footage allowed is at extreme heights. The Serbian and Iraqi Population bled, but their leaders remained in power.[6] Thus military expenditures and imperialism are justified by digging up not-quite-neutralized threats, or by simply allowing conflict to develop on their own. As long as nobody is drafted, and only elite pilots are put in the line of fire, the population is largely apathetic. In the event of ground actions, soldiers are not vilified, just neglected. Nobody is forced to join the military. In addition, legitimacy is conferred by international coalitions after being rubber stamped by the United Nations Security Council.[7] The population is united by abstractions and myths, like progress and freedom. Loyalty is maintained by statistical prosperity. If the statistics say the nation is prosperous, then it must be healthy. Data and definitions are skewed[8] for Maximum Advantage in maintaining the systemic status quo. Socialization is supplanted by a mass media verbal world. Consumerism is called truth. Rather than just another historical transition, the present is portrayed as eternal, but instead stagnates. However, even the failures may be exploited to Maximum Advantage in All Things. Criminals sell paper and boost ratings. The Judicial Branch is an industry. A niche exists for all. Radical change may be portrayed as inconsequential and nothing be labeled as something, but that does not make either case so. The world moves toward the anti-natural and will pay the price. Bankruptcy only works in court. Emotions may be manipulated. The opportunist is never immune. Dissident elements may be negated without crackdowns. Their message is inconsequential to the present technical moral scheme of Maximum Advantage in All Things. Even while promoting the opposite, the concrete is always valued over the abstract. The system creates itself. Individuals ride the wave. Some fall. Others prosper, including some dissenting voice. Ralph Nadir is a millionaire. All are products. The elite know it.

[4] Neo-conservative are and were too stupid to know otherwise.

[5] And becoming increasingly reactive toward crisis. One can expect nothing more than another mediocre solutions, as nothing else is inherently possible, by those whose power and position rest upon systemic continuity. They will run themselves and everyone else into the ground before any real changes occurs. In other words, the longer it last, the less salvageable.

[6] And in the case of Iraq, later used to justify invasion.

[7] Obviously, failure to do so has its perils.

[8] Or eliminated through finding cuts, such as was the case for the Federal Reserve M3 Statistic, discontinued in 2006, that could officially shown an alarming growth in the money supply. (This statistic is still independently tracked.) Hyperinflation and deflation are not mutually exclusive.

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #1

I have been revising a few of my 1990s essays for publication... (This is a re-write of the link above.)

Maximum Advantage—The Higher Morality

Maximum Advantage is not everything; only those things which matter in a technological society. Wholly encompassing, Maximum Advantage may be applied in all situations. Quickly mutable, Maximum Advantage will co-opt or corrupt any rival moral philosophies, belief systems, religions and long lasting traditions. Maximum Advantage is not for cowards nor heroes. As minimum effort expended for maximum gain, Maximum Advantage is the embodiment of mediocrity. Maximum Advantage exploits the mean and mitigates circumstances: the course always follows the path of least resistance. Maximum Advantage is morality applied technically. As is appropriate for machines, the emphasis always concerns efficiency. Maximum Advantage facilitates propaganda through efficient application of advertising, promotion and applied psychology. Encompassing attention spans and finances, Maximum Advantage is brevity. Maximum Advantage is the real 1984. Maximum Advantage is the next highest branch on a genealogical tree[1] of Western morality. A technical morality for a technical age was inevitable. The dead could not walk without it. A product of reductionism, Maximum Advantage has arrived largely unacknowledged but hardly unnoticed. Maximum Advantage is speed. Degeneration is a by-product. Efficiency does not apply to everything. Nadir and zenith rapidly alternate and reverse in a slow downward spiral. Cultural declines occur over the span of a mere generation.[2] Past populations experienced either relatively stable transition, or forced conversion by the sword; Maximum Advantage is neither. A truly positivist morality would have likely produced a world nuclear funeral. The myth of progress was thankfully dulled and diluted just enough by the science it helped spawn. Although extremely destructive, sinister incarnations of deterministic thought produced blatant totalitarian machinations which were thankfully not viable. The liberal democracies prevailed, were contaminated by contact vectors, and became something different even while retaining old trappings and framework. Some continuity is necessary. The ruling elite must support the economic system,[3] a technical field, for it to be a viable concern. Politics became an illusion due to excessive squabbling over scraps as it is superseded by economic primacy. Only technical efficiency was deemed unquestionably good. All else must be justified. A mediocre bastard child was spawned by a union with global capital and approaches maturity. Adolescence ended with the cold war.

[1] Some would say uprooted.

[2] The generational concept is a relatively new concept. It requires rapid change, therefore different age ranges experience vastly different worlds. The resultant conflict inevitably occurs as a clash between Verbal Worlds (see appendix). History is witnessed.

[3] Economics is ideology masquerading as science. (As is if Greenspan, A.K.A. “Mr. Bubble,” and his ilk are scientists.)