Economic Buffoons

HI all,
My head is swimming with ideas, mostly around the idiocy of so called experts. The next several posts will be dedicated to exposing blatant hypocrisy and stupidity of some "leaders" of our nation.

Let's start with - I was right!! Remember I wrote about the idea of collective thought processes - I coined the phrase "collective consciousness". Well, I was more than right - I recently found a National Geographic article, July 2007. pg 130.

The article describes ant colonies and the scientific term is "Swarm Theory". They describe what happens when stupid individual ants somehow behave very intelligently and efficiently when in a colony. They call it "swarm intelligence". This was supposed to be a nature lesson, but it should also apply to people, politics and economics.

The writer says, "Even with half a million ants, a colony functions just fine with no management at all." As George Carlin once said, two words that don't go together - "government intelligence". How did our country survive the first 100 years? Seems to me they may have been more difficult than the second 100 years.

That brings me to my discussion point about a four letter word - RISK. (The next post will be about Reward, then after that about EVA - economic value add, sure to be a winner.)

Our troops RISK their lives every day in battles, and even during peacetime in training exercises (on the Potomac?). Sadly, the 3000 people who died in the WTC didn't even know they were taking a risk going to work. For the record, I lost 28 alumni from my high school that day, and 4 colleagues from Compaq as well. I remember.

Since that day, our USA has never been put right, still not there. We have a blundering TSA checking (actually frisking!) my 100 yr old Grandmother in a wheel chair at airports, fortune 500 firms paying huge bonuses for negative stock performance, while hiring "contractors" for some 5 plus years ( can you say Tax advantages?)

Now our biggest risk is the feds actually trying to help us - STOP! We don't want or need your help. The ants have shown us the way. "Help? We don't need no stinking help!"

We RISK their help with spending our money - today a federal judge ruled that the $33 million SEC fines against banks (bonus scandal) were wrong - they violated the most basic rules of fairness - the shareholders who were victims were being asked to pay for a mistake by management, making them a victim twice. What was really going on was a government shakedown for more money. Luckily, a judge has common sense. Fine the wrongdoers , not the victims!

Risk is indeed a funny word. Follow the money and you will always determine a risk. There is surely no such thing as no risk as there is not life without air.

What do each of us risk right now? - Social Security and Medicare are going broke, Do we risk re-funding them, or risk letting them go bust? Do we as taxpayers risk getting paid back by Wall st. and GM, now , later, or ever?

The National debt is not just a number, it is our own personal, individual debt to the Chinese. Math, unlike politicians, does not lie. The tea party in DC was estimated at 1.7 million people "with no leader' as CNN reported. Hmmm. Could it be swarm intelligence?

Perhaps we should take a risk on believing in the individual person who really runs this country, without any management help. It seemed to work well the first 100 or so years.