This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Depression is the hammer and the anvil. The certainty and the uncertainty. The knowing and the unknowing. The knowledge of being wrong conjoined with the fear of being right. The worst job numbers in seventeen years. Worst new hire data in five years. Here we go again, hold on to your hat before you lose your assets.

The administration has a plan! It involves blowing a great deal of smoke up your ass. What? What did you expect the truth or something? The administration had planned to bring manufacturing back to our shores by driving the value of the dollar down, making American goods appear cheaper. The flip side is that you can’t fool manufacturers. They must buy raw materials with these new, cheaper dollars, which means prices will rise. They create the inflation they are trying to defeat.

It was going to be so great. Until the plan hit the big mouth iceberg. Cheaper dollars would make it easier and cheaper to invest in and build factories in the United States. The carrot- and the stick- approach as foreign manufacturers could escape tariffs by building in the US. But because of Trump’s mouth and his irascibility, imbecility and unpredictability. Foreigners are running for the exits. I wonder when the Koreans are coming back to finish that battery factory in Georgia? I wonder why Volkswagen Audi has cancelled its new factory in South Carolina.

The administration says, “Look! Look at the stock market! It’s doing great!” But no, it’s not, not really. Down 500 points yesterday, and up five hundred points today is not the sign of a healthy market. It’s a sign of watching the roulette wheel spin. Company X invented the unbreakable shoelace. BUY! BUY! BUY! Company B invented an unbreakable shoelace, but it broke. Sell! Sell! Sell! Everyone looking for the next gold rush.

So certain artificial intelligence is going to be the next big thing, they have abandoned the original. They are borrowing money to invest in the next big thing. Only the next big thing is taking longer than expected. Place your bets! Somebody is going to get rich, and somebody is going to have a worthless paper collection and angry bankers on the phone. What if the AI revolution doesn’t come? What if it does come and proves to be destabilizing to the market? Wall Street woke up to that eventuality last week. What if you no longer need experts or financial advisors? Accountant in a can or instant spray-on advertising.

We live in an age of CON. The wrath of Con. The world’s richest man always needs to borrow more money. Big News everyone! Elon’s trip to Mars has been delayed! No city of Elon in the county of Musk on the planet Mars for another twenty years! SURPRISE! One million future Martian citizens disappointed! Only the nature of the con has been changed to protect the gullible. Now Elon is going to the moon! The moon everyone! Sign up today! Don’t be late, or you could be left behind!

Elon recently cashed out and took a big payday. Ask yourself why the richest man in the world wants his money out of his own companies? Then he goes looking for a banker to lend him more money. Elon’s not going to the moon, Elon is going to hell. Falling Tesla sales and Twitter has never made a dime, and Elon didn’t help that any. Only SpaceX is profitable. So now Elon wants a merger. Because it will make it so much easier to borrow more money. It’s a trumpet sounding! If the richest man in the world is having money troubles, what about you?

The administration says, “Don’t be a panican!” (Made-up Trump word) Prosperity is just around the corner. You can bet your Kid Rock records on it. Two new gas guzzlers in every garage. Mr. Trump has single-handedly destroyed the fifty-billion-dollar travel industry. Canada, our former largest trading partner, is shifting its logistics away from the United States. Mr. Trump’s random and unpredictable tariffs have run the world off from the US. Mr. Trump invades Venezuela and big surprise, no one wants the oil if it goes through Mr. Trump’s hands. So Don has another plan. Uncle Don’s discount Venezuelan oil. Cut the taxes, screw the treasury and pass the savings on to the oil companies!

It’s like that episode of The Twilight Zone with William Shatner. Where a gremlin is tinkering with the motor on the airplane, and we can’t get off! I see it and maybe you do too, or maybe not. A prince has been deroyaled, politicians and business muckety, mucks are losing their high-profile jobs. We now know why Bill Gates got divorced. Donald Trump is mentioned over 5,000 times in the Epstein files. Mar a Lago was a sex trafficking annex. But of course, Donald Trump is innocent. Not just accused of sex crimes but of sexual violence against a minor. What else do you need to know before you know the fix is in?

Every day is a new adventure. Every day is a new decline. Every day is an exercise in futility. Call it the Omega Man syndrome: waiting for the next shoe to drop. Waiting for the world to fail. I lost everything I had in 2009 when irresponsible bankers crashed the economy and the president blamed it on us. Then he bailed out the banks and told us to take a hike. It took me nearly ten years to get back to semi-normalcy. So guess how I feel about it today? Savings rates are the lowest on record. Credit debt is the highest on record. Home foreclosures are rising back to you know when levels. Homes are unaffordable. New cars are unaffordable, groceries are unaffordable. But, hey! The stock market is doing great!

Except for Bitcoin and the big tech stocks, and household product stocks. Gold and Silver prices are soaring because everyone is scared shitless of this great stock market. Amazon stock is down. Do you know why? After their huge layoffs, investors forecast lower sales. Why did Amazon have that huge layoff, anyway? Precognition? Interest rates are too high for home mortgages but interest rates are the only hedge against inflation. They’ve really mucked it up this time.

Tomorrow is just so far from today and I wonder and wonder away. Will we ever make the grade? But yesterday is hot on our heels. No squeals! No deals! No refunds, no do-overs. No progress. Better luck next life!

“I’m sick and tired of hearing things

From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites

All I want is the truth

Just gimme some truth

I’ve had enough of reading things

By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians

All I want is some truth

Just give me some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of Tricky Dicky

Is going to Mother Hubbard soft soap me

With just a pocketful of hope

Money for dope

Money for rope”

• John Lennon