Economics

I've been hiding from the scorching heat at the public pool and the library. So I've been reading random books about true crime, guitars and economics.

Not pertinent to anything in this essay

I don't know when economics became the new philosophy but Steven Landsburg has a very good manner of presentation that has me thinking I missed my calling in college. Malcolm Gladwell immediately annoys me with his post-modern arrogance and Political pundits are repulsive and Dave Berry has used every joke twice and Erma Bombeck is dead so I'm sort of lacking opportunities to read some topical and amusing non-fiction. Landsburg provided me with not only a relief from my spiritual torment but endless philosophical leather to chew on fruitlessly for at least a year.

Landsburg approaches everything from a unique perspective. I'm at once hoping he does eventually control public policy, and also hoping he is never allowed to control public policy. Allow me to explain this contradiction.

His book, More Sex means Safer Sex is a title that caught my pussy deprived psyche off guard and I took the book to a secluded corner of the library hoping there would be nude pictures in it. Alas, the title is merely one of those modern bait-and-switch titles that has nothing to do with me, Oggy Bleacher, having sex, and more about tempting me to pick it up at the airport before a morning flight to Dallas. Damn you, Landsburg!

Actually, the title refers to a theory that I had to read twice to understand. I thought at first he was mocking the gun nuts of the world who think more guns means safer streets*. But no, Landsburg is saying that because shy, faithful people don't have casual sex enough they leave the casual sex world open to promiscuous, reckless cum swappers...who then either transmit diseases or have loveless orgasms. The theory is that withdrawn people should be paid to have sex because that would somehow dilute the sex society of diseases. It's the kind of theory that immediately seems insane but Landsburg isn't making a joke and his lengthy reasoning slowly altered my opinion. In the case of casual sex making for a healthier casual sex culture, I still disagree. Since we are really talking about my familiar hypothetical fantasy worlds (the lofty economist gets to call this a "theory") I don't think paying a shy, disease free person to fuck casually is the correct approach. What we want, ideally, is that those with diseases get tested and treated so they don't infect anyone else. Yes, if you want to complicate things (and I think that's Landsburg's specialty/literary scheme) then you could postulate that paying abstinent people to have sex would technically dilute the disease pool, but is that a practical solution? He even recommends wives openly cheat on their husbands as a service to the world, which I totally support.

Even if I didn't like his theory I like the fact he devised such a theory because it blurs the line between economics and philosophy. Everything he writes about from an economic or cost-analysis standpoint is something I've written about from a philosophical/moral standpoint...but it seems we don't reach the same conclusions so one of us is misled...and I think it's me.

I'm biased, is the problem and Landsburg is more open-minded. He approaches each problem like a scientist who is not going to impede an ugly conclusion. If you asked his personal opinion about the justice system he might come up with a different response than the one he thinks will actually work. I, however, would skew everything to fit my preconceived utopian ideal.

For instance, he proposes a jury member be allowed to read anything and talk to anyone regarding a case. Sequestration would be a thing of the past. His argument is that since freedom of speech influences everything else in our lives, such as elections, jobs, etc, then why shouldn't it affect our decisions on trials? A juror's impartiality isn't going to be affected if he's allowed to go about his business as an adult would and discuss a case casually while it is going on, and his opinion would certainly be enriched, so let him do it. The rigidity with which court trials are conducted is like it was created on holy paper in blood to be implemented by a species of mankind that doesn't exist yet, so it's pretty much a failure, lots of innocent people go to jail and lots of guilty people go free.

One good comment he has is to separate the jury into two groups of 6, and if they reach the same verdict then reward them with money because humans respond to competition. And here's a novel idea: when a criminal confesses to a crime or someone has a totally air-tight alibi....WE SHOULD STILL PUT THEM ON TRIAL. Why? Because we already know what the verdict should be we will be testing the jury to see if they are paying attention. And because you will never know as a juror if you are on a mock trial or a real one you will always pay attention. And he suggest something I've said which is that the jury and prosecuting attorney who finds someone guilty who is later proven innocent must all spend the remaining time in jail. And if a parole board lets someone out who violates their parole then everyone must go to jail. Landsburg says the parolee's first housing should be in the parole board member's houses.

Landsburg is a professor at a traditional university so he has to deal with traditional grading systems. A, B, C, D, F. These are awful indicators in my opinion and grade inflation or inaccuracy is a real problem since grades don't even show what the grade means. I've had classes where I assigned myself a grade. I learned early on to always give myself an A. As a teacher, I avoided giving grades. Usually I let a student do the work over again until it was an A. I can't rectify the futility of assigning a numerical percentage to something like a creative writing assignment or a hand drum lesson, so I could never teach in a traditional environment. Some universities, I think UC Santa Cruz is one, avoid grades because they are not useful and their graduates still contribute something to the world. Landsburg has a few ideas. One of the ideas is Grade Budgets. Each year a professor has a certain number of A grades he can give out. If he gives them all out in one class then he has to wait a year before someone can get an A. Also, a track record of grades by a given professor would evaluate/quantify what a grade actually means. There are solutions but, like the judicial system, our traditions and our apathy keep us rooted to poison soil.

I will give one more example of where Landsburg and I do not agree: obesity. Landsburg writes, "the obesity epidemic is caused by some combination of medical advances and low fat foods."
Really? I thought it was people making bad choices about food. Let's examine the 2 parts of this theory:

1) Medical Advances: "Obesity is bad for you but not as bad for you as it used to be." Lipitor, Pravachol and other drugs allow people to be obese without dying. So not only are more obese people surviving to be counted but since they know they can survive they have less of a motivation to combat their obesity. There is no need to avoid obesity since you can eat as much KFC as you want and the doctor will thin your blood out and put balloons in your arteries. I guess he has a point but this is a misuse of the drugs and people are still eating too much and not getting enough exercise.

2) Low Fat food: low calorie/engineered foods means people will either eat more to make up the difference in calories or eat less and lose weight. Low fat ice cream offers people an option to have a treat believing they are being healthy. They might think to themselves, "I'll eat this fried chicken tonight because tomorrow I can have low fat yoghurt." But tomorrow arrives and they promise they will have a fried egg sandwich and bacon because tonight they will eat a salad with low fat dressing. See, they postpone the healthy option but the healthy option is always factored into their unhealthy choice. I would point out that the unhealthy food choices are promoted by way of highway signs pointing to Cracker Barrel. Politically and culturally a decision has been made to put supermarkets further away from highways than a junk food fat factory. Big Red Soda employees should all quit, in my opinion, as their conscience compels them to do the right thing. I think conspiracies don't factor into Landsburg's thinking enough. Propaganda is paramount in American cultures so while there might be some underlying aberrations the biggest problem is the fucking propaganda that stimulates our aberrations.

I actually have 1 serving of low fat yoghurt and 1 banana in the morning with about a half serving of fiber cereal mixed in. That and some drinking water is the sum total of my breakfast, which I eat as soon as the Walmart parking lot cops bang on my window at 6 am. Then I do not eat until about 3 PM...and yesterday I went to JC's Tortas and had the most ridiculous Torta ever, named The Ezequiel, after the biblical prophet. It was actually just a ham and cheese and jalapeno, tomatoes and lettuce and avocado sandwich. It was a gigantic sandwich that I completely devoured as I watched the Mexican news about the "train of death" on which tormented immigrants catch a free ride north, (and I decided I would also hop on that train and learn what that means). The torta bread was fresh and though the pollo torta was better I cleaned my plate. I was still craving more so I rode my Vespa to Caliche's Frozen Custard and got a mountain of hot fudge and brownies and custard and I think whipped cream also topped with hot salted pecans. It was the best custard ever, enough for a village of Hondurans, and I could not eat it all so I actually lashed the remains to the moped and drove back to the van in a hail storm planning to eat it later. I had at least two offers to buy my Vespa during that trip, an odd encounter with a homeless person, a visit to a western store to look at $300 beaver hats, and one nearly fatal close encounter with a truck. etc. (I do not know how economics fits into all of this but I'm sure Landsburg could make it.) So, I go to the supermarket where I take a sponge bath in the bathroom and wash my hair and ass crack and while I am there I see a body fat analyzer and sit down and learn the following:
Oggy's current stats:
Height 6'.
Weight 159.
Marital Status: Nope
Body Fat 8.64%.
Lean Mass 91.36.
Flexibility: Decrepit.
Hydration 2.04.
Bank Account: Depleted

What's my point?

Says Landsburg, "It's the economist's job to explain where we ought to be headed, and the political scientist's job to explain why we can't get there from here."

*I say that NO guns would mean safer streets. And a gun nut would say, "that's never going to happen, so..." and I would respond, "well, neither is everyone going to be armed, so...". and they'd say "it's easier to arm everyone than disarm everyone, so..." and I would say "that's a great fucking plan" and the debate would deteriorate.

Another Waltz About A Dreamer

I'm putting this song into my head. I was surprised to realize it's a waltz.

Midnight Special

In the darkness the hobo plays his tired songs.
Toothless homeless beg spare change while
the prisoner throws nickles to his own traumatic engrams.

Reap What You Sow

I don't take any pleasure from pointing out that American foreign policy 40-50 years ago guaranteed the destabilization of Central America and guaranteed that the damaged collateral of that imperialistic era would one day walk across the Rio Grande seeking family (previous refugees). We fucked ourselves with casual cowardice and repulsive apathy in the era of I Love Fucking Lucy. Our defacto dictators lay waste to Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Cuba as part of a blatantly hegemonic foreign policy THAT ONLY THE STUPIDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD WOULD THINK MIGHT WORK. But working isn't what they were after because the point was to consolidate power and money into the immediate hands that were grabbing and the problems, the holocaust, the flood of refugees would not be seen by eyes filled with worms in desecrated graves. No, the richest families would protect themselves with money from the fruit companies that laid fresh mangoes on the tables of the elite, picked by starving slaves in Guatemala...and that was seen as progress because the alternative was a socialized government in which Americans might have to pay a high price for fresh bananas. Really repulsive history that is now biting us on the ass...but the idiocy of Americans, the stupidity and general dumb fucking knuckle-draggers find ways to blame the current president, whose name is not Eisenhower or Truman or Kennedy!

1952: The first CIA effort to overthrow the Guatemalan president--a CIA collaboration with Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza to support a disgruntled general named Carlos Castillo Armas and codenamed Operation PBFORTUNE--was authorized by President Truman in 1952. As early as February of that year, CIA Headquarters began generating memos with subject titles such as "Guatemalan Communist Personnel to be disposed of during Military Operations," outlining categories of persons to be neutralized "through Executive Action"--murder—or through imprisonment and exile.

It's unfortunate that America has in our history psychopathic leaders, but until we accept that our recent history is filled with atrocities then we will not accept our responsibility for the conditions in Central America, which are what people are fleeing. The ignorance and false pride and delusion of someone who thinks, "These greasy wetbacks are coming to the greatest country on earth..." is astounding. Realize these migrants have swallowed their pride and decided if you can't beat the devil then you have to join him. And for those fucking assholes who aren't totally clear about what I'm saying: WE ARE THE DEVIL. WE ARE DEMONIC. WE DESTROYED THEIR  LIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES BECAUSE WE WANTED CHEAP FRUIT CUPS.

Do not deceive yourself that a Guatemalan teenager is coming to Houston because America is known for a loving treatment of his country. We set his home on fire fifty years ago and then fanned the flames for 5 decades and he has not been able to put it out. So he is fleeing his home for the home of the arsonist who set the fire. That's the situation. If your daily dose of Fox News and MSNBC has you crying for elephants or puckering your lips to taste the new scratch and sniff pussy fruit roll ups then you are fucking hopeless. I would trade the entire state of IGNORANT NEW HAMPSHIRE CUNTS with their precious chain link fences and expensive lobster rolls for one Guatemalan village.

An honorable American would write a blank check and give it to the nearest Guatemalan refugee. A complete cunt would kick back and watch baseball with a beer on his fat fucking gullet, all the while proclaiming superiority over everyone like a cheap dress on a dead hooker.

Oggy-Netics

I'm not finished with this epic introduction to Scientology, and I don't know if I will ever finish it so I thought I'd give my initial impressions. Hubbard has no gift for punditry. Like a teenage Dictator, Hubbard writes in total absolutes and then refers to his own absolutes as "absolute". Like saying, "The sky is green....as I previously established, the sky is green." The fundamental absolute is really earth-shattering, "Survival is the objective of life."

Getting Clear

Yeah, I was stunned too. In fact, I had to go back 20 years to when I was a budding philosopher, living off of my mother's kindness in Ecuador, that I wrote the same words and broke my arm patting myself on the back. Hubbard is a better writer than myself because he manages to say much less with far more words. It only took me 100 or so pages to sum up my statement on existence but Hubbard needs 700. One critic titled his review of a Hubbard book, "The Sound of One Mouth Blabbering" and I really think that's funny and fitting because Hubbard definitely gives the impression of believing what he says as he writes in a giant pastel colored echo chamber. If Ayn Rand never wrote fiction she'd write something like Dianetics. In fact, you might call Dianetics a method book to become a fictional Ayn Rand hero, since Rand never explains how someone is going to become as happily self-serving as John Galt. But, the way Hubbard is so absolute and certain is startling, unbelievable, like he's experimenting with the language and style of a demagogue. I'd like to count the number of times he writes "Irrefutable". Every other page has something like, "These statements are irrefutable based on scientific data publicly available." But his blabbering is so unrelenting that I think the success of Scientology is because most of us would rather push on through the book than try to refute the statements. It's like Hubbard knew the tired and aberrated* simply wanted to feel better, get rich, get laid, etc...and did not want their self help era to begin with a lengthy refuting/contradicting of the very book they just paid $8 to help them get better. Right? We're trying to be positive so let's all accept every overgeneralized statement in this huge book and move on!

In my early career as a cult** leader I missed this point and so had no followers. I actually tried to do the work and map everything out as I determined my legions of devotees would best be served by. I wanted people to be moved by the statements themselves and not by dramatic axioms. Hubbard skips right over all that and simply says, "Clinical tests prove these statements to be scientific facts..."
Damn! I'd have millions of followers too if I had used that simple bit of irrefutable bullshit. Normally, a scientific book of this nature, one that irrefutably describes the solution to acne, world war, mental fatigue and bloating, would be followed by a lengthy source bibliography...but not Dianetics. No, the back of this book has "Where to find an auditor" section.

Does anyone else think this?

It's blatantly unscientific and a completely manufactured, jargonized cult of optimist fetishists. It's like the Fairbanks Rescue Mission I lived at for 3 months in Alaska when I had separated both shoulders and collarbones, had no money, no home, no friends...and the evening sermon would begin, "Are you injured, homeless, broke, alone? Christ has an answer..."
Believe me, I paid attention, until I realized every person in the little room was injured, homeless, broke and alone. The pastor was cherry-picking afflictions. Hubbard does the same thing but he says, "Did you get passed up for a promotion, is your boat not big enough? You need to be audited." At least Christ has time for the destitute; Scientology aims for a different income bracket.

Dianetics does have a point: Life can be miserable and perhaps it is all my fault for intentionally preserving each moment of my past like a calculator with a stuck #7. I feel Dianetics might have some clues to my own aberrations and inability to relate to society, but as a writer I sort of depend on my memory for material. If I totally resolve my shameful and self-loathing engrams*** then where will I get all my good material? So, while I do feel the evidence supports my suspicion the rats have taken over the cheese factory and humanity is defined by confused masses who merely don't want to upset the status quo regardless of the consequences...perhaps a mindless apathy, sharpening drill bits, selling sneakers, teaching math, etc. would suit me. Maybe Amitriptyline would help. And maybe Dianetics will be a piece in the puzzle if not how to integrate to the insane asylum, at least to confirm that it's as bad as I thought it is.

Then I dig a little deeper into the ways of Scientology and I see it's not practiced in a wholesome way by some. Elements of positive response and coming to terms with the past, though unoriginal, can't really be faulted, but the degree of falseness I detect in the spokespeople can't be ignored. Trappist monks don't get much face time with CNN and that's too bad because no one has anything to compare the aberrations that usually sit next to Piers Morgan and Nancy Grace. Trappists are boring and they won't sell Ragu Marinara sauce, so Mr. and Mrs. Revlon Make-up-Forced-Smiles are slotted with dusted faces and false eyelashes and the next generation of consumers think they have a good idea of ideal behavior. It's a distraction but it becomes conditioning...which is ironic since Hubbard's strategy is to recondition aberrated conditioning...and the nature of modern Scientology is in itself aberrated conditioning...which is like some horrible loop of never ending engrams regenerating themselves...all on the premise of helping people find clarity but ultimately about consolidating land in Malibu. I've met and talked with Trappist Monks so I know what wholesome looks and sounds like; Scientologists do not compare. They sound like programmed replicants.

Summary: I don't want to steer anyone away from self help therapy. God knows, I need relief from my untamed reactive mind. Scientology probably doesn't pervert anyone who isn't already perverted. To use Hubbard's basic axiom: it will survive if it follows the rules of survival. I've become simple-minded in my old age so when a confirmed drunk once asked me for advice I told him to treat everything like toilet paper: If you need some then you go and get it. It's not complicated.

*Aberrated is a word used frequently in different forms in Dianetics. Aberation, aberee, aberated, aberate. It's a cool sounding word and Hubbard's vocabulary really is very broad, though too clinical and hollow for my taste. He's not entertaining and sometimes flippant on serious subjects. He sounds autistic. I use the word aberrated to amuse myself with a word Hubbard appeared to favor. He defines it as "A departure from rational thought or behavior." But I've always defined that word as "a departure from normal thought or behavior" and that's actually the correct definition. There is a big difference between the two definitions because currently in Texas it's normal to eat at a horrific restaurant called "What-a-burger" and drink something called "Big Red" soda. That's normal, so an"aberration" would be to reject those places. I'm an aberee because I refuse to eat at What-a-burger and drink Big Red. But as an aberration I think I'm being rational because of the health risks with that type of processed shit. So we have a contradiction when the normal behavior is irrational...and the aberee is abnormal but rational. See? I'm just a poor hippy living in a van so I must be an asshole aberration but the normal citizen is bent on global destruction. And this contradiction is what keeps Oggy awake at night.

**I use this term with hesitation. Cult is an admittedly negative word, but I've often stated that religions are maligned inaccurately as the sources of grief related to their religions. "Buddhists", for example, who hack others to death with hatchets...aren't Buddhists in my mind. You are a Buddhist right up to the point you hack someone to death with a hatchet. Then you are just a bald guy in a red robe holding a bloody knife. Israeli and Palestine conflicts are about land, not religion. Has anyone evidence that the Muslim religion specifically denounces it's close cousin Judaism? These conflicts have religious undertones, but aren't about religion. However, some of the primary practices of Scientology are remarkably unsavory. It's not a departure from Scientology to disconnect from your suppressive family members...it's required. So, Dianetics goes from a strange theoretical treatise written and tested by a devoted investigator into the human mind, to "THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY"...a religion that advocates "destroying" enemies and obstacles. Since this developed recently we can be skeptical and claim it's not a true religion since there is no deity to worship or bible. Even though the book definition of Religion includes a belief in a God, Scientology has managed to make itself tax exempt in the eyes of the law. 






Their own explanation of why they are a religion is this:

"The Scientology view of an Ultimate Reality transcending the material world includes its concepts of the thetan and the dynamics which include the spiritual world (the Seventh Dynamic) and the Supreme Being (the Eighth Dynamic)."

My grandfather would call this "total bullshit" but it passed the test in America and it's a religion. During my 4 year sentence in Los Angeles I was exposed to many religions and they were all loathsome. I want to be fair so I think I'll just consider every religion a cult. The Red Sox Nation would definitely qualify as a religion if they ever chose declare themselves as one. Watching the World Cup left no doubt in my mind that soccer is also a religion practiced by many. So, cult and religion are used interchangeably until I decide differently or mankind comes to its senses.

***Engrams are a totally invented bit of Hubbard jargon used to encapsulate "unresolved issues". If your mother coughed when you were in the womb then you would have an "engram" of that moment and only a thorough audit would resolve or "clear" that engram.



Note: I put Dianetics next to the Holy Bible on my dashboard to see if the cops would bother me and the two books touched for a second and I think I accidentally opened a portal to another universe. Oops!

Additional Note: For comparison, I browsed a self-help book called "How To Be A Grown Up" by a white tooth Fox News "paid pretty face" Stacy Kaiser. It's totally generic and definitely wasn't written for the average homeless musician. It did, however, make me realize that mental health or being 'well-adjusted' does not automatically come with wealth and family like a Burger King combo meal. It's easy to think that my living in a van, riding a 40 year old Vespa moped around a strange city is the cause of my mental fatigue and spiritual torment, but those are merely symptoms. I know this but the continual depreciation of my value in the eyes of the police and society sometimes cloud my vision.