Add It Up; the externalities of enterprise

Because economists seem to believe that anything in existence can be distilled down to a dollar value- with all sorts of discounting rates based on the dollar value we'd place on having something today vs. the amount we'd place on having it 3 months from now, and with great confidence and precision, well, they think they can add it up.

Additionally, economists seem to me the most bold in presumption of the complete model. The closed box in which all factors are identified and put into the equation. Not coincidentally, they look for parsimonious models with few vectors to consider, that happens to make for cleaner math. And they function the hell out of those vectors with new and innovative formulas that magically produce more than the sum of their parts, although they can not seem to get it through my head why this method magically surmounts problems of the model and the assumptions we are relying on. If you can't explain it to me, eventually I might not believe what you're saying.

And although microeconomists generally assume that all human decisions are made with incomplete/imperfect information, they seem to forget that theirs are too. There are many economists who are bad ass bitches. But of course I'm talking about the field generally. This seems to be the weakness of the field generally. And at a formal meeting, the numbers they spit out of their models are treated like pure gold and with far greater accuracy and power, for a variety of reasons, than keen analysts know they have.

Now economists talk about "externalities" too. Externalities are the outside effects of your behavior. So, if I think it's a fine time to make some money by fucking up the environment, screwing my workers, and trying to tighten the system to maximize my increase at their expense, the externalities are pervasive pollution that will make us all sick (correction, is already beginning to make us sick), an increase in human misery, and a model of human organization that is corrosive and time-limiting (i.e. not sustainable). And this toll I'm taking on people outside myself are the negative externalities of my operation.

So I'm a bit confused at how this is missed. The selective sight of the bed-fellows of business who continually refuse to acknowledge that business is not just business but has social impacts. It is not just a lovey dovey bleeding heart thing (whatever that is) to want to bring this shit back in the model. It's responsibility. The responsibility the republicans talked about over and over. Personal responsibility has to extend into business in a very real way if we are to allow it to have so much power to shape the world by its great corporate collective. We have to be accountable for our actions, at least after a point. That's why we are capable of thought, of observation, of foresight and hindsight. So we can use it. We need to use it.

For many years (since the end of WWII) our country has boomed deliciously on insatiable consumption. Before the war had even ended, popular magazines were showing us the great new goods that would be available to us soon, now that we had WON. Rubber for new tires on new cars from their expanded factories, and shining kitchen appliances to make your life easier. These were grand and wonderful things. But they were not, as we eventually took for granted, everything. Yet they became within the population- psychologically- our prize, our relief, our solace, and our right.

A system of insatiable consumption is not sustainable. And it does damage to the social system. It corrodes our culture, our values, the reasons we live and die that make us strong and worthwhile. Moses despaired of the effect slavery had had on the Jews (I believe), and when they couldn't chill the fuck out for forty days without worshiping a Golden Calf while he went for a little convo with the Lord, he was ready to kick them to the curb. Cause you can't be a society without the integrity, the values, the sociocultural strength to act constructively and intelligently, rather than for fleeting material pleasure. If a people are to act civilly, to not be barbarians, and to survive times of hardship (i.e. life) without falling apart, we must have a strong core of values and constructive culture.

Since being a t.v.-taught tot in the 80's, I have been suckled by corporate America. We put on some 80's commercials the other day on youtube, and realized we found them more endearing than many of the shows, singing them by heart like the national anthem. And strangely, I do not despise this.

I do despise the way, over so many years, that advertising has keyed up. The products have keyed up. Products are more high tech and expensive, more stimulating and preoccupying. The volume on commercials is way louder than the program, and tells you and your children that what will make you happy is this new thing. Now this. Now this. Raising the bar, and raising the bar, with no end in sight.

And the kids believe it. And we are becoming a society of consumer whores.

And the corporates get wealthier, and the top quintile of the population gets way more rich in relation to the rest of us. Medical costs go up, since they're corporations too, so we need medical insurance just for BASIC health care, but the cost of that is going up because they are run by corporations too. And there's no warm beating heart anywhere to be seen in their plans or priorities, as they mar the landscape of our world with industrial-sized gashes.

When I was still back in retail (5 or 6 years ago), each Christmas was a major push to keep making INCREASING profits despite a softening economy. A significant portion of their annual income was made during the Christmas holiday, and every year the mandate was not too sustain the level of that income, but to raise it. They marketed their ass off and tighted the machinery of the stores, of us, so that we just ran faster and were more unhappy, under-resourced, and the emotional-toll of working there became increasingly more than they were paying us.

And of course, they all used "DOOR-BUSTERS" of special prices to get people lined up and frothing on black friday. Five dollar toasters. Fifty dollar tv's. Stacked up on pallets to lure them in.

I worked (among other places) in housewares, where distant-eyed mothers searched the aisles daily for something to make their home warmer, more comfortable, happier. The ad imagery they got the most mileage out of was of people with their families sharing a special moment at home. They would sell these illusions, but the moments never happened. They were selling ghosts of satisfaction to a confused and longing people. Not knowing any more what they were even missing. And surely not knowing they were looking in the wrong places to find it.

This Christmas, in our new depression, stores have started the holiday earlier, opened the stores earlier, and made the door-busters even bigger, crazier, and surely in more limited numbers (get here early!!!) to get people in the door despite the fact that people are broke and laid off. Despite the fact that economic pundits*tisk*tisk* about why we've become a nation who can't save money like the generation before us. Despite the talk of irresponsible debt and spending according above one's means. They bait the hook harder and tug even more to get the people wanting to come in and spend. The people of the country are scared right now, and a little unstable, unable to face their own fate in a diminishing economy. Their misdirected emotional-consumption urge is rising like an addict needing another hit.

And at a small Long Island Wal-mart the mob intensity of the writhing, desperate, and confused masses broke down a door (finally a true Door-Buster, bravo), and pushed through. Failing to notice that they, in the process, trampled to death a 34 year old over-night holiday-temp stock person. “When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

Detective Lt. Michael Fleming, who is in charge of the investigation for the Nassau police, said the store lacked adequate security. He called the scene “utter chaos” and said the “crowd was out of control.” As for those who had run over the victim, criminal charges were possible, the lieutenant said. “I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,” he said. “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.”

I am sure they, like all big stores, put a lot of time into thinking of how to reduce the costs of their labor, increase the demand of their customers, and how to make the most possible profit this year. Clearly they left a few things out of the equation. And business, collectively, has left a throbbing mass of externalities out of their accounting.

We need to look this in the eye. We need to seriously reconsider the fundamental notions that out legislation and lack of legislation is based on. Profit can no longer be king. Not in health care. Not in big pharmacy. Not in insurance. Not in education or prisons. Because we allow the pursuit of profit amongst the moneyed class to act unfettered by consideration of whether this will have negative externalities. If we are going to add it up, we need to add it ALL up. But better yet, we need to recognize that the most precious things in life, the things worth wandering through the desert for, cannot be converted into cash. And business should exist for the support and benefit of society, not VICE VERSA.

Am I speaking loud enough?

NOT VICE VERSA.

One last thing: If the stores are working harder and harder now that their profits are tanking to keep us spending perilously despite us not having the money for their shiny plastic shit, what does this mean for the health care industry? Please think about this very hard. Watch the ads you see around you for meds, for hospitals, for cancer care. Let's think very hard about this, PLEASE.

Dow Jones Industry Tracker: Healthcare (5 years)

See that line drop over the past year after the ridiculously big ol' (oh-that's-why-Rx-meds-have-gotten-so-expensive) increase? Someone's losing money, and someone is going to want to get it back. And they can do it in all sorts of quiet insidious ways that don't look all that bad on the surface and are a lot like what they've been doing already. Let's be a strong people. Let's take care of our population. Let's not get sick at other's profit. Do you hear me?