WHY IS THE GLOBAL ECONOMY LIKE THIS?, a damned good question too few seem to ask themselves

WHY IS THE GLOBAL ECONOMY LIKE THIS?
CORNELIS BAL
Partridge Publishing Singapore
$3.92 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Have you ever wondered just how our current global economy came about—and how its laws and regulations rule and influence our lives?
In this commonsense discussion of world economics, author Cornelis Bal presents a brief exploration of these questions and offers suggestions for how we might change our economic system in order to improve our lives. His explanation draws a comparison between the laws of nature and the laws of economics, considering how the rapid development of technology in the last century has drastically affected how we work and live and these technological developments will continue to influence our lives beyond imagination in the very near future. Rather than presenting elaborate mathematical models to support his conclusions, he relies on straightforward language and observations that anyone might make. Bal explains that the present global economic system does not seem to have a sustainable future unless we make drastic changes, we will continue to experience increasing anarchy.

My Review: Super basic, entry-level discussion of a complex problem aimed at complete novices to the topic.

Although the economy is growing, the number of people and corporations involved in the money-generating process is shrinking. This means that the number of people depending on the people generating money will grow, leading to an imbalance.

See? We're talkin' basic-basics here. Most anyone reading my reviews will smirk and pass on, utterly uninterested and unmoved.

BUT!

Author Cornelis takes us on a whirlwind tour of the world as it is. The concepts are barely sketched in. The issues are skeletonized. The usefulness of the piece is to present barebones basics to the absolute novice to the topic.

The economic laws have been created by a relatively small number of people who had and have both the power and selfish interest to create the rules and regulations as we now know them. ... The first question I ask is this: why do we continue to accept current economic rules and regulations without question?

Do you begin to sense the reason I wanted to bring this to your attention? And, for the persons not of a progressive bent, the author offers this self-assessment: "I want you to know that I am not a socialist; I am a realist!", and to prove it, he goes on, "The design parameters of any new system must include greed and envy otherwise it is bound to fail." This, he asserts, is what sunk the "communist" experiment in the Soviet bloc. Since I agree with that assessment of the USSR's primary failure, I am willing to suggest an audience for this short, inexpensive piece.

Is your high-school kid or college freshman driving you bonkers about how awful everything is (like this is a newsflash to adults, but hey, we all start somewhere)? Give them this short, readily understood piece. Then they can go to bat with better questions. And really, isn't that all we can ask of each other? Ask better questions and find better answers, case by case and bit by bit?

2016...Annus horribilis...a rotten, awful, bad, nasty, vicious passage into---

It's a pause-button moment in the headlong rush of life into the all-too-knowable future. Americans have elected a person of no class, breeding, or discernable positive value into the presidency. They've returned to Congress, in both houses, people of execrable character and horrifying sociopathy. And they've celebrated this concatenation of horror as though it was a positive development.

Those who didn't participate in this comedy of terrors were shouted down, threatened with physical and subjected to psychic violence. A new insult, "cuck," was applied to those who reject the base, low, ignorant attitudes of the low-class, uneducated dupes who enabled this nightmare by their deplorable actions. It's meant to be a devastating assessment of characterlessness. It derives from "cuckold." Notice please how extremely telling that is: An insult based on the antiquated notion of women's independence of action violating a man's property rights over her is made new again.

The stupid, it burns, it burns!

Newron's Third Law describes what is happening now. The rational and modestly positive presidency of America's first black president was so horrifying and so inimical to the loathsome and ignorant radical reactionaries that they had to express their rage and revulsion by hitching their hopes to a serial adultering low-class low-brow pussy-grabbing sack of shit. Not even the cold, self-absorbed first woman president would be enough of a rejection of progress for the idiots. No, had to go all the way and elect the single least qualified, least able individual ever to be nominated by any oligarchic party.

You got the president you deserved, America.

I, however, don't deserve this but I have to live with it. My very existence as a disabled gay man is under threat: Social Security cuts are aimed at people like me, people who have paid payroll taxes on the understanding (since 1983) that they would be invested for us in US sovereign debt and repaid when we needed them to be. My ability to avail myself of rights unquestioned by you breeders will be, if your disgusting bigoted brethren and sistern are left to it, curtailed or eliminated. And you're fine with that. Obviously you are: You elected people who said *out*loud* that this is what they will fight to achieve.

"I didn't vote for them! Don't blame ME! YOU voted for Jill Stein, YOU helped elect this man!"

Invalid argument. If your candidate had done her job, she wouldn't have left almost 50% of registered voters at home and not casting any vote at all. And let's look at one big reason why: Whatever the source of the Wikileaks information, the FACT is that the Democratic National Committee rigged the primary races against the candidate that a clear majority of Democrat voters wanted to run for the presidency. Blame no one but your losing candidate for this horror movie.

And yes, she lost. The popular vote counts for nothing in this country's presidential elections and it never has. Don't like that? Work to change it. But remember this: Your gal lost. She lost or she'd be taking the oath of office on 20 January 2017. No more excuses, no more posturing. Shut up and eat it: Your election-rigging oligarch lost.

How do we all get out of this? First, stop blaming and start working. (Shut your pie hole about this post. I'm blaming you for your failings because I've had it up to my back teeth with being blamed by "friends" for not singing Horst Wessel in Clintonese.) Working means spending your time, which all of us have, and/or your money, which not all of us have, to make sure the deplorables face fights at every level of political engagement. Letters to editors. TURNING OUT FOR LOCAL ELECTIONS! These redneck fucksticks outmaneuvered you by getting school boards packed with creationists. In many states judges are elected...do your research and find out why the reactionaries are winning those elections. Turnouts are so low that a few *dozen* votes can make all the difference. Get up off your ass and educate yourself about the people making laws that directly affect you every time you open your front door. Pay attention to the fact that police departments across the country are buying MILITARY EQUIPMENT. As citizens you have the right to ask public questions about why this should be so. And remember that what goes around comes around. You're not a target today...tomorrow? DO NOT BET AGAINST IT.

Involve yourself, do the work, be a citizen not a resident. Unless you're a conservative in which case sit back, relax, have a drink. Good people need your inaction so we can roll right over you and consign you to the dustbin of history with the ignominy and opprobrium your vile evil actions have earned.