Get a Job!

Yeah you!

If I were you I'd be knocking on every door.  You need to make some money!

This is a discussion (more of an argument)  I actually had with a relative.  Mind you, I'm not some Instagram obsessed teenager laying around the house binging on Netflix.  For god's sake!  I'm in my 40's.

I can't afford to binge on anything.  That's what's so irritating.

It's one thing to be 20-something and have trouble finding work.  Nobody judges you.  Your frustration has more to do with unbridled ambition than a perceived character flaw.

If you've followed this blog for any amount of time you know my story.  I've worked....hard.  I've ticked off all the boxes; College, career, sacrifice, frugality.  I followed the rules, kept my options open and always kept an ear to the ground.

All seemingly for nothing.  

I had a fairly stable living for many years that allowed me to not only better myself but my family.  Now that same family is harder to deal with than a bill collector.

I understand their disillusionment.  For a long time I was looked at as the guy who always seemed to be able to keep it together.  I took adversity with aplomb (well mostly, I do tend the bitch a lot) 

These days I can barely afford to feed myself.  To them it must seem like I've given up.

Thing is, I haven't but I'm far more disillusioned and frustrated than they are.  

There was a time when there was always a fallback position.  If you couldn't find work in your own field you could at least find something to keep you going til you did.

It doesn't take much investigation to find confirmation of what I always suspected was true.  That being that regardless of the unemployment numbers and Wall Street rallies there are still way too many barriers to making a living.

Minimum wage hasn't kept up with the cost of living for a generation but worse than that the competition for jobs that offer it is staggering.   Look at the candidates for these jobs and you find everything from the high school kid to PhD's. 

Those who've never suffered the indignity of rejection for a low wage job don't understand.  They believe there are still jobs whose only requirement is a warm body.  

They're wrong.

These days even flipping burgers requires training on your own dime just to obtain a food handler's card.  With that in hand you're well on your way to 25 hours a week crafting Angry Whoppers for the princely sum of $8.05/hr.   Oh yeah, with benefits too, if you can afford the payroll deduction....

It gets worse....

Now we're hearing an uproar over raising the minimum wage to something in line with what it actually costs to live somewhere other than your car.  

"It'll cause higher unemployment!" 
"We can't afford to pay more!"  
" It'll break the back of small business!"

Which ticks me off even more.  While all these "job creators" game the system to overwork and underpay their current employees, they place hurdles in the way of new hires to ensure nothing changes.

There's no way around it and if you don't understand what I'm about to say I'm sorry but you're either bloody stupid or worse a selfish bastard.

Hiring someone full time for a wage they can't live on in a first-world country is institutionalized slavery.

Offering only part time hours and scheduling employees so that it's impossible for them to get another part time job is even worse.  As an employer you're effectively forcing your workforce into poverty for no other reason than greed.

Don't give me that crap about high labor costs either.  If you can't afford the means to sell your product you don't have a damned clue about how to properly run a business. 

Employees are your partners not your slaves.  Paying them shouldn't be looked at as "an inconvenience."

It's no different than the argument from the Southern states that led to the Civil War.  Let's get one thing perfectly clear here.  Lincoln was no great abolitionist, he was a nationalist. He was far more open to compromise: even those that would include continuing slavery if it would have kept the country together.  The Civil war was about human rights only as much as the space program was about inventing freeze dried coffee.

That's historical fact.

Meaning any business, especially BIG business that argues against a livable wage is taking the same position as the Civil War South.  For them it was about cheap labor to improve their bottom line.

Sound familiar?

In America, it's not about some misguided fantasy of climbing the ladder of success.   it's about production at the lowest possible cost.  That means near poverty wages to keep an unskilled workforce forever unskilled and powerless.   Now add in the yoke of the "Credit Economy" that exists only to perpetuate itself.  A faceless beast fed by the poor.  By the way, that includes you if you're only one paycheck from financial disaster. 

It's hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps if the boots have a 29% interest rate.

We, all of us of unfortunate birth are increasingly subject to the indecencies of an inadequate paycheck that won't even cover the basic necessities.  

It's nothing less than indentured servitude.

Which comes to people like me.  I'm not unskilled but I'm not especially talented either.  So I'm right there with you.

I hear a lot of, "You're a top candidate" when applying for jobs in my field only to not get the job.  A bit too much of hearing that lately meaning I've taken to applying for "seasonal" positions with local retail stores.

Even then the whole premise is twisted..

Questions like, " Why do you want to work here?"  Duh!  I need money and you're supposedly hiring.  Of course you can't say that.  You have to come up with some bullshit about a life change and trying new things and ground floors for new starts, blah, blah, blah.

You're actually better off if you never did anything with your life.  Otherwise that 6 figure resume becomes another hurdle to overcome fighting for a job you don't really want for a wage you can't really afford.

BTW, it's damned hard to dumb down a professional resume for $8.05/hr.  Nobody's going to believe you've been sitting on your ass for 30 years of your life.  The background check ( that they all run ) will show your lie anyway.  So no, acting stupid isn't an answer...

Who the hell actually prepares a resume for a minimum wage retail job anyway?  What are you going to say?  Stocked shelves, greeted customers, kissed ass?  All that crap fits on the application.  Resume's are for the jobs you work after you get the hell out of retail.

Anyway, more to the point: that there's any expectation that working retail is a great career move is lunacy.  I know, it's what I did when I was in high school 1000 years ago and I knew I didn't want to do it when I was my age now. 

Give me a break.  Once everyone's returned their Christmas gifts and yanked down the baubles and twinkly lights you're out the door buddy.  

If'someone like me is on your doorstep looking for work, I'm fucking serious about being there.  I've taken a deep breath, swallowed my pride and committed to the relationship.

By the way, never, ever tell me I need to swallow my pride.

I've been so beaten up that I don't have any left.  I've seriously entertained a job delivering and cleaning port-a- potties.  The only thing that stopped me was the lack of a commercial driver's license and being in my 40's.  Meaning I'm not sure I can lift 100 pounds 30 times a day every day on a job with no health benefits.  ( That's what the ad actually said BTW )

I'm mad as hell that I'm being denied a living ( as corrupt as the word is in this country) and even angrier when someone assumes I'm not doing enough to improve my situation.

I'm also sick of being judged by people who don't deserve the jobs they have.  Worse, when they cast aspersions on someone like me who's been in the field longer than they've been out of high school.  

That sounds arrogant but remember, I know from whence I speak.  Most of the people I've interviewed with (with rare exception) got their positions through the buddy system. I only say that because part of my interview preparation involves looking them up on LinkedIn.  I've found IT directors whose last job was a sales director and others with no IT or management training at all.  

I really don't care how they got their jobs just so long as it doesn't have an effect on me getting hired.  Unfortunately, it does...

It's an old boys network and I DO MEAN old BOYS.  I've yet to meet a female IT director.  I doubt I'd have as much bullshit if I did.  The nice thing about having a female manager is that chances are she's gone through a lot of crap to get where she is.  That tends to minimize the games because she just doesn't have the time for it.  

It's natural for the male of the species to feel threatened when someone better than him has come along even if he gets to boss you around.   In my experience women don't engage in that kind of pissing contest.

If you think this is just a bunch of whining and excuses then put yourself in my shoes for a minute.

You're in you 40's, lost all your income and can't replace it.  Nobody takes you seriously when you apply for low-wage jobs and your relatives don't want to talk to you unless you're sending them a check.

Pull myself up by my bootstraps?  My boots have holes in the soles buddy.

It doesn't stop me but what slows me down is your misinformed judgement.  I'm putting it out there, no agenda but to survive.  

Until you know what I'm going through (and I'm pretty sure most don't) keep your admonitions to yourselves and thank your creator that you don't have to be here.

I won't quit but I know a lot of people that dismiss me would have long ago.

That makes me better than them and if nothing else, that's worth living for.  There needs to be a change and perhaps I need to feel the effects to understand how badly it needs to happen.

Livable wage now!  

The real cost of living

I've been thinking about the price of things and the money it takes to buy them and I've made an obvious but as far as I can tell unrecognized connection.

It's said that the value of the U.S. dollar has been declining for years.  Go over to the Dollar Times inflation calculator (I have it bookmarked) and see for yourself.

As I've played around with it I've happened upon an interesting anomaly.  It appears that sometime around 1942 the value of the U.S. Dollar started declining steadily. This was almost a decade after FDR decided that gold was only useful for jewelry.  1942 was the first full year of the U.S. involvement in World War 2 so considering the economy was on a wartime footing it makes sense that the consumer economy was going to take a hit.  That's what happens when you actually try to pay for the wars you engage in.

What's strange is that it's a trend that's never stopped.  It leveled off for awhile during the "Great Recession of 2008" but continued its decline shortly after.  Most economists will tell you the only reason it didn't plunge further was due to government intervention and a lack of economic activity in general.

Look, economic babble aside, the  truth is that your buying power is continuously eroded over time and there's nothing you can do about it.

Regardless of your political affiliation or whether you care that the money in your pocket has been based on little more than good intentions (Fiat currency) for the past 4 decades the problem is self evident.   With apologies to Thomas Jefferson, the "rights " held self-evident have been little more than political marketing for the past century.

After all, even if it's worth less, it just feels good to have a million of something even if it only has the buying power of your kid's lunch money in a few years.

So if our money is worthless, why do we accept the excuse for higher prices being higher costs of production? 

Does that sound like a stupid question?  Then you're probably a stupid person. 

Sorry, but you were probably already chewing on the arm of your chair by now anyway...

What's really stupid is that we accept the fact that our money is worth less which naturally makes things cost more but don't give a second thought to how badly we're getting ripped off.

Let's go back to our Inflation calculator and stick in some numbers.  Say $40,000 which was a decent salary in 1985.  In fact it was a great salary and in 2013 dollars you could buy $87,217 worth of stuff. 

In little more than a generation our money has lost more than half its buying power.  Yet our wages are still based on those same 1985 numbers.  Somewhere, somebody in HR or accounting thinks that $40,000 will still let you buy a house, feed your family and save a few bucks for a rainy day.

It's perfectly acceptable to raise prices to compensate for a currency with declining value. It's only fair to charge more if it takes more money to produce the same item.

So how is it that demanding fair compensation for slowly killing your soul in some cloth covered cubicle suddenly makes you unreasonable? 

If everyone is getting what they need then everyone should be happy, right?

Thing is, very few of us are and the only relief we get are sound bites and token gestures from politicians crafted to quell the uproar till the next news cycle. 

It's the reason why politicians don't like to run on their records anymore and instead choose to act like bullies in a schoolyard.

It's not about rich versus poor or conservative versus liberal economics.  It's about expecting blood from a stone.  It's simple, if your money is worth less you have to have more of it just to maintain your standard of living.  A cost of living raise isn't a luxury it's a fact of life when you live in an unpredictable economy. 

I don't buy the big business wailing over minimum wage increases either.  If you can't afford to pay for the resources you need to conduct business then you don't know how to run your business.  It's exploitation, nothing less.

In fact, because business has gotten away with economic indentured servitude for half a century they've actually hurt themselves.  It's not the rich who keep the GM's, Chrysler's and Maytags in business.  It's the average Joe sitting in the morning commute 5 days a week.  If he can't buy your goods you're out of business. 

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. 

Why do we accept this? If the value of our money is based on good faith and that faith has been violated then why do we continue to accept the whole premise to start with?

I've often said that the oil companies can charge whatever they want for a gallon of gas just so long as everyone's wages are adjusted to compensate.  Charge $20 a gallon for all I care, just make sure the average income is in the six figure range. 

If it costs you that much to deliver the product then I should be able to meet that demand from the rewards of my labor.  Anything else is economic opportunism on the backs of labor.

In the end , most of us have ended up living one check away from financial ruin while the Suze Orman's of the world chide us for spending our meager resources too frivolously.  I know your heart's in the right place Suze but your understanding of economic theory borders on fantasy. 

Until the slow slide from employment to indentured servitude stops in the developed world we need to stop blaming ourselves for all the economic ills and personal financial woes. 

We need to demand that wages reflect the world we live in now, not the one our grandparents knew.  It's not unreasonable unless you sit in the executive suites counting the millions you steal from your employees every day you don't pay a wage based on what used to be called "the cost of living"

Friends it's simple.  the rich are getting richer not because they're smarter or luckier than us.  They're getting richer because they're benefitting from the fact that you're not getting paid what you're worth.

If you think I'm wrong, well, I can guarantee you're not worried about feeding your kids next month.

Think about it.

Taking the most from the least of us

These days you'd be excused if you wondered whom your elected representatives were actually representing. 

Locked in a battle of ideology where there is no middle ground it's left those with the most to lose in a veritable no-man's land.  If you've suffered the fallout you're living a precarious existence subject to the whims of the political machine.

The proof is easy to find.

The long term unemployed have found their benefit periods drastically reduced and with the looming threat of sequester the size of those checks as well. 

State run healthcare programs have already been denying benefits to the unmarried or childless and reduced benefits and tightened eligibility for the rest..   Even Planned Parenthood and other providers of women's health services nationwide have seen their public funding evaporate based on nothing more than anti-abortion rhetoric . 

While conservatives wage war on social programs, liberals can do little more than act as a backstop even with control of the White House and the Senate.  Progressive legislation frequently finds itself gutted in favor of getting something, anything passed through congress no matter how toothless the legislation.

Wall street doesn't seem to care either way.  In this battle they may as well be the war profiteers taking full advantage of the spoils.  They can literally have their cake and eat it too.  Public policy be damned or more likely ignored so long as the shareholders are happy. 

It's no doubt they will be.

Give the working man a little more cash and they'll happily feed the economy and fill corporate coffers.  Suppress their wages while systematically dismantling a century of labor law and your fortune's made on the backs of a subjugated workforce. 

So as ideologies clash and items like tax reform and infrastructure rebuilding give way to naming post offices  and the minting of commemorative coins, state governments and big business are taking advantage of the lack of governance. 

Look no further for evidence than the state of Arizona now famous for its "Show me your papers" legislation otherwise known as SB1070. 

A week ago their state legislature decided that it was just too easy to get unemployment insurance after conservative business leaders found a sympathetic ear at the state capitol.  For their trouble they got a measure through the state House and Senate to require applicants to provide written documentation from their former employer of their involuntary dismissal from their jobs.

As written, the measure is so biased against the unemployed that all an employer has to do is not provide the applicant with required documentation and the claim can denied.  

Considering funding for the state's unemployment insurance fund comes from employers it's likely the unemployment rate in Arizona will soon drop to 0% in the next 6 months.  Whew! budget crisis solved!

Yes, that's sarcasm...

By the way, Arizona has one of the lowest maximum weekly benefit payments in the country at $240 second only to Mississippi.   Yeah, the gravy train is over you unemployed slackers .

To hear supporters of the measure you'd believe that getting unemployment insurance in Arizona required nothing more than having a social security number and a pulse.  With approximately 75,000 of the state's population of 6.5 million people still on the unemployment rolls (down from 200,0000 in 2010) it's hard to characterize their position as anything but cruel.

The U.S. Department of Labor has already "raised concerns" about the bill's legality under federal law.  Oh yeah, and Arizona's official unemployment rate was still at 8% in January.

Here's another one.  CVS Pharmacy has decided that they need to keep tabs on their employees vital statistics.  Employees covered by the company's health plan are required to provide information such as weight, body fat and other health information or be assessed a $50 per month fee on top of their insurance premiums.    In other words CVS employees can comply with this violation of their privacy or pay a penalty.
 

So if you're collecting unemployment or refuse to submit to employer inquiries about your private health information apparently you're part of the problem.  Meanwhile Washington lets it happen.

We're not talking about forcing millionaires to drive down to a homeless shelter and pass out fistfuls of $20 bills.  It's about subjugating a population already suffering the ravages of a withering economy and a congress impotent to address their concerns.

In the vacuum that's been left, Wall Street soars and so do  the numbers of the less fortunate as they further descend into poverty.  They find a social safety net with ever widening gaps and an indignant conservative leadership holding the scissors.  Worse, the supposed liberal champions of the downtrodden offer little more than lip service.

Twenty years ago this country was facing similar hurdles but ideology wasn't allowed to completely  trump reason.  The result may not have pleased everyone but at least allowed things to move forward.  Brinksmanship was a threat not a foundation for policymaking. 

Actions have consequences, Isaac Newton knew it and apparently so did Matthew, you know the guy from that book Pat Robertson likes to read out of...

"And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew25-40

By the way, I'm not religious but that last one makes perfect sense to me...

           

Raincheck on the Fiscal Cliff

Article originally posted on Technorati as Raincheck on the Fiscal Cliff

If your thoughts have been occupied by the "fiscal cliff"  like a bad New Year's hangover there is some relief, at least for now.  Today's passage of HR-8 (The Tax relief Extension Act) provides among other things a 1 year extension to Federal emergency unemployment benefits as well as a permanent extension of tax cuts for those making less than $400,000.  Both measures that could keep the economy from slipping back into recession in the near term. 

Still, on both sides of the aisle this last minute bipartisan agreement comes up far short of the "Grand Bargain."  Spending cuts are only "deferred" for two months leaving plenty of debate for the incoming 113th congress.  It seems the only part of a comprehensive overhaul of government spending cuts and revenue increases that either side can agree on is the name.

To most Republicans on the hill, a "Grand Bargain" must include severe cuts in funding and tighter eligibility requirements for "entitlement" programs including Social security and Medicare.  Any new government program must have a corresponding funding source either from cuts in other entitlements or quantifiable revenue streams otherwise known as tax increases.  With most of the House Republicans still adhering to the Norquist pledge they're going to need different shorthand for "revenue." 

Republicans also chafe at the prospect of "overburdening" the well heeled with a bigger tax bill for fear of hurting job creation.  It is large, not small business that drives the economy in the conservative view.   Increasing taxes on them can only result in economic retaliation.  If it sounds familiar it is indeed the theory of trickledown economics from the Reagan era.

To most Democrats in congress, a "Grand Bargain" encourages investment in social programs, protection of entitlements and increased taxation on high earners.  Incidentally, what constitutes a "High earner" has been a major bone of contention during the haggling over the fiscal cliff.  Tax loopholes long employed by businesses to shelter income as well as subsidies to large corporations like big oil would also be eliminated under the "ideal" democratic plan.  

All of this under the banner of "tax fairness" which asks more of those who have "benefitted the most"  to help those who have not.  Of course bearing the label of "tax and spend" democrats makes their proposals subject to increased scrutiny from their Republican counterparts. A condemnation seemingly validated by funding sources that often look more like a sidewalk shell game than a legitimate revenue stream.  Republicans often cite President Obama's$700 billion Medicare savings plan as a revenue source as an example. 

Where republicans now argue the need for "fiscal responsibility" in funding social programs,  Democrats are quick to remind them of their lack of the virtue in recent history.   A 4trillion dollar price tag for the Iraq war and 1.2trillion for the Afghan war to date has only added to the balance on the national "credit card."  Numbers republicans refuse to address and democrats love to remind them of.

While disaster has been averted for now expect little in the way of increased cooperation going forward.  The deal passed Tuesday night by the House was born more of self-preservation than magnanimity.  None in congress wanted to bear the heat of a constituency thrown back into a crippling recession born out of legislative inaction. 

The logjam of the "Fiscal Cliff"  is born once again out of political dogma.  Where Democrats believe in government being a catalyst for economic growth Republicans see it as an impediment.  Not since the Civil war has a congressional body been so divided by ideology and put the fortunes of the country in such peril. 

If you require evidence, look no further than the close  of Tuesday night's House session.

Amidst impassioned pleas to act on a Senate bill that would authorize 60.4 billion in Sandy relief, the Republican leadership decided instead to end the session.  Cries of "Speaker!, Speaker!" left hanging in the air as the Speaker pro tempore Steve Womack (R-Ar) quickly left the chair, his only response a shrug and outstretched hands.

Fanatical ideology still holds the reigns of congress.  It remains to be seen if progress can replace it.  

Economies of scale and the scourge of the middleman

You know me, I've got too much time on my hands these days so I chose to spend it keeping up with the tech pundits.  So I was watching Triangulation on TWIT this week (3-15-2012) and their guest was the co-founder of Kiva.org Matthew Flannery.

Kiva is a micro lending service that allows anyone to lend money to those in need around the world via a network of Microfinance Institutions (MFI's).  The first thing you have to understand is that it's not a bank and you don't get any interest on the money you lend.  In fact Kiva is the antithesis of a bank in that it exists not for its own profit motives but rather to offer access to needed  funding to those who'd be denied otherwise.  It's more like a personal loan that also scratches your humanitarian itch.

Make no mistake, these are loans not handouts.  In a move that should satisfy even the most staunch fiscal conservative, this is the ultimate expression of pulling one's self up by their bootstraps.  Most loans are for small businesses in need of a minimal amount of capital. Kiva facilitates the process by connecting would-be lenders to MFI's.  They take no  profit in the process and are funded by donations, grants, corporate sponsors and foundations.

Leo and Tom did a far better job  of shining a light on Kiva in their interview of Matthew Flannery on Triangulation than I can do here so I suggest you watch the episode if you want to know more. 

Kiva is the rare example of a middleman that contributes something tangible.  So it struck me how very wrong the so-called first world is in their handling of economies.

What it brought to mind was how much waste is caused by middlemen in the developed world.  For example, I have loans like everyone else.  A car loan, student loan, revolving credit card balances and the like.  Each one of those has an interest rate and somebody standing in the middle whose only purpose is to shuffle paper, for a fee.

I get the interest part of the equation, someone lets you use their money so it's only natural that they deserve some consideration for making it available to you. 

Here's the problem.

If you were to trace how many hands were on every dollar you ever borrowed or spent you'd soon understand why prices always seem to be going in the wrong direction of your bank balance.

Nobody just makes something and sells it for a small profit over their cost, there's always more to it than that.

 We always hear about "overhead"..  Overhead might as well be another name for middlemen.  Yes there's always a cost to make something but as business has evolved we've added layers of needless complexity creating a fertile environment for "facilitators". Everything you buy, use or see has an army of people between you and the producer.  All with waiting open palms contributing nothing to the process other than passing it from one hand to the next. 

Buy a new car and somewhere in the price you're going to pay the dealer's overhead.  He's got to pay for the land, inventory, utilities and property taxes just to offer that car to you.  Speaking of inventory he has to pay the car manufacturer for his inventory which introduces its own overhead.  The manufacturer has similar overhead for facilities as well as the overhead built into the price they pay their parts suppliers who in turn had their own overhead to produce the parts. 

The chain can go on forever with a middleman at every level standing between buyer and seller .  That cost ultimately  gets passed on to you in the form of a price that has little to do with the actual resources it took to produce the product.

Some might say that's just how the world works these days.  I say it's exactly why the world is in such dire financial straits.  There are far too many people whose living depends on doing little more than facilitating the movement of paper from one office to another. 

That's why there's so many layoffs in financial institutions.  When nobody's buying there's not enough paper to shuffle and the middlemen  start circling the wagons and reducing headcount.  Their fortunes are dependent on "servicing" accounts which in layman's terms means ensuring they get their fees for passing money from one entity to another.  They only thing they're actually concerned about servicing is their own profit margins.

Whole economies are based on professions whose whole reason for existence is to "facilitate" a transaction.  Their names are common, Banks, Title companies, Loan Servicers, brokers, sales engineers and the like.  None of them produce anything tangible, they exist only as profiteers convinced of their own relevance.   Yet when they fail they jeopardize the financial stability of entire nations.

We hear a lot these days about poor working conditions in the third world.  That's because huge corporations seek to protect their profits by exploiting their workforces instead of cutting out the middlemen.  That includes the ones on their payroll by the way.

Of course PR departments and advertising firms swing into high gear whenever the public gets wind of an obvious injustice.  Realize that PR and advertising are just middlemen of a different color.  They too produce nothing of tangible value.  They are, in effect, the middlemen between customer and corporation and ultimately end up in the "overhead" reflected in the final price.

Which brings me back to Kiva.org.  In developing nations a few hundred dollars can have the same effect as a few million in other parts of the world.  That's because the resources provided match the need and nothing more.  The process is kept simple and the middleman isn't driven by a profit motive in Kiva's case.  Economies grow by making transactions between the buyer and the seller simple.   The more complex a transaction becomes the more waste gets introduced into the process .  Middlemen for the most part don't follow Kiva's example and exist only to complicate simple processes to their own advantage. 

Until economies recognize the threat of the profiteering middleman they will never be stable.  As such a vicious cycle continues to erode an already weak currency platform that's backed by little more than faith in the very institutions that created the problem.  Not enough money in the treasury? Just print more and dilute its value even further instead of dealing with the real problem.

The question that's never asked is what role do the middlemen play in all this?  They're right in front of you but only visible in their deeds.  When the news cycle is full of reports on deepening national debt,  failing banks and financial market corruption you see their handiwork.    

Economies are driven by markets.  Markets provide products to consumers.  Money is not a product even if the Wall Street currency traders  and economic strategists think it is.  It's simply a facilitator, a mechanism for exchange between parties.   If we apply the same criteria to it as we do a profiteering middleman, the reason for all this economic strife becomes obvious.   We've assigned a value to the worthless.