Business is doing its business on everyone else

Doug Lief Lief is a third-year English student
who hates corporate America but still finds Rage Against the
Machine to be incredibly annoying and pretentious. E-mail his
machine at [email protected].
Click
Here for more articles by Doug Lief

President Bush is confident that the economy, while slowing
down, is not in the least bit of danger. His son Dubya is saying
the same thing, only with less emphasis on correct grammar.
According to MSNBC, over 120,000 people were downsized this January
alone. Apparently this Bush administration is financially shaping
up like the last one.

Tweedle Dubya has projected confidence, explaining that his top
advisor changed his opinion from “Outlook not good” to
“Definitely yes” after some vigorous shaking. He then
had a highly publicized meeting with Fed chairman Alan Greenspan
shortly after his inauguration. I will never forget that stirring
speech Dubya gave. He said:

“We had a frank discussion about our values, and as an
American I value our American values, and this was a valuable
discussion of values, and no value is as American as frank
discussion, particularly a discussion of values. It was
extraordinable.” Greenspan was then embarrassed after he
rolled his eyes severely enough to be audible to everyone in the
room.

But despite every pundit’s best efforts to prove
otherwise, the state of our economy has little to do with political
leadership. Case in point, Greenspan. Everyone likes to give him
credit for the last eight years of prosperity. But, he was also Fed
chairman during part of the craptacular ’80s and early
’90s. Is he responsible for that as well? If his ability is a
constant we can factor him out of the equation.

The sad truth is that our economy is based completely on mob
mentality. This is analogous to our democratic government, and
we’ve all seen how well that works. In the olden days of
mob-rule economics, a group of 20 or so land owning males would
take their torches down to the local banker and demand their money.
The banker would then pour boiling oil on the villagers and
everyone would go home satisfied. This was called the Feast of
Saint Benjamin of Dover, and has been celebrated every April 15th
since.

  Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Our modern stock
market is wildly subject to rumors and speculation. The roaring
’20s were financed by speculation over land that failed to
yield any crops. The crash of 1929 occurred when everyone figured
out that they were pouring money down the dust bowl. The
bitchin’ ’90s are much the same, financed by idiots
throwing money down the dot commode.

Apparently nobody needs to buy pet supplies on-line, despite a
highly effective marketing tool known as a sock puppet. One of the
saddest and best-kept secrets of the pets.com puppet is that the
sock used for it was left over from a Red Hot Chili Peppers
concert. The appeal of waiting six to eight weeks for delivery of a
chew toy shaped like the Ayatollah is severely limited, and the
same goes for the rest of the Internet catalogue shopping sites.
Jenny Schmittenstein’s “Shrine to David Duchovny”
site will, however, probably remain active, so woo-hoo!

Furthermore, the prevalence of people trading on-line has made
the stock market even more unpredictable. I would not be surprised
if people were sitting at home buying shares of Books By Iris
Ericson & Sons because it would appear as BOOBIES under the
NYSE index.

What’s worse is that because of Internet brokerage
companies we were subjected to the E-Trade Superbowl half-time
show. The show featured as its main attraction *NSYNC, Britney
Spears, Mary J. Blige and Nelly attempting to kill yet another
great rock song, “Walk This Way”, by regurgitating it
as palatable only to nine-year old girls and the people who call in
to STAR 98.7 and say “Woo!”. Next year maybe Cingular
can have Mandy Moore do “You Shook Me All Night
Long.”

This is part of a long tradition of corporate smock-sucking (you
fill in the right word) by plastering their names all over
everything. It’s the reason it now requires two shirts to
accommodate the whole of the Tommy Hillfigger logo. It goes all the
way back to the early days of radio with the Colgate Smile-Time
Theater Lone Ranger Happy Racial Stereotype Comedy Hour.

Does it terrify you that a little mass media exposure can tip
the economy one way or the other? Let’s face it, the general
public isn’t exactly Keynes when it comes to finance. This is
the same general public that keeps The Backstreet Boys at the top
of the Billboard charts, that considers Survivor an intellectual
achievement, and that only has a 50/50 chance of finding Canada on
a map.

So now that the bubble on the economy has been burst we’re
in serious trouble. Most businesses have tools to deal with this
problem, namely blaming somebody else and declaring Chapter 11.
Unfortunately it looks like many small businesses are declaring
chapter 11 of “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Yet despite all this monstrosity corporations survive. Satan
recently announced his successful merger of AOL and Time-Warner
into a giant ubercorporation called “We Own You, Biotch!
Inc.” When asked about the business milestone, Old Nick said,
“I’m pleased that this has all gone according to
prophecy. Soon the fate of the universe will be decided by a chess
match between CEO Gerald Levin and Bill Gates. Mwa ha ha ha
haaaaa!”

Right after the merger the fledgling demoncorp laid off
thousands of people. It is understandable that a small company
might need to trim some fat, but this is like Arnold Schwarzenneger
clipping off his earlobes to lose weight. The guys at the top could
have easily taken a small cut in their exorbitant pay checks, but
it seems this is the kind of morality business schools are
imparting to their students.

Meanwhile, Bush is proposing a tax cut which, according to his
own figures, gives $50,000 to the people on the top, but only $1600
to the average tax payer, at the expense of social programs and
paying down the national debt. I’m not saying we don’t
need a tax cut, but somehow I think Michael Jordan’s 50 grand
would be better spent on the poor.

Two of our favorite moral lessons are being perverted by
Republicans and businessmen. “Robin Hood” and “A
Christmas Carol” are both being run in reverse, with Scrooge
firing Bob Cratchet for no reason and the Sheriff of Nottingham
getting rich.

These are the same corporations who hide under tax shelters, who
pollute the environment without remorse and who employ children in
developing nations as slave labor. They are also the people who
have the most say-so in our political process.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a communist at all.
That’s an even crappier system than the one we’ve got
now. “You mean no matter how hard I work my life will never
improve? Hooray! Thanks Mr. Marx!” Communism means everyone
remains poor, there’s no means for success, and everything
smells like beets. If you think I’m lying, go to Moscow and
get a good whiff.

The sad state of affairs is that our livelihood is held hostage
by irresponsible corporations, a fickle media, an incompetent
greedy government, and the unpredictable whims of our own general
consensus. Is there a better system anywhere? “Outlook hazy.
Try again.”