Nobody ever shops at Walmart for the fashion.  Now we can!  At Target!!  My sister and I even jokingly started referring to it as “Targée”, our new discount fashion house.

For us girls, it has never been cheaper to look this great.  The industry that sells us the smoke and mirrors of Looking Good, for its own survival, has had to remove the high price tag for the everyday girl to participate.  There is no fooling this YouTube tutorial-watching chick who can DIY Scarlett Johansson’s whole face from a drug-store palette; get a good-enough version of her dress from Winners/discount online retailer and take home a sample of the Dolce and Gabbana fragrance from Sephora until she’s sick of it, or loves it.  You can’t make her pay more for this stuff when it’s never been so obvious that she doesn’t have to.  Also, you might think you can take advantage of her seeming ADD with all these new brands being stuffed in her purse or shipped with her purchase every time she shops, but if you blow that one shot she’ll give you to switch, it’s over.

Target Canada, promising to host such magical brands at real prices, had bought out the footprints of our own failed big box discount retailer, Zellers (who died because of Walmart).  So, when it opened its doors the other week, us women all over the GTA each had a location within our sights.  We were ready and willing to cheat on Walmart!

Target had posted a pretty handsome profile picture online:

Tony Fisher, 38-year-old CEO of Target Canada

Its ads were reminiscent of the monochromatic iPod ones before Apple took over everything:

First point of entry: I immediately did screwface at the totally inefficient self-check-out, with like 2 places, and 30 people in line.  There was even a Costco “were-you-honest?” receipt-checking staff at a podium before shoppers left.  But I looked in their carts: toilet paper, Tide, crackers and the odd dehumidifier.  Weekly stock?!  Why of course they’re  going to be in line during the debut week at Targée, then!

This store concept was very much like Walmart with toys, FOOD, women’s clothing, electronics etc. all in one place.  But I can’t vouch for price comparisons of most sections because I made a beeline for Cosmetics!!  Pressed powder, check.  False eyelashes, check.  Favourite moisturizer, check.  Obscure concealer, no.  But it was all pretty much the same price and selection as Walmart.  (I later went to Shoppers Drug Mart in the same plaza and noticed it had slashed its prices in abject fear, no doubt).  OK, not bad.

It was at least, a lot brighter than Walmart—a lot of white and red, not dingy blue and grey.  And well, it’s not so hard to top the floor staff of Walmart either.  In fact, when I asked one salesperson for the Women’s Department, she said, politely, “It is, literally, straight down this aisle”.  Walmart staff might not have made this important distinction. lol

So, so far, I could rest assured that most of my cosmetics were all representin’ at Target should Walmart somehow wrong me in the near future.  Like morally.  Does anyone still discuss how it takes life insurance out on its employees??  Also, I never went to Walmart for the fashion, EVER.  So, I took a deep breath before breaking into a run towards what it all came down to at Target: Women’s Clothing!

Aaaand stop.  Hmm.  What do we have here?  Black wrinkly Mossimo polyester shirts for $24.99.  Dozens of them.  Oh, in off-white too.  Mossimo?  Really?  This is like the Pierre Cardin of women’s clothing—a long sold-out (in a bad way) once high-end brand that’s been dining out on un-curated licensee agreements since the 80s.  i.e. fugly.  And all that is wrong with our consumerist machine and thoughtless crap.  Ugh.  W-w-where’s the Marc Jacobs and the Jason Wu higher-end c-c-crap?

Fine.  What about Accessories?  Hmm, there seemed to be some kind of in-house brand dangling its instantly forgettable quasi-Euro-sounding name from every cheesy handbag, end-of-dye-lot scarf and Payless-esque pair of shoes.  It was all kind of like “Jessica” at Sears—the Kryptonite of any woman with eyeballs and a wallet.

Who does the buying at this place?!

Why has Target forsaken its Canadian customers, who were just looking for the one thing that would differentiate it from the bungling and crashing of other retail noise??

I think the most telling moment was when I went to the washroom at Target.  The Walmart I go to doesn’t really have a nice one.  Target’s could’ve flashed-back to a 90s nightclub.  So, I got all in there, ready to go, and got as about exposed as a customer could get, when I realized there was no toilet paper—just dual toilet roll cores clink-clunking together like useless wind chimes, mocking my searching hand.  I sighed, gathered up all my parts, both grateful and annoyed that I hadn’t committed yet.  And moved onto the next stall.  When I was done, there was an employee-signed sheet pasted up for the benefit of customers, I guess, that gave check marks across the board for allegedly fulfilling every need including replenishing toilet paper.  Only a half-hour before.  Really.

Zellers was also bright, red and white.  At least it was Canadian.  I never shopped there.

Don’t worry ladies, I heard Nordstrom’s coming.  And Nordstrom Rack is sure to follow!

Oh Targée, your business practice looked a lot more outdated than your photo :/

[Note: I'm not into useless consumer spending, but I still believe in a business that can possibly cut through the crap, and get it right.]

1. Can’t Touch This, by MC Hammer
2. Ice Ice Baby, by Vanilla Ice

were played in malls.  In every store.  At Cotton Ginny.  At the frickin’ Bay.  On the Much Music

Now, you can’t unsee it.

Countdown.  On Video Hits.  On 680 CFTR.  By every hair-sprayed young man on his parents’ car insurance plan.  At the American Music Awards.  At the frigging Grammys.  At every middle-school dance.

They leaked out of Sony Walkman knock-offs all tinny on the bus.  Out of the lips of every teenaged boy and girl as the incantation for a make-out kiss.  Out of apartment windows like cooking smells and arguments.

They inspired stripe-shaved eyebrows (Vanilla Ice) and balloon-y incontinence pants (MC Hammer).  And running-man Tourettes.

Was equal opportunity hos a good point? Damn.

Wait.

There was a rat tail in there too!

(They weren’t even all that bad as songs.)

(No. They were.)

Just like everything else in pop culture that’s exploited to death, the Chinese Marketing Torture of the constant drip-drip-dripping…Made. Me. Ker-azy.  That the everyday soundtrack to my life of Math homework and Social Studies presentations involved a South Florida drug run and a bragging MC started to become real stupid, real fast.  But for a whole year?  That’s out of control.

Later in life, I learned that Vanilla Ice was named Rob.  And that when the high hat and the suped up tempo were heard no more, he fought Todd Bridges on Celebrity Boxing (surely a nod to encoffining?).  And that MC “Stanley” Hammer mishandled his own gazillions, forcing a personal bankruptcy filing in just 1996.

Since my brain refuses, in general, to be a mausoleum to dead celebrity-careers (only the hyphen keeps the bodies alive, in most cases) I rubberstamped 1990 as DONE, filed these characters as LOSERS and let this all vacuum-tube* itself out of existence.

But of course, I recently found out about this.  That’s right: a Vanilla Ice infomercial and Free Guide to Real Estate!  Seminars coming to a conference centre near you.  WTF indeed.  Apparently, Rob has been studying up and flipping real estate since the ‘90s.  He has a net worth of $18 million through careful investments of over 100 commercial and residential properties, and through the conscientious remodeling of them in the Palm Beach, Florida area.  Punching out Todd Bridges apparently was just his jam.  Who knew.

Why?  You ask, would anyone buy anything from a man with this sense of style:

Does he sell exclusively to Dutch(?) drug dealers in Grace Jones drag?

Surprisingly, fyi, he’s now into earth-tones, at least for business.

This 45 year old, still sporting loud branding, mint baseball caps, hip hop gear, and many (bad, random) colourful tattoos insists:

“When I did Ice Ice baby, I was 16 years old, I hired decorators and live in Miami.  They pulled the

A Vanilla (Ice) Project

whole art deco thing out.  I had yellow carpet.  Green rooms.  Red rooms.  Purple carpet.  It was the most colourful house ever.  When you walk in you’re like “this is really cool!” But after a while, you feel like you’re living in a nightclub.  And it becomes depressing and horrible…[I said to myself] I need earth-tone colours.  You gotta stay earth-tone to make it warm and cozy and make it feel like a home.” [You and Me This Morning]

I guess, that’s how you sell a home.  And he’s on his 3^rd season of showing Americans how he does it on The Vanilla Ice Project, a remodeling reality show on the DIY Network that follows him and his real team of contractors fixing up run-down estates that he himself has bought.  “There’s no B-Roll team,” in case you’re wondering if Ryan Seacrest is behind all this.  He “Ices” cribs i.e. adds bling to million-dollar mansions, like glass elevators, lazy rivers, cool iPhone controls and movie theatres.  His daughter bakes cupcakes for Open Houses.  The mayor and neighbours appreciate that he seems to be one of few investors interested in reviving dead properties.

On why more people aren’t into investment properties, but should be:

“[Since the housing crash, the market has] evolved, it’s not what it used to be. The short sales, the foreclosures are great.  But tax auctions are even better.  I just bought the Season 3 house on a tax auction.  And if no one’s bidding against you and it’s an absolute auction you can steal these homes for pennies on the dollar.  The most important thing is to know your location…[these houses] are sitting 3, 4, 5 years just rotting and people don’t understand why [the banks] don’t want to sell them.  Well, [for] the short sale and foreclosures, you go and call these banks and they’re understaffed.  Nobody returns your calls.  They’re not that easy to get.”  [CNBC Interview]

On location analysis for income property:

“There’s a lot of money in Palm Beach and I know my market there.  So, I don’t drift away too much from that area because I know it very well.  And I think that’s very important.  There’re homes sitting back from the infrastructure that might be on a bigger piece of property or [be] a bigger home, and they look very appetizing, but if you do the statistics, people are moving out of those areas, so you might want to stay away from those.  People want to be closer to the infrastructure of not just schools, but airports and restaurants, shopping malls.  And they don’t want to commute anymore.  And with gas prices where they are…” [CNBC Interview]

Almost 25 years later, I am happy for this man who has not let one-hit-wonderdom, a lack of high school education, an unscrupulous management team, forever D-list status as a rapper, or constant invitations to contend on the most demoralizing shows ever (i.e. Celebrity Ice Dancing, anyone?) etc. f$% him up.  Of his past, he says “Yesterday’s history.  Tomorrow’s a mystery”.

OK, he also says things like:

-       “infulstructure” (recent)

-       “clearify” (recent)

-       “This is the Ice Man still kickin’ it like Jackie Chan” (recent)

-       “Vanilla Ice yep yep, I’m comin’ hard like a rhino” (worst 1990 lyric ever)

-       “Creep on it, don’t sleep on it” (recent)

-       “Holla and pop yo’ colla” (recent)

-         and this New York Times interview

45 yr-olds have looked worse

…but word!  He’s…smart!

Handsome?  Fit.  A world-ranking motorcross and jetski rider.  A smiler.  A dad.

A real estate magnate!

I was going to end now with some poignant comparison to rhinos.  But I could just find that they are territorial.

PS, ever wonder how a wife-beater, sequined MC Hammer pants and skates look on?

* pre-90s technology y’all.

But, ever-interested in learning through Doing It, there I went.

For me, the itch came when I was annoyed at how much I didn’t really know about Real Estate, yet it was all around me.  Over time, information was building up in the news and at dinner parties that made me want to start piecing things together already.

-       Interest rates are at historical lows.  If you were ever going to get a loan—say a giant mortgage-y one, now would be the time.

-       There are 100,000 people moving into the Greater Toronto Area every year and they need a place to rent.  You could be their landlord.

-       Further to that, few apartment complexes—the ones of our childhood—are being built.  There is a dearth of housing for renters.  Private owners are renting their properties out.

-       The math for most homeowners (who can afford to put down around 25% of the purchase price of the property) is that if they were to rent their properties out, it would likely cover 100% of costs.  This means that your renters would be paying your mortgage for you.  Is this evil?  No.  They need a place to stay at market value rent.

-       Houses / property will only ever appreciate in the long-run.  So, if you don’t buy now, it will only be more expensive later—for the same, more aged properties.

-       GTA properties appreciate at, most conservatively, 4% per year.  If you stuck your money in a bank, it would, at best, grow only 2% per year.

-       The Canadian Government has recently made the barrier to entry into the housing market a little higher by capping the mortgage amortization at 25 years (previously 30 years).  This causes monthly payments to be higher.  As well, if you can’t put down at least 20% of the value of the property, you will be slapped with penalties (this reduces the number of default-risk home-ownership in the market, which insulates it from the kind of crash the US faced).

-       There are about 30,000 people in the Greater Toronto Area with their Real Estate licenses, at least half of whom are my friends, I found out!  I was going to ask them.

“Don’t buy now,” summed up Liz Lee…

…my dimpled and pregnant friend who rolled down to Lakeview Restaurant to meet me for an interview.  Liz works in commercial Real Estate, is an entrepreneur herself who has her license and is one of several landlord friends I have.  Clearly, she’d Done It.

“But, you’ve Done It!” I exclaimed through a mouthful of sweet potato fries.

“Yes, but…” she slurped back at me through her hot cider.  Currently, the GTA’s housing prices are beyond a reasonable level.  “The average detached home in Toronto now sells for $818,000. That’s eight times average family income. Meanwhile, household debt has exploded and incomes trail inflation,” according to Mr. Turner, who was the former Minister of National Revenue.  I suppose this means that living at least 8 times beyond our means, at a time where the inflated value of money chips away at our stand-still salary, at a time where we already owe record amounts to car financiers and credit card companies, is not a good idea.  It would be sadder still, should we lock in this giant purchase, only to see it’s price pop, yet hold the bag for the full amount, with interest.

It’s happened in the US (sometimes halving housing values after 2008’s sub-prime mortgage crisis; economists / banks had not paid attention to the rising level of private debt as they freely gave out loans to whomever); it’s happened in Tokyo where land prices have dropped 25% in the past 4 years due to a shrinking population and economy (my apartment went from 95,000 yen per month to 67,700 yen in just 2 years); it’s happening now in Vancouver where a blogger is tracking non-selling properties that keep relisting under new MLS numbers with dropping prices: -22%, -29%, -38%…!

Could it happen in Toronto?  Every year, a round-table of top Real Estate people convene in Toronto to comment.  The latest verdict was, “No”.  But if you’re asking Real Estate agents, property developers, banks and mortgage lenders—what else would they say?

Liz was concerned about this possible correction in inflated housing prices, or a slowdown in growth, in general.  And, she had some sobering advice for those of us convinced that buying a fixer-upper at these low interest rates could work:

“You have to like fixing things.”  She explained how some previous occupants can leave a place in a state.  Pee stains on the floor; cracked walls from college-boy angst; destroyed toilets etc.  Then there was the usual: terrible 1970s linoleum, energy Death Eater windows from the Diefenbaker era, knob and tube wiring, mold…(Sadly, I couldn’t see how my knitting and omelet superpowers applied here )

Liz offered that you could buy cheap in an undesirable area and hope that the place becomes gentrified and your gamble pays off.  But then, it might not.  “That’s not the best plan for first time buyers.  In general, you need to look at the current interest rates, what the rent-equivalent is in the area, other expenses associated with home ownership, potential downturns in the economy and what the potential for appreciation is for your area.  You need to research economic forces and have at least a 20% down payment.”

What about being a landlord?  “Oh, sometimes, tenants don’t pay rent on time.  Or they move out unexpectedly.”  Oh.  And the other day, at -20 C, my friend in Montreal, new owner of a multiplex, posted on Facebook that he found himself in a crawl space checking to see if pipes had frozen.

All this made me and my 5-inch heels teeter-totter in dejected retreat, back to my parent’s house, where after 8 years of being abroad, living on my own, I still have a room and free butterfly shrimp dinners.  I had to regroup.

The best thing for me, I thought, was to do investigative house-hunting myself.  If I were to really put myself in the buying market, all these ideas would stop being theoretical, and might just start making sense for my own situation.

So, regroup I did!  I assembled a Voltron house-buying team!

1. My friend’s friend who owns a tool belt and has actually built a house with his bare hands, and sold it. That removed a lot of my girly-girl anxiety of cabinetry and pipes.
2. My long-time friend from high school who is a mortgage broker. I can really trust to talk about the innards of my piggy bank with him.
3. A Real Estate agent whose whole family has been in the business for decades, who actually looks at me when I talk to her and doesn’t walk ahead of me.

Then, I hopped into my agent’s immaculate, cinnamon-smelling white BMW.  My hunt?  I was looking at investment property, where I could live in some part of it, yet still have lots of decent living space for a tenant.  Here is what I saw down the Rabbit Warren of Toronto Real Estate:

Davenport and Lansdowne (sold for $432,000): A giant, detached, labyrinthine legal duplex (at least 2,000 sq ft).  Rundown on the inside, mold, marinated in at least 60 years of cooking smells, old wiring, needed at least $100K in overhaul.  Had long-term tenants paying $1700, but there would be no keeping them with a months-long restoration.  Location and bones only.  But spectacular for deeper pockets than mine.

Pape Station (sold for around $430,000): This narrow (17 ft wide) charming, but creaky and moldy home listed for $299,000 hoping for a bidding war and got it.  2 years ago the owner tried to privately sell it for $469K, but failed.  It was dark and musty inside.  I was afraid of the extent of mold and water damage I sensed when taking a breath and looking at the blackened ceiling tiles and old doors and windows that would not shut tight.  But it had 300 showings and ended up on the news!

Coxwell and Gerrard (last seen at $440,000):  Semi-detached duplex in East China Town and close-ish to the Beaches.  This home had great structure, but apparently had old wiring (the house insurance was unusually high at over $2,000) that would require eviction of tenants and at least $10-15K in electrical work.  I felt intimidated by that prospect.  I felt with the overhaul, rent wouldn’t really exceed what it was currently at $2300 because the number of bedrooms wouldn’t change—whereas it was possible to buy a cheaper home with this rental prospect.  Similar homes had recently been sold on average for $70-100K more on the same street, so had I bought it, theoretically, I would have “made $70K+ right away”.  Whatever.

Keele and Eglinton (last seen at $349,000): Duplex, two separate garages.  Location is near future site of Eglinton subway.  This was entirely tenanted for $2050.  This had been a bungalow, with an added 2^nd floor, which was too low, and not really usable for regular sized-people.  The basement apt was also super low—barely 6ft.  I felt this could be a sort of cash cow now, but it would be hard to re-sell or maybe even re-tenant due to its strange, Hobbity features.

Houses being sold by Real Estate agent owners: I saw two homes that were magazine perfect. Though, when I asked about the previous date and purchase price, they were fairly recent (within 3-5 years) and at least 100K less than the current asking prices.  Granted “a lot” was done to the homes—but the changes were cosmetic and did not warrant the exorbitant mark-up.  It seems that home-buyers knew this, and though these were the prettiest and most move-in-ready homes by far, they remained unsold at many days on the market.

During this process, I found that agents have a way of pep talking the weirdest properties into your consciousness.  Treacherous stairs?  Strange smell?  Dubious building material?  “Weeellll, you can just…”  (Say. No.)

Another thing I couldn’t “get” was how in general, people walked into a house for 10 minutes and could decide that, ok, they’d buy it!  This is the biggest purchase most people will ever make in their lives!  I’ve bought coffee presses under greater scrutiny.  Worse still, there is the strategy of listing the house for a very low price—even down to $1.  This invites many showings.  Then, on a pre-planned “offer date” (a Real Estate selling strategy) House Hornies have a bit of a bidding war—which drives up the price.  Basically, 10 buyers show up at a designated time, make their offers, give each other cut eye and then stake the place out in their cars, waiting.  Triangulated calls are made to-ing and fro-ing about the price until some people give up or bid higher.  If you try to put in a condition like you’d like to have a home inspection first, you automatically lose out to the other offers.  (So, homes are selling without even being inspected for stuff like plumbing problems!)  In the end, someone “wins”.  Apparently, this is all justified because “things never sell beyond market value” as the old capitalist adage goes.  Granted, not everyone is a rookie like me—they don’t need inspections to understand the value of a home.  But I’m thinking that when you have a whole family and the kids need to be placed in a school and you’ve lost out at 20 other offer dates, I bet things get a little emotional and you concede that $20K extra on a mortgage will just make it all stop.  I don’t think it’s all little Donald Trumps dealing in these low-brow immigrant-era duplexes.  Cha.  Though a lot of foreign money is coming in, buying up these places for their location and knocking them down to build more expensive homes.  In which case, how will the average Canadian ever compete?

Btw, Spring, the busy season for Real Estate where every house is sold on this Offer Date model, has not even started yet.

I count myself lucky that I can eat butterfly shrimp for months to come.  And that I don’t need to…anything, really.  I have the luxury of not being desperate right now.  I do feel though, that home ownership for my cohort will not be possible after these next 10 or so years in Toronto.  It’s worth it to look into it, at least and understand your pain threshold :/

The Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation has a totally helpful website, especially this page, which helps determine if you are financially ready to buy a house.

Then, put on a prophylactic, it’s a swamp out there!

Me & Una rather unconcerned about the AL East, in the least

In addition to the tannic shock from the fine wine selection at the Wingz Bar, I was flabbergasted to learn that Una’s dad is THE Won H. Lee, world renowned sculptor, and, hold the phone: Chartered Accountant!  “What Griffin Clawed Unicorn hybrid have you been hiding from me??” I implored.  Seriously, a successful fine artist with an accountancy practice?!  What’s up with that!  We had hit on conversation gold—the point in an evening where I wished I was the type of person to carry around a notepad or voice recorder instead of fuschia lipstick and a Shopper’s Optimum Card.

Nonetheless, Una, ever so organized, obliged my ants-in-pants by setting up an appointment to meet dad/Mr. Lee within the upcoming weeks.  Between working at his studios and bronze foundries in Mexico and China, Mr. Lee actually replied to my random email scratch at his door:

In our interview, Mr. Lee discusses the price of swagger in the artistic world; comin’ at capitalism from the inside and how being a clueless, tax-evading starving artistic soul is nothing to be proud of.  It’s about time all of us learn that money is just the Black & Decker power tool that can cut off your fingers or nail solid that stage upon which you need to do your interpretive dance of life.  Cautionary tales, tax tips and the challenge to discern through art: Whether man makes the money or money makes the man (to paraphrase LL Cool J).  Mr. Lee lectures to Fine Art students about this topic.  Here is your 18-minute dose!

Below is the transcript of a second, shorter interview with Mr. Lee about “Immanence”:

Me: The word “Immanence” features largely in your work and in your artistic philosophy.  Can you tell us what that is?

Mr. Lee: Immanence, to me, is probably one of the most important words related to my work.  We live in a society that is completely preconceived.  There are ideas, especially in Western philosophy, that are dictated to us.  We are governed by so many factors such as language, such as history and culture…money.  Society has so many constructed things for us.  At least this “immanence”, what I’m talking about, is a pure encounter.  For example, if I want to look at this chair, this chair has a name for it: Chair.  And it has a function: to sit down on it.  And it’s made of wood and made of this and made of that.  That’s already given, constructed and preconceived.  When I work, at least, I don’t want that.  I want to meet something fresh, in the moment.  And when I meet a person, I want to meet this person as an encounter rather than…OK…this person, [for example] you: Vietnamese background, Asian background, with a name such as yours.  Rather than that, I want to see the person as the person is without any preconceived ideas.  And my work is the same thing.  When I work, if I have a preconceived idea about what kind of work I will be doing, then it will be a failure for me.  When I work, my starting point, is just a flicker of an image coming through and I catch that flicker, but I don’t want to catch it in complete form.  I want its “unformed-ness” to prevail.  And it leads me.  The work leads me rather than I lead the work to a certain point.  That is only possible if I have that immanent encounter with the piece.

So when people see your work, would they say that it’s unformed?

A lot of my work, they call it “abstract”.  Its “unformed-ness”; a lot of my work’s strength, the life, comes from its “undeformed-ness”.  It is a form, but the complete form doesn’t inform me.  But the “unformed-ness” of it gives me the possibility of different work.

And that’s what you hope your viewers will see?

Yes, the power comes from the possibility that some form is coming out of it.  And therefore they feel more liveliness in my work.

But isn’t it difficult to completely escape preconceived notions?  I mean, we live with Education, in a society, in a community, having built upon previous ideas…

Absolutely.  We have to struggle.  I have to struggle, every moment of my work, of my life, to see something as it is, rather than putting a value system or any kind of preconceived idea on anything…a person…it’s a struggle.  Every moment, I have to get rid of that.  Trying to see things with a fresh, chaotic mind is what I’m striving for.

It’s almost like what Picasso said, “An artist is a child who has survived”.  It’s being able to see everything, I guess, as a child does…everything is new…

Yes!  Unlearning is much more difficult than learning.  We learn too much.  Right form the start, we have our name, which is a given.  We are already defined.  ”You’re Won Lee”, OK.  ”You’re this and your’re that.  You come from this kind of family”…it’s all the teachings we observe.  And unlearning all the things that we’ve learned is much more difficult than learning.

OK, so there’s Unlearning…and then what?  Becoming?…Something else?

Exactly, “Becoming”.  ”Something else” is not important.  Just becoming is the most important thing.  It’s a process.

Wow.  Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Drama has been a fact of my life since a swimming instructor, Francis, roll-called my Vietnamese name, Thu, in my first swimming class in kindergarten and proceeded to ask “Three?  Four?”, chuckling to herself.  With a budding sense of dignity, albeit a shivery and skinny one in my yellow seashell patterned one-piece, I was determined not to cry in front of all these new kids.  If you recall, that peppery feeling in the middle of your face of wanting to cry has never felt so powerful as in those days of a new beating human heart in a tiny body.  For me, at that moment, the sensation at least succeeded to push out a centimetre-thick lens of tears coating my eyes.  I didn’t dare blink.  I walked slowly and carefully to the edge of the pool as if I were balancing two giant watery fish eggs on my face.  And I waited for the friggin’ eternity it took for her to instruct us to get in the pool.  Underwater, it was finally ok to let go where sobs were muffled and everyone was going to have an equally wet, puffy chlorinated face anyway.

*     *     *

I’ve since learned that people are just plain stupid and like to act out.  You find out in school in the decade of recess, the interminable cafeteria lunch hours, then you get a job and find out not much has changed.

Elena cuts up a blond wig on her first day in Santa Barbara

I’ll admit people who like to screw you over don’t always do it because they’re stupid.  They do it out of jealous rage too.  The instructive love-triangle storyline of Santa Barbara, circa the late 80s can illustrate:  Elena Norris goes through a lot of wigs, cunning, personal expense, name changes, kidnappings of others and eventually her own death, just to win over Cruz Castillo, whom she didn’t like seeing married to Eden Capwell in the first place.  But in the end, we find out Elena was really just the puppet psychiatric patient of Eden’s ex-husband Kirk, who had elaborately tried to frame Cruz for Elena’s murder, to win back his ex. Great. Plan.

Do-good secretary Krystle (left) was no match for bi-polar ex-wife Alexis (right)

80s prime-time extravaganza Dynasty, Seasons 1-9, proved that people who should have no cares in this material world (i.e. they RICH!) actually do because they have massive(ly fragile) egos.  As a consequence, if they could eat you as lowly cannibals, they would, if that might inflict a bit of one-up-manship on you.  In the world of the oil baron Carringtons, they slept with your spouse or frightened you into an induced miscarriage and did hostile takeovers of your life’s long work, just to get you back for the time you didn’t call when you said you would.  The show gained real momentum with the introduction of scheming be-otch extraordinaire, Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan, who not only hogged every letter of the alphabet for herself, but had the wiles to marry her enemy’s enemy on his death bed with no pre-nup, thereby exponentially multiplying her power over everybody!  (Worse than any ex-wife Nintendo execs could ever dream up for Wario.)  The show peaked at a 60 million viewership and even attracted cameos by former first couple Gerald Ford and his wife, and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, showing that even the most reserved of us are all pandering gluttons of melodramatic dish.  Ratings eventually tanked and the Möbius storylines never got resolved.

Dynasty.  Die nasty.

My last example of infamous motives behind middle-school-brained back stabbings is of course, money.  For those of us in the bland non-TV striving middle-class land of water coolers, there is no plausible enough tele-novella storyline for us to carry on every workday.  Passion just doesn’t fit in a setting of taupe wrinkle-resistant business casual.  And we all may have an ego, but that doesn’t weigh in so heftily when our title is at best, some euphemistic blend of the words “Accounts”, “Brand”, “Assistant”, “Area” and “Manager”.  And stupidity is always an underlying possibility, but if I had to pick a shine in the eye of enemy colleagues, I’d cite our universal concern for money as the psychotic voice of unreason in the crap we pull on each other.

If you notice, everyone around you is mortgaged, depended upon, and perhaps in the middle of some hot new mid-life crisis car payments etc.  Knowing this about your colleagues can be useful in informing you of the route they are going to take should workplace issues arise.  I give you real-life cases and the ensuing boomerangic karma that neatly wraps them up as instructional guides to drama-dodging; my presents to you:

Case A: Middle Manager A has two kids in private American universities, and an online degree of mystery value.  He’s a long time creep and someone finally calls him out.  Instead of just apologizing, he attempts to crush the other’s career in abject paranoia of losing his own position.  The other sues and gets a big settlement.

Case B: Co-worker B is waiting for her retirement bonus.  She has the opportunity as a senior among peers to speak up for changes that need to be made to better the workplace, but doesn’t and instead panders in her final years to ensure the bonus, to pay for an outstanding mortgage on a home that houses her granddaughter.  She wonders why after all these years, her last day wasn’t more celebrated by colleagues.

Case C: Team Leader C has a 30-year mortgage, a child and is trying to make management.  He actively listens to staff complaints about management and is asked to do something, but for the whole year, he tai-chis the whole affair so that he doesn’t appear to be an out-right management lackey, yet avoids actually having to do anything against them at all.  He doesn’t make management anyway and the staff doubts the existence of his balls.

Case D: VP D is a male in an all-boys’ club and surrounds himself with actually certified people to get the job done, but then takes all the credit.  He’s been given a salary he doesn’t deserve and due to poor math skills, he’s leveraged his net worth 4-fold to ride with the big dogs (big mortgage, nice car etc).  This of course, overheats the sweatshop at work to prove his worth and perhaps to get promoted to pay off said trappings.  Pissed off, the worker bees quit to lay bare his jig.

Case E: Administrator E has an ailing husband, whose health care will cost a lot to keep him alive.  Her yearly salary, if kept on cruise-control would help cover those costs.  Thus, she throws herself wholeheartedly, nodding in agreement to any and all awful ideas cooked up in the inbred groupthink swamp that the administration has become.  But one day, she over steps and proactively brings to life one of these terrible ideas.  Too bad there happened to be a preemptive court order against it and eyes had been on it.  Now, she has to represent the administration as the key witness for the defense.

*     *     *

Epilogue:

In the end, thankfully, Francis disappeared after her unpopular roll-call torment of Season 1.  Budget cuts?  A drowning?  Who knows!

PS: there exist a few who are able to transcend all this drama.  No matter how mortgaged or beholden to a job they are, there is little to nothing that screws with their moral compass or their intellectual navigation of life.  They do the right thing by others. To them:

I say, “Thanks for watching out for us!”

These people have turned the machine back on itself by using the last bastion of non-partisan, areligious, humanity-unanimity gold: our collective wrath against harming children.  Who could disagree that these ads were right on the mark?  ”To smoke is to be a slave to tobacco” [Read: to smoke is to be a slave to tobacco companies and their shareholders who don't care whether you live or die, just as long as this quarter, you were still jonesing].

And that generic white, middle-aged suit?  Ad exec?  Big business CEO?  Faceless shareholder?  Dad, who knows best?  Well, whoever he is, he seems to know even the young among us quite well enough to put his hand on our head and get us to assume the position.  We look up at him, uncertain, but full of trust, taking the funny-tasting stick in our mouths.  And after repeated belligerent thrusts of media campaigns to convince us that we want it; and the seep of addictive chemicals to ensure that we need it, we have long suppressed our gag reflex and succumb.

This ad makes fun of us by being so unnoticeably background-bland; non-nude, non-prettified.  Oh, it’s just a child sucking a…WHAT THE?!  That’s right, world!  Are you paying attention?  Tobacco is beyond redemption.  Thanks for noticing.  Powerful PSA.  Though we could have easily replaced the word “tobacco” with crack, sex-trafficking, mindless consumerism or:

Investment and Commercial Banking.

Are these not often akin to Statutory Rape? The vast majority of private investors have no idea what / who they are “getting in bed with” when they are recommended some fund / index to invest in.  They don’t realize that management fees are secured regardless of their investments’ movements or that high-octane bonuses are rewarded expressly for unloading garnished crap onto them.  Or when students, families or small businesses take out loans–do they fully understand the labyrinthine terms of repayment and threat of life-servitude to this, even though banks often back the loans through government or private insurance, regardless?  Therefore, the disparity of knowledge / sophistication between these two parties getting into a deal together is no less horrific than in those back-ass-ward cases where 5-year-old Yemeni brides “marry” their old rotting horndog uncles.  Something gross is going down here.  One side has their entire future at stake in exchange for the other’s easy score.  One of the lives has a vastly greater risk of being shattered, while the other barely blinks.  Let’s stigmatize ALL of this, in ALL its camouflage shades of putrefaction.

We have too long sanitized such a culture of abuse by putting it in a backdrop of friendly local banks with Chinese language pamphlets, or tall, inspirational glass buildings with dudes in bespoke tailoring.

Even large institutional investment banks have screwed each other.  LIBOR rigging this year caused long-time syphilitic lovers to hold off lending in miffed contempt for awhile!  But despite no assurances that all disease was clear, the level of testosterone couldn’t handle the withdrawal for long.

In the end, the issue isn’t just that banks do and will always have the the upper hand on their clients, it’s that the lubricant of Trust is gone.  And worst of all, Greed has evolved into a drug-resistant strain that rots every contract or covenant it underwrites.  Abusing clients is not just a matter of being wrong and gross, it is painful and life-shattering for them.

That’s a PSA worth putting out there!

As a Certified Financial Planner, she has smartly left the caged-walls of companydom behind and has struck out on her own to help the people of Toronto, and now, all over the web, to feel that Financial Planning is easily within their grasp. This, as with Financial Literacy, still bloats with gastritis in our collective belly, as we are largely still unable to digest such big spikey topics. However, over the kitchen table, Shannon uses her big sister smarts to get us to just taste this surprisingly palatable fare.

Though, I may bubble-headedly confer “Financial Babedom” on her as a homage to her famous year-long project in 2011 of coaching 300 women in Toronto on Finance, on a unique barter basis…

…I do so in full recognition that she is so importantly helping us navigate the adult world of money and the life consequences of (mis)understanding it.

Shannon probably gets asked a lot of questions by all kinds of demographic groups, so quite selfishly, I decided to focus on what my friends and I, in our  20s and 30s, are totally dealing with: the Finances of Dating; Being Chivalrous and Independent; Being Single; Trying to Live and Save…

Me: Why did you decide to focus on helping (young) women in particular with financial planning in your Barter Babes Project?

Shannon: I had been conducting research on GenY and money for some time and noticed the trend in young women…. we are very anxious about money, more so than young men. There’s a fear of never having enough and a guilt around spending habits. I figured I’d start where I noticed the biggest fears are.

Do the fellas have a particular circumstance regarding financial planning that you’d have advice for?

I’ve found the young men have a really healthy outlook on money. Younger males tend to be less risk averse and are more willing to ask for larger wages. If there isn’t enough money, most young men plan to “just make more” whereas females worry a lot more. I’ve found men don’t start really worrying about money until there are kids involved – that’s the game changer and the great equalizer of financial fears.

In this age of dying chivalry, people staying single for longer, online dating and restaurants that charge tax and tip–what are the rules for paying on dates? What would you budget a month for dating expenses? Being lonely is expensive. Break down the expenses of a good date for us! (Or dating life…)

Oooo, the staying single for longer has a HUGE affect on our finances, both male and female. For starters, sharing living expenses is excellent for finances, and being single longer means higher living costs for longer periods of time.

Online dating can get extremely expensive as well because the opportunity for multiple first and second dates increases. Everyone, male or female, wants to make a good impression and have a memorable first date, so it’s likely there will be an activity, food, drink etc involved – these all cost money.

For the morbidly curious, this is how much a 2nd date cost me in Toronto. 2 pints, 2 scotches, 2 entrees (& a really good server that night).

There are no rules for paying on a date. It’s honestly each to their own. However, if you go on a first date and the other person doesn’t pay for it, maybe be less hard on them these days. It doesn’t mean chilvarly is dead, it means this person has been on too many first dates, paid and then have it go nowhere. That can be over $100/week!

Usually, the real courting and chivalry can come out after the third or fourth date, when both parties are sure that they are having a good time and want to continue seeing each other. Chilvary doesn’t have to been 100% financial either….

As for a dating budget, there can’t be one hard-fast rule because everyone dates differently. But, my advice is to pay attention to what you’re spending. If you notice credit card debt mounting from buying new outfits before many dates or treating again and again, be cautious. It may be time to start feeling better in the clothes you already have and going on experience dates – like a park, free art exhibits etc.

How did you get so good at Finance? (I didn’t perceive that in Canada I received any Financial Education–unless I chose it as a major) Was it your family? A good head for numbers? Your own drive? What would you tell parents / teachers today to start telling their kids? Or adults to do for themselves?

It all started with my family. My parents run a family business and we were involved in the financial ups and downs our whole lives. Talking about money was never shut out at the kitchen table, so I was never intimidated by it and didn’t realize it was a taboo subject for others until I was older. I think the business side of finances and the ability and enjoyment of number crunching got into my system from home and then in uni I studied it and did all my letters then.

In addition, I’m a huge numbers geek who excelled at math throughout highschool, so again, I really love working with numbers. I was naturally drawn to it.

I would tell parents to talk about money with their kids – good or bad. Bring the children in on the household financial decisions. Even if they are young and can’t grasp the details, the idea that money comes and goes is normalizing and healthy. It’s set realistic expectations for future incomes and spending.

With little hope of living off adequate private savings by retirement (i.e. low interest rates; no savings at all), pensions that may or may not be enough; the dream of homeownership in the GTA being ri-don-kulous; already being saddled with on average $27K student debt in early adulthood–what will the future generation need to be doing differently in the future? (or starting now?)

We need to save. Plain and simple. Maxing out the TFSA is a huge benefit. It will help to lower our retirement taxable income, and hopefully aid us in qualifying for more government pensions.

In addition, I think that we should seriously look at shared first-time home buyer scenarios. Pair up with another person or couple to get a large down payment, split the house and the bills, make a contract and sell it at a set price. Both parties can take advantage of the real estate market, but still afford life.

*     *     *

[Hmm, if you're in the Greater Toronto Area and are looking for cheap date ideas, Cheap Dude dot com (!) has got the LOW DOWN!]

Thanks Shannon! <3

Shannon’s advice can be found on Facebook and Twitter.  And check out Shannon’s show “Money Awesomeness” on the Coral Channel (YouTube)!  She talks about everything from joint banking for couples to buying a house responsibly to saving on ATM fees and on lunch–they’re short and highly watchable:

- Balaclavas with pom poms

- Can-can high-kicks at the altar of Russian orthodoxy

- Punk rock in Russia

- Smiles at sentencing hearings

- Coloured spring dresses in winter

- Nuns horrified at young girls genuflecting

- Perceived threat through knit-wear

- The Patriarchy carting off girls for, after all the dust settled,…wishing upon a star

These women, through this rare formula of originality, were able to command the attention of the world, in particular, getting newscasters to say “Pussy Riot”, attract the support of aged rockstars like moths to long-forgotten tasty wool, and make what started out as an idiosyncrasy of their country, a world wide issue: “Putin Out!”  Who cares?  Apparently, we all do!

After my heart especially is the point of the knit-wear worn by the women.  The Pussy Rioters remain “anonymous” by donning wooly balaclavas during their public appearances, some sewn out of t-shirts, some elaborately knitted with eyelets, ribbing to fit and said pom poms on top.  They wear them to make it a non-issue any individual cult of personality of group members (i.e. their message being up for the taking by anyone who wants to join) and to foil the arrest-attempts following their well-documented culture shock jams.

Back to the woolies: knitted things are the most non-threatening of things.  They are by nature, benign–made by a skill that in this modern world is only truly attainable if and only if, you have a proper loving relationship with your babushka–because it could only be she who taught you how to make them or who makes them for you.  I daresay, this has been a multi-generational pussy riot (!)

The very first thing I crocheted at 13, was a copy of an orange toy from Sonic Youth’s Dirty album cover.  My grannies died long before then, but I had a granny on loan in the form of my mom’s friend’s mom.  In an afternoon, she taught me an algorithm of loops that would keep the heads and necks of several future ex-boyfriends warm.  As for “why a toy?”  I have always been too late and too old for everything I’ve ever done.  As a teen, I still loved stuffed creatures because they were forever chubbily sympathetic to long afternoons of emo-bouts of ceiling-staring or almost-mononucleosis (same thing).  They always forgave being tossed about, languishing in the dust of neglect or squished between bed and wall for months at a time.  Anyway, this orange knit caterpillar (?) on the album cover inspired me for being rare and precious–qualities that were true about the true spirit of punk rock: well-meaning and magically endearing only to those with the clarity to see it.  So, I plagiarized it.  Ripping it off was my ode to punk rock.  Kim Gordon, I figured, would have approved–after all, being a girl was a huge lasagna of complications and irony: “Hey Kool Thing.  So tell me.  What are you gonna do for me?  Are you gonna save us girls from the male, white corporate oppression?“

I imagined his body and didn’t make a scarf

I once read a book about the women of Russia and how they necessarily have been the backbone of Russian families for generations after World War 2.  The 10 million young men who died from fighting the Nazis (up to 20 million estimated by some), and then the disproportionately male gulag prisoners who totaled up to 2 million more, in a country of 190 million at the time, left matriarchs largely in charge in the homes of Russian society.  Furthermore, survivors who returned from the harrowing experiences of war or years-long labour camps, were psychologically destroyed, unable to make ends meet for their families in a desolate economy, amidst crushing unemployment and an epidemic of alcoholism–the highest rate in the world.  The male spirit has been decimated in post-war, and post-Communism Russia leaving the day-to-day survival to the women.  Ruling them all, has been the crooked air-conditioned all-male vanguard in the seats of power who never left.

I wonder if this is the showdown we are witnessing now?  It is the women of Russia who have been behind Russia’s perennial survival of its many winters of discontent; the only reason that Russia is a going concern at all to this day.  To be silenced in a misogynistic regime?  They’re totally not having it.  Not with Internet and knitting skills!  Oh Ladies!  Here is my ode to you.  Sorry it is such a piss-poor Photoshop job, but I pledged a billion Amish hours trying to depict your keen usage of knitted wear as well as I could:

My family had been political refugees and were kinda the only Asians on the island of Caucasian retirees in the early 1980s.

Mr. & Mrs. Avard baked a cake for my mom’s birthday.  (I am the shortest one).

So, one day, a lovely elderly man by the name of Mr. Avard, who was one of our sponsors, was driving through the quaint shopping streets of Charlottetown when he saw these two Japanese ladies.  They were there to see about Lucy Maude Montgomery and all things Anne of Green Gables (which has, still, a huge cult following in Japan!)  Mr. Avard was struck with excited inspiration at the sight of these tourists, so he pulled up next to them and asked them to get in his car!  And they did!  (Oh small town yesteryear of non-serial killers!)  Then, all three drove to our house and rang our door bell.  My dad answered, and my sister and I, 6 and 3, smushed our faces to the window, curious.  We rarely had guests–we didn’t really know anyone yet!  Mr. Avard, in a voice lucid and youthful despite being in his 80s, boomed: “I’ve found you some friends!”  Being Vietnamese-speaking only at the time, my dad knew this threatened to be a bit of a buzz-kill.  So he said what he could, “Hiiii!” and got in the car too.  All four of them that afternoon went driving around the island taking pictures of the red sands and green gabled homes of PEI.

Months later, when the two Japanese ladies were long back in Tokyo, Japan after their unusual encounter with these locals, they sent my family a Christmas package containing two Monchichis, two Kiki and La La picnic sets and two Licca-chan dolls.  For kids who had been used to receiving donated, secondhand toys (which we also still keep), my sister and I thought these fabulous Japanese-quality toys were magical!!

23 years later, I moved to Tokyo, only to live 3 stations away from one of the Japanese ladies.  On the phone we arranged to meet after all those years, but she said, “How will I ever know it’s you?  You were only 3 at the time!”  Our families had corresponded via letters and cards, but never photographs.  I thought and said, “Don’t worry, I have a plan!”  So, later that day, Masako san found me right away sitting at the station McDonald’s with:

my old Monchichi, still sucking on his bottle after all those years!

So, I love monkeys and Japan.

In 2006, I illustrated and wrote a bilingual children’s book about a monkey that needed to make it in the world beyond the zoo fence, by being entrepreneurial among humans.  I used Japanese-quality paper and did kiri-e (paper cutting) to illustrate.  My humans were inspired by the incomparable chubby cuteness of Japanese babies, who can never do wrong!

While I would never create anything that moralizes about anything (bleh!) I have to say, way back in ’06, my monkey was The Most Enterprising of Any Children’s Book Monkey Ever!  (An honour I flagrantly bestow on him without really checking–but really, are there any?)  So, is he a horrible and greedy monkey?  Or is he some futuristic hybrid of cash-money and loveliness?  Can there ever be such a superstar?

I think he is Epicurean, by philosophy!  Or selflessly clever, like the Japanese.  Or will do anything for a snack, like my 19-year-old ex-boyfriend!  Tell me what you think!

And that the bone structure of a dinosaur was liable to change so much as to confuse non-dinosaurs.  Now usually, during the regular day-to-day, these scientists compete the crap out of each other to race to dig sites in case they might be the ones to name a newly discovered species of ol’ lizard bones; hoping to fulfill a childhood pact-to-self, no doubt.  Elbows out!  Shoes affixed with back-blowing torches!  Collegial cooperation be damned.  But, I imagine that, just perhaps, such a discovery in the field must have been a rare unifying moment among professionals.

Maybe so!

But not so much over here among our beloved nerds in Economics, whose in-fighting rivals the Desperate Housewives of Jurassic Park.  (No joke, they insult each other by calling each other “economist!”).  With the Global Financial Crisis: fresh insights, books and revised theories are popping up everywhere bringing a renaissance to this previously office-carpeted field.  This would seem to be a cause for collective celebration!  But not so.  And I think it’s because individually, economists have never had it so good.  Now more than ever, they are being treated like Rock Stars: they have brand name blogs and book deals; British people invite them overseas for a chat; they have giant website followings without having to strip on camera (?); they are in essence, body-surfing over this growing mosh-pit of fans interested in Economics.  These latter-day Rock Stars are taking it all in!

Woe unto he or she who dares steps in the path of their light!

Believe it or not, Economics wasn’t always this sexy.  Back in the day, we had guys like Hyman Minsky, who few understood and fewer dated.  Or there was John Maynard Keynes:

‘Nuff said.

It’s too bad that modern economists’ Day in the Sun happens to correspond with the Global Economics equivalent of an out-of-control genetically engineered T-Rex running through the streets, foreclosing its jaws on us, because, we kinda need them all to unite, NOW!—to become a Super Collective Brain Fighting Machine!

(However, coming from Tokyo, I can tell you that any concerted response of People Who Should Know How, to effectively battle an industrial-sized Godzilla is just truly fictional indeed.)

This past week, as I have been vortexed into all these interviews, debates and documentaries of talking heads (I <3 youtube!), I realized something: there is some straight-up math that cannot possibly work out in this model of fame: as these economists gain Rock Star status, they can’t possibly have time to write their column, blog, work on their next book, prepare their next radio show or TV appearance, work on their next formulation, do integrated research with others, read each others’ criticisms, respond to them properly, travel, attend conferences, prepare and give speeches, accept awards, run for office, look good, eat well, sleep well, bathe, tend to their families, their plants, their pets etc. and truly be able to think straight.  It’s just not humanly possible.  It’s the Paradox of the Thoughtful Economist.

But, strangely, in this equilibrium where:

fame= no time, and

no time = no time to think,

but no thinking = no fame,

Dr. Keen, who is Busy-As-F@#&, managed to spend a whole day out with me on Toronto’s Centre Island!  Kinda just hanging out!

Here he is with some Canadian Geese.

Here he is leaning on a wall.

And opening up his sushi bento.

Getting him out of the city, in the middle of Lake Ontario, had him speaking to me in ways I understood!  Maybe it was the fresh air!  Maybe it’s because we are both parselmouths.  (OMG I did it: Chinese Horoscope x Harry Potter x Economics!!)  Sorry.  Here is an interview I caught of him after he finished eating his sushi, whilst wearing his Alpha Wolfram swag (don’t ask):

So, after my close encounter with this Economics Glitterat…o(?), I wanted to know who else in the field  was making sense (or not) regarding their solutions to end the Global Economic Crisis.  So, I studied up!  Here is my guide to:

The Rock Stars of Economics!

disclaimer*

Wildly popular among many of the young, but considered silly among the political and economics establishment. Perennial appearances on TV, despite being dismissed as passé in the 90s. Sincere effort to inspire the young to think what it means to fundamentally be American. But it all might be a zipper suit, just to stay in spotlight.

US Congressman Ron Paul points out egregious contradictions to the US Constitution in prevailing economic policy such as having the Fed monopolize the determination of the amount of money in their economy and the interest rates—which he rightfully says no one (person) is smart enough to do; and that purposeful inflation is stealing from the value of hard-earned money and savings.  He thinks a smaller government that doesn’t spend on stupid wars or bailouts or sticks its expensive nose in other world affairs would greatly reduce the debt and promote a better image of the US abroad (tho, can you imagine anyone ever dare touching the Fed, the US war machine or its presence in the Middle East?  ‘Xactly).  In a debate with Dr. Paul Krugman,  he rails against printing more money to solve the Debt Crisis:

“[The US] still [has] a little leeway because the world still trusts our dollar…but that just means it’s a bigger bubble for our bonds and our dollar…we don’t know [how much printed money it would take get out of the crisis]…if you continue to believe that the world will take our dollars no matter what our debt is, then Americans shouldn’t have to work anymore because we can just print all the money!”

Weird thing is, he IS the establishment: a rich congressman.  And he still might end up supporting Mitt Romney, whom he contradicted on everything, including economic policy in the Republican primaries, just to stay in the political mainstream.  He’s like that.

Anointed by higher powers / IS a higher power (?) Suggests highly populist policy meant to ease the pain of people in the here and now. Great book sales. Accused of being “socialist”. His ideas involve paradoxes and counter-intuitive thinking. Not the best predictor of major moments (in Economics) through the years, but loved nonetheless by Liberals. Jokingly recommends Armageddon to keep life exciting.

Professor Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize by himself, recommends spending to get out of debt, on a government level (=deficit spending).  Many complain that this is counter-intuitive mostly because it will add to future debt and cause the same problem later.  But, Dr. Krugman points out that if we don’t spend the money now somehow to build, roads, schools etc. and get banks to lend to small businesses and get people working for their sanity’s sake and put some disposable income in their pockets, the economy will just remain at a standstill—in which case there will be no future to speak of.  Dr. Krugman references the successful big war spending that happened after World War 2 started and his nostalgia for that America, and has jokingly(?) suggested that an Alien Invasion / War of the Worlds would get the money circulating just like that, why not!  I kind of think that he has a loose respect for the Fed’s handle on the money printing press and figures that if the Fed was able to print out a bunch to bailout banks a few years ago, with the merest tinkle of the butler bell by banking heavies, what’s really stopping it from doing the same to make sure social services are being provided at such a dire time for the people?  However, those sick of the culture of profligate spending and the obese American debt are not amused–and refuse to be categorized as heartless because of it.  As well, the Fed (and other central banks he has publicly “encouraged”) seem to ignore him, so as to maintain their image of Knowing What They Are Doing! Don’t-Tell-Us-What-To-Do!  Still, he sermonizes every week.

Represents a class we are all inherently afraid of. He proposes natural selection at its best, an economy with prey and predator mixing freely, a la Mesozoic Era, or as nature would have had it. Despite being a successful beast on the whole (=millionaire), he lost a senatorial race in the US and therefore has small political appendages. In a way, he speaks the truth about the real natural order of things. However, complex erring humans have been complicating his plans, however delicious they may be.

Mr. Peter Schiff predicted back in 2006-7, using his big boss heuristics, that this crazy spending habit of Americans would be catching up to them soon.  Like Ron Paul, he doesn’t figure that the American dollar can just ride on its reputation of “What-Exactly?” for much longer.  So, the Chinese and Japanese housewives who have been lending Americans their hard-earned savings, via their governments who buy American dollars, will one day be tired of it all and demand it back.  No one will want to accept American “paper” in exchange for goods for much longer.  More to this, the type of spending that the US has being doing on this borrowed money has been mostly for consumption (i.e. on imported new cars, new clothes) and not on productive investments (i.e. factories, new technologies) which would create jobs, exports to sell and income to pay off debt.  This means that America can’t even produce enough goods itself to be self-sufficient (and has to import) nor has the savings to draw from to pay for what it needs.  He figures America needs to stop borrowing money, admit that it can’t pay the debt it has now in full (this is the big elephant in the room).  Then, in order to redeem itself to the world, it needs to make an honest effort at cutting spending (i.e. social security, education etc) and paying down whatevertrillions it is that it owes.  Any prolonging of this will just make it worse.  Mr. Schiff would like to see all the regulatory gates and taxes lowered, which currently may discourage companies from doing business in America, which would be a mass incentive for business to boom again.  He went down to Occupy Wall St. to say he is with the protesters, though that there should be MORE capitalism, not less, much to everyone’s confusion.  He points out that the leaching/leeching comes from a culture of both social and corporate welfare.  Oy…Mr. Schiff.  Give me a minute, all this is giving me indigestion like a piece of unregulated meat…

Brought 3D to the world of Economics modeling. The Steamboat Willies of yesteryear are resentful of his new-fangled Pixar-esque technology, which reveal never-before seen factors in Economics, wowing the kids. You’ve seen him around a few times now…looks familiar lurking around here, doesn’t he?

Professor Steve Keen, back in 2005 predicted the 2008 crash using historical data and math.  The factor of huge private debt (not just government debt), not considered by other economists, appears in Dr. Keen’s calculations.  He reveals how this debt bears an uncanny resemblance to the circumstances surrounding the Great Depression, only huge-r!  Private debt (held by households, businesses and the finance sector) is the real, underlying reason behind lack of demand and a slowed economy—so, no matter how much money a central bank prints, the old practice of then handing it to the banks to make loans is futile as a stimulus because people have so much debt already, they aren’t interested in any more.  And like other realists, Dr. Keen thinks that “a debt that can’t be paid off, won’t be paid off”, so it’s time to come clean as a society and have a debt jubilee (i.e. using government money to pay down private debt), which would free up people’s money and the psychological constipation of spending among the population.  This is highly controversial and confusing because government debt would rise some more!  But Dr. Keen insists that private debt is the true “Clear and present danger” (to misappropriate Dr. Krugman’s assessment)—at 300% to GDP, (at least 2x, 3x that of public debt).  Plus, Dr. Keen has laid out a plan that doesn’t have anything to do with emptying bagfuls of money out of helicopters, whilst shouting WooHoo!  Furthermore, this plan weakens the position of banks, who will suddenly see their loans/assets paid down and therefore have less excuse to be leveraged.  The whole problem, as seen through Dr. Keen’s 3D glasses, is that the whole culture of over-leveraged banks (who, for decades now, have pushed people to borrow more and buy bigger assets like houses, in addition to then turning around and speculating wildly on derivative markets using those assets’ mortgages as collateral) is the problem.  And that when we allow for infinite debt as accelerated through this machine of over-leveraging (which is the case now) (1D), we mathematically approach a dangerous blackhole of no income (2D) and no employment (3D).  If nothing’s done, the market could possibly self-correct through mass bankruptcies.  But that would take at least 15-20 years, involve tons of social unrest (and violence?) without the added benefit of being able to correct the over-leveraged banks.  [Hmm, come to think of it, could this be the math behind why there's the Occupy Movement in which a broad sample of people are seeing an end to their income potential and employment prospects because currently 'nothing' is being done about this out-of-control debt?].

Capitalists and economists like to ignore lefties like her, but can’t deny that the natural reserves of the planet that she speaks of are awfully useful in their economy. She represents the used and burnt up raw materials, the pressed and oppressed sweat and tears of Mother Earth, who we all forget to call ‘cuz we’re too busy. Her gooey “socialist” appeals for a more qualitative (not just quantitiative) approach to macroeconomics makes a lot of people feel dirty.

Ms. Marilyn Waring was named by Wired Magazine this year as one of the 50 people who will change our world.  Once an MP in New Zealand, she for years now has been seeking to include women (those ‘nother 50-percenters) and the environment in economic measurements and considerations.  Problem is, GDP when strictly dealing with *stuff* is easy to count, whereas economists (and we in general) are notoriously bad at being able to quantify the value of non-oily penguin down, still-pristine Philippine jungle, or women who stay at home and raise the future population.  So, eggheads stick to their equations that omit such non-essentials.  And yet, and yet, it is the lovely coast of northern Scotland that Donald Trump is fighting to keep wild and natural (save for his golf course); it is to the incomparable beaches of Thailand at which one finds an exotic underaged fish or two; and it is to our moms we run crying when our investment banker has put our entire retirement saving up his nose.  And don’t forget that War Machine!  One nuclear submarine = the annual education budget of 23 deveolping countries combined (=160 million school aged children).  War and the threat of war is big business, not only the sale of arms, but all the destruction that will require rich, foreign Benefactors to bid on.  In fact, Ms. Waring narrows all this modern day hulabaloo in Economics down to a tiny WW2 pamphlet, entitled “The British National Income and How to Pay for the War”, written by Keynes and Richard Stone.  Stone later went on to remix this for the UN in the early 1950s, who used it as the cornerstone for economic standards required of new member countries who wished to be included in the protection and lending pool (World Bank, IMF) of the now 193 member states (=all major modern economies are based on the “promise” of war…barf !!)  Thus, the problem with the world’s macroeconomics formula is that it fails to calculate huge swaths of real things that matter and instead overemphasizes stuff like war spending, anti-depressant sales, and happily distracting nail art and Chinese souvenirs.  This is the qualitative inherent problem with our economy that no one seems smart enough to be able to include in Economics. [On the point of war spending: funnily enough, Ms. Waring's whole point of view is that there are so many @$$holes in the world (=more reason to ramp up the defense?)].

     *     *     *

Maybe it’s a good thing all these Rock Stars have solo careers.  The hair pulling could get nasty.  Still, if I believed in Humanity, I could imagine that everyone here genuinely wants a brighter future for the world and for each country faced with crippling debt.  It’s as if they each represented very different stages in thinking of the same Super Thoughtful Economist.  They are Rock Stars because clearly, they have the articulation and arguments to persuade–so, why wouldn’t they think about getting together to form a Super Solution?  I need to write a happy ending:

Everyone wants to alleviate the pain from debt.  Everyone knows that the central bank as a printing press works somehow, but as a possible mastermind to solve this thing?  No.  Everyone knows the huge mechanisms of the economy, however imperfect, will move on command.  But what are the right commands?  Dr. Keen has the clearest math so far.  He can convince the others, with his supermodels, that private debt (more than government debt) is to be in the cross-hairs; Dr. Krugman can get his government spending and see it go directly to the benefit of people, with 3D modeling to prove to him that we would be moving away from zero employment and zero income, when it’s done like this.  Ron Paul and Peter Schiff will be happy to know that the era of bailing out casino-banks is over and that going forward, financing speculative activities is out; productive investment is in, restoring their country’s reputation in the world.  Ms. Waring can add a 4th dimension (or a variable, with a giant coefficient??) to Dr. Keen’s model to show the inverse relationship that stuff-centred economic activity has with social / environmental well-being and can only be reversed by equal and opposite remedial activity to restore civil equality and the environment, which, if innovative enough, gets added back to the GDP and represents sustainable growth, thereby paying down both sovereign and private debt.

Scenario a) “最悪! チョー大きいだ! あああああああ！！！！”
(translation: “Godzilla size and stimulus payload miscalculations.  Over.”)

Scenario b) The Taming of the Beast by Super Economist

What will it be?  You’re welcome

*UGH!!!!*  I just totally remembered now that there is a whole layer of politicians to get through to enact any of these ideas!  F$%^ing bureaucracy and politics!  :(  No wonder the dinosaurs died out.

R.I.P. Rodney King.