Places of Transaction

 

Impressionism / Chang Dai-chien/ Lotus

Monday Monday.  Can’t trust that day.

Spent a little time with the news this weekend.  No clarity there, no answers there.  Straight reporting of the news is apparently a lost art.  Digging down to the actual issues instead of the political theatre is getting harder and harder.  If I were a suspicious sort, I would say that this is deliberate.  If I were a cynical sort, I would say that the news corporations are just providing the customer base with what they want.  If I were a paranoid sort, I would posit that the government likes it this way. But being simply a crabby old man, I think that I will choose all of the above.

But that decision is fraught with caveats.  Because I am thinking that there is more of a consensus between all the parties.  That consensus is built around a lie and exclusion of outlying data.  

The lie is simply that the folks that these folks actually service just want to be told that their goodies and their privileges are being adequately maintained.  This is a toughie, because in a sense, it is not a lie.  The top 25% that make up the folks with enough nickels jingling around in their pocket are their market.  Oh granted, some of these news agencies play to the poors, but that is just to pick up ratings so that they can cash in.

The news lately seems to be of an odd sort.  The bulk of governmental efforts seem to be in the realm of damage control and sweeping things under any available rug.  There is a serious shortage of unreasonable profit in the cards and the 25% look to be getting a haircut and becoming the 20%.  This will be interesting.  Because the people sitting on the chairs in this game also know that they have to keep the trickle of money going to the poors up to keep them quiet.  The reason that they are throwing the 21-25% off the bus is to free up enough money to keep that trickle at the “just barely adequate” stage. 

The trouble with maintaining a two tier society is simply that the upper tier can’t imagine that their view of justice and adequacy is not universally held.  Right now, the folks in charge of creating/maintaining the narrative are trying to reposition things to support a narrowing elite.