Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Me and Larry

Larry Summers and I are tight. I mean we’re tighter than a fox butt-fucking a gnat. Not that I know the guy; never seen him and wouldn’t know it if we passed on the street. What I mean is that he and I have an ideological lip lock that can’t be broken. Somewhere in an alternate universe our brains merged and became one thrombulating organ oozing the black bile of creative thought. The only difference between the two of us is that he gets paid for shoveling his bullshit and I don’t.

Here is an example of Larry’s poetry, written when he was with the World Bank:

Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries}?”

This is Larry at this best. His reasoning is impeccable. The way he sees it, poor people value economic harm less than rich people. Look at it this way: a dust mote on a dung heap is barely noticed; a dust mote on the highly-polished lens of a telescope screams for attention. Why should a poor country with its open sewage ditches, filthy streets, rampant diseases, garbage rotting beneath the tropical sun and factories relocated to escape the environmental regulations and labor costs of the developed countries care about another dollop of pollution?

Gated communities keep the riff-raff out, and it’s no different with rich countries. Turds don’t rise, they drop.

Larry’s brilliance is his ability to quantify misery and in doing so sanitize it and make it acceptable to polite society. In Europe it costs a corporation $1,000 a ton to dump its crap. In Somalia, the same ton of shit costs $2.50 to dump.

Do the math.

The nice thing about number is they never bleed, never get sick and never die. They look so sweet as they dance across a screen or arrange themselves in neat columns on a spreadsheet. (Spreadsheets are always printed on thick paper so the blood of the victims can’t soak through.)

But, let me tell you the real reason I love Larry. The man is a with-it anachronism, a relic of an age passing into oblivion. He is the product of an era so awash in a sea of funny money that it was possible to float any ideology, no matter how absurd, such as the divinity of “The Invisible Hand.” Well, the sea is drained and no more, but Larry is still rowing away on the seabed to a cadence called by his coxswain Tim.

I thrive on delusion. It is my bread and butter, my raisons d’être. Like Larry, I would crumble if I ever came face to face with reality. Reality is for chumps and progressives. Give me my daily fix of make believe and I’m good to go. Hell, the only way to watch CNN is stoned! Then you can really trip out on fantasy.

In the meantime, I will continue to think as Larry thinks; I will continue to make things up as Larry does, and I will wallow in the orgiastic world of abstract make believe where numbers say it all even if they have nothing to do with real life. If they did it would be too real. And, as Larry well knows, we can’t have that.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Case, Let me say how much I love your work. I have followed for years. I think you are consistently one of the most entertaining and provocative voices on the word wild weeb.
    I am writing to beg you to reconsider the visual presence/ format of your new blog. there is a very good reason why 99.999% of all the books ever printed have dark text on a light page.

    cheers mate

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  2. SilentOtto,

    You make a good point, however, I thought the white on black matched the bile that Belacqua pours out (assuming bile is black. If it isn't, it should be.)

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  3. Not bile........All good cheer 'tis!!

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  4. And women work soooo cheap.

    Of course, they weren't born with the intelligent DNA that men possess, particularly the ones who work in scientific fields.

    But they'll be glad to work for less. You bet. Especially once we crash the economy and leave no good jobs for anyone.

    But, let me tell you the real reason I love Larry. The man is a with-it anachronism, a relic of an age passing into oblivion.

    Thanks for teh Summers memory. I'll miss these guys after the Obama moment passes.

    Funny how they didn't differ from the guys before.

    S
    ______

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  5. "Hell, the only way to watch CNN is stoned! Then you can really trip out on fantasy."

    Haha, this is so true. Watching that garbage in a sober state fills me with violence and rage; but while stoned I'm simply in awe of their craft. Our whole nation was built upon fantasy - or even truer, a collective hallucination of enlightenment.

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