Monday, March 20, 2006

a king's ransom

I was reading an article in a tatty little pamphlet they throw in with my Sunday paper. It's produced by the same infotainmonopoly that suffers the city rag to exist. It's a "Weekend Magazine" which bears the name of a daily paper that has affected the name of the currently recognized government of our fine nation.

The article was on everybody can be a millionaire these days and how people who don't end up with a million dollars when they retire are just not trying hard enough. Rule number one was to appreciate living in America, where it's much easier to get rich than, say, Chile. It sort of disgusts me that this kind of pandering propaganda gets played as news in a supposedly respectable media outlet, but there you go. The establishment penetrates all aspects of the shareholder economy.

The rule I liked best was to appreciate the power of compound interest. Oh, yeah, that's the stuff. The king and his chessboard, laying down one coin, two, four, and eight...how anyone believes we're actually creating long term value, when we're constantly building products that are designed for obselescence, products designed merely to facilitate the consumption of other products, is a flat out mystery to me. Compound this, buddy: Any money you're not investing in the motivation to autonomy and self-sufficiency is money down the great big crazy drain of inflationary force-feedback economics. Stop Saving!

klik if you demand tedious explanations of every little thing.

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