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Entries in economics (178)

Monday
Jul192010

Update Makeup

Greetings,

Welcome to another edition of This Is Your Little Life. Your little life is taking on pernicious perceptual potential poetic personifications without a preamble. To amble to ramble and gamble enjoying risks with enormous ramifications. Waking up is a risk. Paying attention requires risk analysis and consequences. 

A stranger arrives in town. He wanders around with optical tools.

 

When in doubt, update your life. Put on makeup. Change your appearance. Get a new identity theory. Reinvent a corner cooking operation billowing smoke from cracked charcoal chips harvested from old trees near a woman sawing ice with a rusty see-saw as children play. Numerous forlorn stressed out drivers in huge SUV's negotiate narrow provincial streets singing their Status. Beep-beep.

The Asian Children's Driving School is open for business. Son, his father said, Someday all this will be yours. Gee, dad you're the greatest. Let's go for a spin around the block, down life's little highway and out into the lush expansive rural countryside filled with amazing green rice paddies, our essential food source. Ok, son, Let's roll. Batteries not included.

The smiling boy walks into his future. He works for a collection agency called Consume and Waste and Recycle. He found a life instruction book and put it in his bag. His bodyguard is a girlie-boy. Not too shy to try with tolerance, gratitude, dignity and self respect.

Somewhere in Cambodia a boy is carrying the world on his back.

Metta.

Thursday
Jul152010

gateless Gate

Greetings,

I love the new gate at our Beijing community of Chinese migrants. It keeps us in and the rich people out.

It's clean, efficient and durable. It's really fancy. I imagine it cost someone in the Housing Community Control big money. Local officials call it "sealed management." 

''Closing up the village benefits everyone,'' read one banner put up when the first, permanent gated village was introduced in April.

Metta.

NYT
 

 

 

Wednesday
Jul072010

Mr. Neanderthal

Greetings,

Mr. Neanderthal swaggered down the middle of a no-name street in a no-name Vietnamese town with his long time little local squeeze. She was smaller than an astroid with long hair wearing charcoal pajamas and low heels. Her face was sad, neglected and resigned to her passionate and economic fate on a fair trade mission.

Mr. N wore flowered bermuda shorts and green flip flops. He was naked from the waste up. Swirling tattoos danced on his dark torso. His arms extended in heavy duty weight lifter macho style like an simian alpha male tribal posture.

Me big. Me strong. Me have woman. Her name Jane. Me her man.

They'd sold their car to buy food, diamonds and extra passports. They were on foot. They needed transport. He whistled for a motorcycle. They went to a haberdasher. They rented clothes. He found a suit of armor. She found a gown.

They went to a history museum. He accepted her arm standing on the stairway to heaven. She was radiant in her expectations. After the reception at sea level they cleaned a magnificent house resembling a wedding cake. They raised pigs and chickens and lived happily ever after. They took out the garbage and the pigs ate well. 

Metta.

 

 

Monday
Jul052010

Arrested development

Greetings,

You know life is fraught with the unexpected hammering of stone cold ice when a Tibetan environmental activist gets arrested for teaching people to pick up litter and plant trees in Sichuan, China.

His demise came when he accused a local Chinese big shot official of poaching. Poaching is a no-no. Talking about big shots poaching is a no-no. Picking up litter is a no-no. Planting trees is a no-no.

The No-No chattering xylophone, said, Let's teach this Tibetan wise guy a lesson. His henchmen concurred. Track him down. Arrest him. Charge him with trash collection and gardening offense #101. Call the judge. Tell him to sentence this monk to 5 years of hard labor with no chance of parole.

Mr. Trumped Up Charge judge, jury, and a very close friend and economic confident of Mr. Local Big Shot performed his Social duty. "You are charged with splitting the nation!" 

What? Planting trees isn't splitting the nation. Picking up trash isn't splitting the nation, said Rinchen Samdrup.

Oh, really? said the judge. Let me see. Ok, how about poaching? Yes. It's all hear say. You said my friend the local big shot was poaching. You lied. He loves his country and all the animals. If you lied about his poaching to make huge financial profits from leopards, tigers, bears, eagles, antelopes and stolen male babies, how can this court in all fairness find you innocent of planting trees and picking up trash?

I'm innocent. No. You are guilty. You are an environmentalist. You want to split the nation. You are a bad boy. I sentence you to 5 years. Bye-bye. 

The judge whispered to the prison warden, Fill up his cell with trash and trees. 

Metta.

Reuters...

 

 

Wednesday
Jun302010

June's blues

Greetings,

June is leaving. June was so beautiful, soft and kind with temperamental tears. She walked through red dust back to the slum inside the smell of burning rubbish looking for her mama. Her poor heart skipped a beat. Nothing but June blues, living in the space between sharp currency notes, between strangers.

June sleeps with her sisters in a village. Danish soldiers showed up after dark. They were on a serious international peace keeping mission. They were hungry animals wanting real serious action.

Mr. Lonely Denmark found an attractive one playing in his fantasy who was super aggressive. His instinct said no. She’s crazy. A tall thin demure soft one sat down, eating fruit. Great angelic face. She worked for her “mama.” We're short of time, ask mama how much for a few hours, he said to his translator. $50.

Ask her if she wants to escape, said LD. Yes, she said, skipping away to change. The angry one thought it’d be her. She spat angry words and gestures. The fury of a woman scorned. 

LD paid mama and they left. They ate fish, vegetables, rice and went to bed. LD was the fish. Normally her customers were short jobs so he helped her slow down. Take your time. She was flat and flat on her passive back. No hurry, sweet thing, said LD. She had an extensive vocabulary. Boom-boom?

LD needed to get back to his unit. June accepted his unit on a short term lease arrangement. Always on, always connected in her passive universe. All for mama, loving the Danish and doing her best for international relations. Heat and serve. Ready to eat.

Don't you just LOVE the smell of Rubbish in the morning? Yes, you do.

Metta.