Op-Ed: Dumb it down, win a prize- US economy hits the campaign trail, face first

Apparently the terms “media advisors” and “claptrap” aren’t mutually exclusive, after all. The People Who Made America can produce any sort of garbage and give it to their clients. The latest victim is McCain, on the subject of the economy.

In the early days of settlement in North America, when media advisors in coonskin caps told the Pilgrims which diseases to die of, and how to starve glamorously, a sort of cultural trust was born. This relationship was later reflected on American currency. In God We Trust is old slang code for media advisors, who were trying to go downscale for tax purposes. They make more money than God, they just prefer to keep quiet about it. Other notable historical beneficiaries of this supernatural relationship were Custer, Jeff Davis, Enron, World Com, and more recently Lehmann Bros. So as America’s financial Gettysburg/Tarawa thunders along, the cerebral colossi of Prairie Dog Town on Madison have obviously been giving the same high standards of advice to Senator McCain on the subject of the economy. It’s pretty damn obvious McCain hasn’t been well briefed. The guy’s been around long enough to know to get his facts straight. He’s not an idiot. This is out of character. He starts off the mark, talking about firing the SEC CEO, who has the political clout of a piece of Styrofoam and the legislation to match. Then comes the clanger : The New York Times:

Mr. McCain faulted the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying it had “kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino’’ and said that its chairman, Christopher Cox, should be fired.

Mr. McCain also called for the creation of a new entity to try to keep institutions solvent and that would sell off the troubled assets of ailing financial firms. “I am calling for the creation of the mortgage and financial institutions trust – the M.F.I.,’’ he said. “The priorities of this trust will be to work with the private sector and regulators to identify institutions that are weak and take remedies to strengthen them before they become insolvent. For troubled institutions this will provide an orderly process through which to identify bad loans and eventually sell them.”

“Casino” is right, but the reasons aren’t. Speculators and hedge funds were opportunists, yes. Traders are. But the real problem was the market itself. Short selling based on derivatives doubletalk and doublethink isn’t necessarily an indication of sainthood, yes. But the companies which got hammered were doing nobody any favors, particularly themselves, with they way they did business. Maybe all the palm trees and beaches in Iowa affected the context of these comments. Exactly why media advisors, blessed be their supernatural ignorance, added the bit about a fund for identifying out bad loans and selling them, is debatable. To whom does one sell a bad loan, having identified it as such? Is the United States government about to start a sort of pawn shop for derivatives? I hope the McCain campaign isn’t paying for this. The message was dumbed down to a level which is supposed to be plain talk to the folks in the street. That means to anyone in media marketing slightly dumber than a roadkill. The folks, however, have become considerably poorer folks during the course of this campaign. They've noticed that, and do know why they're poorer, thanks to the invention of a really neat thing called “writing”, which is the process of making marks on things to convey information. Sometimes you even see “writing” on foreclosure notices, and even in the media itself. One of the mysterious processes of “writing” is that some people put their markings in groups, to form “sentences”. To do that properly, the “sentences” have to be in some sort of order, and in some cases even address subjects. Occasionally, someone goes insane, and addresses their subjects in a meaningful way, which, despite media, welfare, health and education systems, imparts information to those reading it. Ghastly. Yet it’s becoming quite popular, even in the financial arena, where it’s considered to be an unheard-of innovation. It’s only a matter of time before this revolutionary concept penetrates to political circles, and even political media advisors are expected to make “sentences” all by themselves. So saddle up the chickens, load your cliches, put on your suits, and ride off with your egos flying into the misty morn, O Children of the Ridiculous.