Ol' Duct Tape rides again

We toss about all manner of aphorisms without thinking too deeply into what they mean. It's usually unnecessary to do so as we use them most for bits of common wisdom. An undercurrent of intent lays underneath all of them that suffices to carry the right meaning through. They are slogans.

Which works until it doesn't. One that plagued me as a Boo Radley child was the classic: "There's a silver lining behind every cloud." The first time I'd ever run through that phrase is when I was challenged as to what it meant. Which obviously means the sun must be behind the cloud causing the edges to light up. Right?

As long as we're all running loose in the land of symbolism and secret handshakes that's a fine statement with little to disappoint. But when folks take it as a literal affair it all goes out the window. It's a hazard of all such things.

Another favorite of mine and lately of lots is the withered hand: "We need to increase taxes or reduce spending." As long as we're all on the same page we all understand it to be a simple statement of balancing your checkbook. That income has to come up or spending has to come down. A fine sentiment and wise if one doesn't want to be in the dock for bounced checks as that happens to be a criminal offense in many jurisdictions. But the literal reality is quite at odds with the literal take on the statement.

At the government level all appropriations are necessary for the purpose of enacting and enforcing the laws of the land. Certainly there's graft and corruption as with anything else large and opaque. But the concern is over the broad picture in the budget. If the government is, and intends to, enforce the laws they have enacted then they simply need whatever they need in terms of resources to accomplish that task. Laws being laws and on the books they are supposed to be executed faithfully by whomever is tasked with the police powers in the relevant jurisdiction.

The accurate statement here then is: "We must raise taxes or repeal laws."

One could say that this is more accurate to boots on the ground than the normal version, but that would likely be in error. It's without doubt that poll after poll comes out showing that the bulk of the American electorate -- and any other country in a similar fiscal spot -- wants all the same laws. Just cheaper. It's a nonsense notion, but it is what some people have in heart when they trot out the trusty, rusty saws.

One more that's seeing a great deal of current usage is some variation on: "No poor man ever gave me a job." Certainly if you were raised chewing on silver spoons and have only received paid servitude from those chewing on gold spoons then this is true both literally and in Dan Brown's land of steganography. But the general sentiment is that the rich create jobs out of thin air by random consequence of the quantity of ink spilled over their avant garde social habits.

In fairness most folks define a job as being the happy butler on a steady payroll in some cat's personal fiefdom. But to the degree that such is true then the rich -- the owner's of capital -- do not themselves have jobs. That they are simply the productive unemployed leveraging their packrat habit. And if that's the sentiment we prefer then we ought say: "No employed man ever gave me a job." But that's so contradictory to things that none let it pass their lips.

So can it be salvaged?

A little tale about the Duct Tape Frankenstein that keeps me connected here virtually with the world in a sea of ASCII. Ol' Duct Tape decided that it had simply had quite enough of it's old hard drive and handily ate the bearings in a fit of pique. The repairs required both a new hard drive and a set of screwdrivers tiny enough to make a watchmaker smile.

The screwdrivers I acquired in trade for labor with a lady in worse financial shape then myself. Which is really saying something extraordinary. But that job I got from a woman one step closer to a park bench then a currently well-installed sofa surfer. Which is the poor getting a job from the destitute.

The hard drive I acquired with cash paid on the barrel head for in trade for skills to a small business owner. Which might suit the desired definitions of our studied platitude if it were not that he was making less income as the owner of capital then his own employees. None of whom were more than scratching at the bottom side of the middle class box to begin with.

An objection can be made that the business owner had wealth defined as gadgets, bits, and bobs collected and so should and could tally those as what someone else thinks that owner "ought" be able to sell them for right now. If he were to sell them in a mythical market of the Armchair Captain's preference. But if disposing of wealth made us wealthy then we'd all be richest when penniless and with nary but a single change of close. While very Zen-like it simply doesn't pass the laught test. And it ignores that even those earning minimum wage very often are the owner's of captial themselves via their 401k's and other retirement vehicles.

Ol' duct tape rides again, not because the wealthy looked fondly on me for great economic justice, but because 'jobs' are the natural consequence of having different skills, capital goods or time available then the person on the other side of the trade. Indeed, most jobs out there exist for no better reason than that the poor trade with you or your employer for want of those things that they do not otherwise have. To the degree that one believes that jobs can be 'created' is the same degree at which one wants to dispossess others of the ability to own capital themselves.

To actively assist in the 'creation' of trade one must actively dispossess others via the law. Be it by guilds, cartels, monopolies, currency devaluation, licensing, or various property laws. Or simply by encouraging a professional class of the ignorant via public education that focuses on birth control and biology over math and vocational skills.

Or, natch, by a massive paperwork production under a regulatory compliance scheme. Such as Sarbannes-Oxley or the annual genuflection to the IRS.

The only salvage here is to rewrite this common bit of common wisdom to reflect our desire to generate a national codependent class. Which I do believe a Mr. Marx has covered quite well even if not much ink is spilled on the parties he attends these days.