Mama Market Oceanplace
I — WAKE UP
I fell asleep
And then woke up
Adrift in the free market.
Whirling in the tides,
But feigning control -
Money markets infinite as the sea.
Access to credit without a floor,
Waves of payments upon payments.
IOUs & U-Owe-Mes,
PayDay Loans & Forward Swaps…
To bankers’ credit,
We owe them an arm and a leg
For their Generosity and Service.
All of us
Are slaves
To that Churn, in the center of the ocean
That Invisible Master that
No one can touch,
But keeps chasing us all.
Systems and Value,
All built around
Stock and Flow —
Except in the free market,
Where you can make
New Waves out of
Thin Air —
Don’t even need H2O.
It’s Silly,
It’s thrilling,
It’s willy nilly,
It means nothing,
It means everything —
Truly, the Market welcomes you to
Feel and Think whatever you like.
But without alternatives in sight,
This is the game we’re playing.
Laissez faire is the laziest.
But at this point -
It’s hard to understand how we would begin
To put the wildness of the wildebeest
Back in it’s cage.
Everyone knows
The sheer power of the Ocean
Can’t be tamed, or contained.
Hedge your Bets, and Buckle-up;
Bailouts may be rarer than they appear.
///
II — OPEN SEA
In the global market, you’re free to swim for it.
But it’s easiest to attach yourself to an ocean liner,
One of the big 5.
They have limited interest
in the nature of the ocean,
But are fixated on smooooth sailing …
Back & forth,
Round & round.
Regulations like nets,
Mitigating pass thru of
Pollution
At best.
Governments
shooting bullets at waves
To demonstrate effort &
Feign care, while the tides of
Finance & trade
Reign on.
Whether the stock market
Crashes or doesn’t,
Whenever it does or doesn’t…
Money crosses borders
With less effort
Than when the Atlantic crashes into the Pacific,
But still,
A Crash.
Maybe the crashes are inevitable:
The mixing of worlds,
Clashing of currents.
Seismic shifts below
Result in Ripples, of
Next week’s entrepreneurs…
The Uber of Lyft,
The Yelp of Yelps.
Shark tanks that leave blood in the water.
95% fall back into the sea,
Beaten by the market,
Removed from the game.
Of course, this is mostly because of the
Shear size of the ocean…
Although of course the little sharks will blame themselves,
the bigger sharks,
the Simon Cowells…
It is difficult for all of us to see the
True Nature of the
Oceans that we swim in.
///
III — CASH OUT
But this piece seems obviously true:
Only Mama Earth holds
Equity
In the true global marketplace.
Mama, & all Her Living Beings.
Founding Mother,
First rights of refusal.
We, the stakeholders,
Daily giving
Our Sweat Equity,
In order to form a more perfect Something…
Why don’t I feel like I own stock in the
Greatest of resources, the ones that
This Planet offers each of us?
Commons as common as Apple Pie.
More than enough to go around.
Equity of Voices
Could be reflected in
Equity of stock ownership.
If only we took a moment to design for it.
But whether we do or don’t —
The harsh truth is
You can only
Cash out Equity
At the end.
AKA
Plan for an Exit.
AKA
Diversify your portfolio,
AKA
Keep your eggs & apple pies
In as many baskets as you can find.
Stock options are limited,
No matter when you Vest or Invest.
Each Quarter, drives
Pennies and
Trillions of sales
Up or down
Points, all while the
Clock ticks.
I’ve tried to learn your lessons.
I’m trying to follow the rules.
But I’m stuck on this one planet
Baking
Higher & higher & hotter & hotter.
If it were up to me:
This risk / return is
Uncomfortable.
“I’d like to speak to my financial advisor, please.
Place my eggs elsewhere else…?”
But your tiny eggs, dear child, are
Embedded in this global game.
And there is no exit.
And so Our Equity
Doesn’t seem to mean shit.
And the Waves
And the Rain
And the Trickle Down
Trickles On.
///
IV — PAYBACK
Even
Still, the
Hoarding of Capital
Doesn’t cause a Tsunami…
That’s something else.
Hurricanes & unseen storms,
Capital W for
Weather alerts
Watch
Warning
Category 11,
Capital “Whoa, Mama. Didn’t see that one coming.”
Winds & Recovery,
Presidents & Water.
Capital gains mean nothing 25’ below sea level;
Capital Loss. Capital Infrastructure.
Capital Recovery. Capital Next Time
We’ll be prepared, because
Now We Know.
Oceans beginning to
Tax the land,
Tax the people for her
Outsourced cost and trouble.
There are Operating Costs,
You know,
To keeping the market going.
“Someone has to pay”,
Says the person convincing you
It shouldn’t be them.
You see,
To keep the market afloat,
Apparently,
Icebergs HAVE to melt.
Well it’s true:
Icebergs need to melt
To increase the available supply of
Water —
Because the Demand is increasing,
Because Consumption is increasing,
Because the Population is increasing,
Because Growth has become
All Religions’
One True God.
Because wars for oil
And resources
And fear of scarcity
Are justified, in that mindset.
Because there might not be enough;
Because we burned what we had too soon.
Because we didn’t plan ahead.
And everyone knows what happens
To your Business
If you don’t plan ahead:
You have to borrow,
Against the future.
Or defer til later, if you can.
Or simply die.
But it’s ok,
Because tech!
Because this is the way it has to be!
Because
Someone is watching, and
Someone would say something, and
Someone would
Shift Gears if we were truly heading
Towards a Cliff….
Right??!
“Liquidity kills you quick,”
And you wouldn’t be the
First Sailor to go under.
Families, and businesses, and entire
Civilizations with their treasures
Have been consumed
By the Free Market Oceanplace
Many times over.
So we can’t be naive enough to
Think that it couldn’t happen to us.
Sometimes,
Many times, the
Ship goes under. All sharks are
Fed, and in turn eaten by the
Ocean liners.
Oil spills
Kill swaths of species…
And the
Market
Rages in
Pain and
Anger and
Anguish — but the
Market goes on.
///
V — CHECKS & BALANCE
Will we ever find a way to shrink the water?
Would that even be a good thing?
Might we learn to live within our means? Is it even possible,
And how could we even start to reverse it,
And and Why why How how?
Or is the Wild Ocean Marketplace
Just not meant to be tamed,
Not meant to be solved,
Chomping away organically until
She consumes us all…
If we stay busy on our smartphones, maybe it will hurt less?
Mind your own busy-ness
And stay out of my business.
You don’t owe me anything.
There’s no debt here.
This is just my two cents.
Take it, with or without interest…
You’re a free sailor too, after all.
Check, please.