Mama Market Oceanplace

Elizabeth Maxwell
5 min readApr 24, 2018

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Elizabeth Maxwell
Elizabeth Maxwell

Written by Elizabeth Maxwell

Director, Creator, Researcher, Convener, Artmonk, Creative Spirit, Inquisitive Soul.

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