Knee Deep in the Bottle Somewhere

I wrote a fun tragi-comic parody of the song "Knee Deep" by Zac Brown & Jimmy Buffett

Gonna throw my head away for a minute
pretend I don't live in it,
moonshine gonna wash my mind away...

Had real life but I lost it,
got too dull so I faught it,
now I'm lost in the bottle
tryin' a find me a better way...

Wishin' I was, knee deep in the bottle somewhere
got the night sky breeze
and it don't seem fair
only worry in the world
are the cops gonna take my chair...
Moonrise is a pie in the sky
never been so tipsy
never flew so high,
'till I wake up it's my own kind of paradise...

Wrote a note said be back in a minute,
bought a bottle an' I fell off in it
don't think anybody's gonna miss me anyway...

Mind's on a permanent vacation,
whiskey is my only medication
wish intoxication wasn't ever gonna go away...

Now I'm, knee deep in the bottle somewhere
got the night sky breeze
blowin' wind through my hair
only worry in the world
are the cops gonna take my chair...
Moonrise is a pie in the sky
never been so tipsy
never flew so high,
'till I wake up it's my own kind of paradise...

This weak-kneed floor,
washin' under me,
it's a bitter sweet life,
livin' by the bottle see...
One day you,
will be as lost as me...
Change your mixology
and mabye you might be...

Knee deep in the bottle somewhere
got the night sky breeze
and it don't seem fair
only worry in the world
are the cops gonna take my chair...
Moonrise is a pie in the sky
never been so tipsy
never flew so high,
'till I wake it's my own kind of paradise...

C'mon in the bottle's nice
rum with a little spice
grab a coke back and ice
you'll never know until you try...

When you lose your head
might find the key to paradise...

My Economic Forecast; with Explanations and History

Let me first say that I am not a professional economist; I am however an astute and studious observer of economic trends. My reading in this field is vast and I have attempted to study all perspectives. The economic forecast I present here is as honest and reasonable as I am capable of.

      If you are making 50K a year today, you can expect to be making 40K several years from now; and 30K in roughly 5 years. If your home is valued today at 100,000K, you can expect that in 5 years it will be valued at 70K; and 50K in perhaps 10 years. A loaf of bread costs about 2 dollars today; a few years from now it will likely cost 4 dollars; and perhaps 5-6 dollars a few years later. Do not expect to buy a new car every 3-4 years. Forget about any real job-security; you may have 3 or 4 different "careers" in the next decade, and each new career will pay less than the previous. This is the tip of the iceberg; this is the slow but accelerating strangulation of what we once called the "middle class;" the slow and painful death of the American dream.

      Economics is called the dismal science, and with good reason. But is this disappearance of the middle class inevitable? Not necessarily (although at this point in our history the trend is probably irreversable). Appologists for the American economic system call the process a "correction," whereby the invisible hand of capitalism moves the economy back into balance. Technically, this is true in the case of the housing market; a huge inflationary bubble in the price of housing is currently in the process of bursting. The appologists leave out the fact that this bubble was caused, perhaps deliberately engineered, for the enrichment of a few people; a handful of people were willing to gamble with the economic health of the entire country, in fact the entire world, in order to enrich themselves.

      However, to claim that the decline in income is simply a market "correction" is blatanly false. Consider that today the wealthiest 1% continue to see their salaries rise, while the rest of us watch our income fall. How can that be?

      The answer is simple: the 1% has hijacked the American economy. This is not a conspiricy, but simply the result of an ideology shared by this 1% of individuals, and in fact shared by many of the rest of us as well. This ideology says, in summa, that one should do anything possible to gain wealth, let the next guy do the same, and the consequences for the larger society do not matter.

      Who or what, then, is to be blamed for this painful economic trend? To call the disappearance of the middle class inevitable is dishonest and oversimplified. A look at the history of this economic trend might shed light on the question of who or what is to be blamed. If I had to affix a specific time to the beginning of the trend line, or at least it's rapid acceleration, I would point to the Reagan administration. Hints of this economic trend were visible during the Nixon administration, and in fact it was noticed. Consider that during the 40s 50s and 60s it was possible, and indeed it was the norm, for a household to survive on a single income. During the 70s that became less and less possible--and today, almost impossible. The Carter administration was perhaps aware of the trend, but Carter was too busy with foreign policy and being a mush-headed liberal to do much about it. But durning the Reagan administration the trend was obviously well understood, and was in fact seized upon and accelerated by a few opportunists for their own benefit. The trend was clearly recognized, continued unabated and was given another shot of adreneline during the George W. Bush administration, with the Bush tax-cuts.

      The result of this trend, which I believe is now inevitable, is plutocracy: a society in which the wealthiest 1% own and oberate, for their sole benefit, the apparatus of control (e.g. the police, the military, the media, the ballot-box); a society in which that 1% rules with absolute impunity, and the rights of the so-called 99% do not matter; a society that in essence resembles the feudal societies of the middle ages, where a few individuals own and control all of the means of survival, and the rest of us are helpless slaves. Who owns the home you live in? Probably the bank. Who owns the car you drive? Probably the bank. Who extends the credit you are forced to rely on for necessities sometimes? The bank... And who owns, or at least controls, the bank? Good question.

      After the worldwide financial crisis and economic collapse of 2008, the trend is, or should be, unavoidable. President Obama is of course sympathetic to the plight of the middle class, but it is the sympathy of a millionaire, not a man in the trenches. In reality there is very little the Obama administration can do; this trend is now a wave too big to be reversed. If successful, Obama's efforts to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while cutting the tax-burden on the middle class, can do little more than cushion the fall. The fact that he is likely to be unsuccessful in this, and that a large proportion of the American public are against these policies, demonstrates how much power the plutocrats already have.

      The Republicans are actively pushing forward the agenda of the plutocrats, probably without really understanding the ultimate consequences. Deregulation and tax-cuts for corporations and the wealthy, while erroding medicare and social security and other social safety-nets, continues to be the Republican mantra, even though 40 years of economic decline prove these policies are bad for the middle class. The Democrats are too busy worrying about what school kids are eating for lunch and how many people own guns and whether or not minorities and gays and women are being discriminated against; in short, social issues. They fail to recognize and address the one issue--this trend that is destroying the middle class--that renders all other issues moot. Without economic justice, no other social justice matters.

      As I said, this is not a conspiricy on the part of the 1%; it is the simple operation of an ideology of self-interest on the part of individuals. The blame rests in many, many beds. Ultimately, it even rests with the 99%. For 40 years we have ignored reality; as my dad likes to say, we were "fat dumb and happy." We were comfortable enough to be lazy and indifferent toward the big questions of economic policy; too distracted by all our menial pleasures to notice that a tiny fraction of the population was busy hijacking our future for their own benefit; too in awe of the moneymad fatcats on Wall Street to recognize that they were building a house of cards that would bring us all down, and that we would have to bail them out to keep our own ship from sinking. We bought what they were selling, and so we must share the blame.

      And what do we do now?

      Wake up and prepare for plutocracy.