The thing about finding the pea, (or marble or piece of crumpled paper), under the shell, (or Dixie Cup©), is that, if the manipulator is competent, and the pea, etc., is not actually in his hand, the chance of finding it is always 33%…hardly a game at all. The beauty of it, however, is that, if played fairly, it can be an interesting diversion with an occasional positive result; the most important part being that the object the player is seeking, is precisely what he expects to find.

The game being played out on various world stages, (broadcast in snippets, teasers and mislabeled video clips between unending ads for reverse mortgages and boner pills on CNN), has nowhere near the probability of success as the street corner variety and the elusive win, (and wind, apparently), keeps changing. At best it’s usually too vague to really understand if you have won or not. We have been told and retold, (by nearly anyone with a public forum), that the global economy is in the shitter and the consensus solution leading to economic health would appear to be austerity. (Don’t think that the people taking to the streets of Greece are alone in their rejection of such a preposterous notion). The political definition of “austerity” requires minimizing expenditures on education, health care, protecting the environment, repairing crumbling infrastructures and innovations in energy and transportation. It does not address the need to increase revenue, (taxation), in order to satisfy the very simple mathematical equation of money in/money out. If enacted in any measure approaching the goals set by its most vocal proponents, the result will be a self-inflicted and possibly irreversible injury to the foundation of western civilization.

We have certainly arrived here by living beyond our means. The hucksters, (the fat cat billionaires of free market enterprise), who have been moving the euphemistic shells for decades, have waged psychological warfare against the hopeful post WWII consumer, (call it advertising…fucking Don Draper), selling us boatloads of seldom needed crap, multiple environmentally damaging vehicles, too big and inefficiently designed homes at unreasonably inflated value and any number of goods, services and chotchkes that we’ve been told we can’t live without. That it has all inevitably collapsed should not be surprising. The irrational response to it is…well, irrational, like totally nuts. Choosing to cut back social programs and services to those suffering the most and allowing a conservative fervor to dismantle the underpinnings of a truly productive society is not a solution to the problem, it’s just another problem, (how’re things working out for you, Minnesota…Wisconsin…Greece?). This is not so much an economic challenge as a Parenting 101 exercise. We Americans have been very, very bad. We’ve been greedy and acted irresponsibly, lusting after far more than we need for comfort or happiness. As a result, we’re being punished by the loss of our jobs, a lot of our stuff and being presented with the bleakest of futures. But now, if we promise to behave better, we can get back on track and begin to rebuild the greatest, freest society to have ever populated the planet. And, you scions of mega-corporations and too-big-to-fail financial institutions who have been the naughtiest of all while prospering the most, you will pay for this adjusted behavior through assessment of your fair share of tax and investment in a greener, healthier, more responsibly productive industrial future.

Unfortunately, there is no learned parental figure looming on any horizon with the wisdom and power to send us all to our room. The alternative approach, (the one that seems our sad fate), of hunt and peck austerity, has about the same chance of success as always picking the middle shell…33%…failure on any grading curve.