The Big Short

This is quite a brilliant microcosm of our messed up world right here. A friend of mine posted this on Facebook the other day and although it has an emotional and uplifting side to it, I could have chewed nails and spit bullets. Mostly at Kevin O'Leary, a double whammy of embarrassment for me. He's not only from Canada, but he got rich in the education racket. And if I've learned one thing about the education racket, not just in Korea either, it seems that the educators are left in the classrooms, (and sometimes not even there), while the money hoarding scheisters and antisocial businessmen, like the erstwhile Mr. O'Leary, rise to the positions of power. Now it was only a software company that made educational CD's and DVD's that got him that seat in the Shark Tank, so I can't say he's made anyone dumber like some of the people I've met along the way. But he's earned that title of "shark." And when this decent, hard-working, salt of the earth man stood before him with a billion dollar idea that he still hasn't really shared with the world, O'Leary smelled blood in the water.

"No distributor? Well, if I give you my 150 grand, I'm going to need you to QUADROUPLE the price or I just won't make any profit." Look at the farmer who hasn't sacrificed his conscience to Mammon when O'Leary says that. He doesn't say anything, he just gets a wrinkle in his forehead and a, "WHY?" look on his face. Like any of us would who don't make livings by cheating and chiseling and call it "business," or "economics," worst of all, "hard work." John Paul DeJoria, the guy who gave this farmer 150 grand is going to easily turn that into millions because everybody is going to have these Tree Teepees on their trees within a few years. In the world! But O'Leary wanted MORE! If the farmer charged what he wants to charge, $4.50, and continued earning a dollar for every Tree Teepee, the business would have plenty of money. Billions. Because I bet billions would sell at that price.

If that were allowed in todays market economy, or whatever euphemism you want to use to describe fucking your brother over for a profit, every tree in the world would have one of these things at the bottom. The water saved would MASSIVELY help the world! But that's not all. Fuel for pumping the water wouldn't be used. Untold gallons of it. But we can't have that, can we? Because some greedy douchebag wants to take an idea he had nothing to do with and make a ton of bank from it.

Now imagine O'Leary had his way. Raise the price to 12 or 13 bucks apiece for these things. Now not every tree in the world would have one. Now only the rich farmers would buy them. More oil and water would be used, (really wasted), and although he would be making considerably less, this bullet-headed buffoon would think himself a brilliant man because he's "earning" 8 dollars from every Tree Teepee sold and not just 1 dollar. And people would respect him for it! This man who is responsible for wasting water and fuel.

Don't be too quick to pat DeJoria on the back either. I heard HIM commenting on how they should charge 7 or 8 bucks apiece for these things. That too would price a lot of farmers out of the market. Why can't this guy say screw you businessmen and your cheaply purchased 20%, I own 80% and I am setting the price! I need you for some quick start-up capital. Keep your goldbricking noses out of the rest. O'Leary should understand this. He got his Mom to lend him 10 grand to start up his first company. I bet SHE doesn't expect 20% of HIS earnings. He probably hasn't paid her back yet, the wanker.

The very worst part of it is when this psychopathic Scrooge comments on this farmer's father and what a hero he was. You just tried to scam his son and millions of farmers worldwide, waste rivers of water and tankers of fuel and you want to curry some favour and look like you might not be the great big asshole you have just shown yourself to be? No, you don't get to feign human feelings of respect for his father, you crocodile! Fuck you!

See what I mean? I just get so mad when I see this. What gets me so mad is not the act, it's the complete apathy the average person has as a reaction to it. "Well, that's business." "Well, he's doing his job." "Well, he has a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders." This is all something very familiar to farmers: it's bullshit. That's all. The lesson I wish everyone could take from this little video is how harmful doing business for maximum profit like this really IS. You do it right, with honesty and morality and that's good for everybody.

But it just doesn't happen like that any more, does it? I just re-watched "The Big Short." You may recall I noticed a shirt of mine in that movie and now to me it's known as, "The Big Shirt." It's several blog posts ago. And, in the same vein, guess where that shirt is now? I have been asking Kevin O'Learies of Korea for years to make me a Kia Tiger jersey. I don't fit into any of the three sizes they sell all over the country. I've been to many places and a few times now I've run into the very Asian YES strategy. "Yes, we can make you a jersey." You wait for two weeks or a month and go back and in that time the company hasn't developed the technology or skills they thought they'd be able to when they promised to do the thing knowing they couldn't do it. Then you just shake your head and tell them they've wasted a month of your time and THEY get upset with YOU.

My good buddy DB, also a big Tiger fan, told me he had found an online company who ensured him they could make me a jersey. They asked for a shirt to give them some idea of my size. I didn't have anything to give them but "the big shirt." So that's what DB sent them. At his expense. It's been a long time. I'd say a couple of months at least and, lo and behold, they can't do it. Not only that but they aren't even going to send back the shirt. And DB and I have to just sit back and take this shit. THEY are the business and THEY have earned respect. Why don't I feel that way? Is it just me?

I don't think so. But, as Steve Carell's character in "The Big Short" said in the movie, "All these people are getting fucked and they're walking around like they're in an Enya video!" People think of me as particularly negative, but I think there's at least a little of other people being ignorantly positive too.

Most people will look at this video and see a heart-warming tale. It was sent to me from a site called something like "Women's Tear Jerkers." But it just made me seethe.

However, perhaps my anger at the horrible people in businesses, banks, and governments SHORTING us all was offset a tiny bit by a few pieces of good news. The epipen princess WILL be investigated for wrongdoing and stock in Mylan has plummeted accordingly.

Also, I read about the CEO of Trump's campaign who was in charge of rooting out voter fraud, committed voter fraud. I think he claimed Florida residency to avoid state taxes, (cuz Florida doesn't charge them), so add tax fraud to it as well, but he doesn't even live there. I like to call this being Gertruded. Or maybe Gertied. He got Gertied. Gertrude said, in Hamlet, the oft misquoted line, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." And when people rant on and on about homosexuals going to Hell, then get caught with homosexual prostitutes, they got Gertied. And if I ever start a business and overcharge people or cheat, lie and steal like a good businessman is supposed to do, then you have every right to point the Gertie finger at me. You know what, while you're at it point a friggin' gun at me too and pull the trigger cuz I'd rather be dead than a scum-sucking bottom feeding parasite like a banker, synthetic CDO salesman or a crooked businessman.

Honestly!

But those weren't the feel good stories of the week for me. Nope. I woke up a couple of days ago with this all over feeling of RIGHTNESS in the world. I thought it might have been the weather. Or maybe I was psychically feeling a person looking at my resume and saying, "Why don't we hire this guy?" But then I read that Stephen Harper quit politics and that feeling was explained.

To quote another Shakespeare play, (Troilus and Cressida), "Good riddance!" He's done his share of this kind of damage to the world himself. With luck, he will start a trend. Maybe O'Leary will retire. Maybe they'll both take up MMA and have a match to the death that ends in a tie!

That's probably too much to hope for.