The economy. It’s all about money, a relatively new construct which does not exist in nature and overarches everything (with the possible exception of Bhutan, which you can’t afford to visit). Vitally important figures such as GDP, GNP, stock market updates and various other growth-rate indices are projected at us constantly. They influence our election choices, while we avoid questioning the fact that we have no idea what these numbers actually mean, or that they have no real bearing on our daily lives. Here are a few more numbers anyway.
Saving the economy – $700,000,000,000.
…best give that to some bankers and billionaires who almost brought down the entire system and otherwise would have walked free anyway… let them continue. Print more money. It’s needed, because…
Freedom – $1.4 million dollars per minute.
Some budgetary figures are too large to comprehend (see above), so… $1.4 million dollars EVERY. FUCKING. MINUTE… is the allowance allocated by one country, to dominate all others in the name of Freedom and the preservation of Democracy. Curiously, Democracy (sorry, Capitalism) serves to defend the Free against the tyranny of Socialism, while… the taxpayer-funded fighting force defending the Free from the evils of Socialism is, ahh… socialist. Nobody notices.
Education (debt) – $1,500,000,000,000
1.5 TRILLION dollars, or… what an educator might earn (pre-tax) before retiring happily aged 38-million, having thankfully not dealt with dinosaurs. Of course, there are many students, requiring many teachers, so budget constraints are necessary because, you know… Freedom! (see above). Ultimately, the unviability of having people know shit (like, ‘what are we fighting for again?’, or… ‘what’s Bhutan?’) is its own reward …best just go and watch a movie (see below).
Entertainment – $200 million (per movie).
A celebrated form of fun, resulting in two or more hours of immediately forgettable escapism, goes something like this. There is a hero. There are also some eastern Europeans or Arabs (not heroes). Everyone on the hero team is attractive. The not-heroes have scars. There are guns… lots of guns. And explosions for no reason. The not-heroes can’t shoot straight. Eventually, when lots of buildings have exploded, almost everyone is dead and nobody is accountable for anything, there are only two left. The bloodied yet still attractive and inexplicably unexploded hero, and the leader of the not-heroes, who has a more cultured foreign accent than the others, somehow each misplace their inexhaustible array of guns and rocket launchers. For reasons nobody cares to know, they are both now Bruce Lee. The hero wins. 300 police are waiting, having arrived from nowhere. The hero kisses a girl and they walk away. There are flags.
Healthcare – ???
This clusterfuck is one at which I know not where to begin. Basically though, because money… people are more profitable when they are sick, then dead, then replaced.
Sit and relax… maybe go for a nice walk. Feel better – $0.00
Yeah, might do that.