While I played at liberal ideologue in New York’s Financial District this summer, I got to observe the vaunted Wall Street banker in his native habitat: Starbucks at 2pm. He’s an aggressive animal, barking into his phone and barking at the barista. Caricatures aside though, this whole calamitous financial market implosion is finally affecting even the elite 5-percent of New York who bring in 25-percent of its income. As the moneyed class begins to suffer and their barks soften into sobs, the more resourceful among them have schemed their way to financial well-being. Here, some of their more ingenious plots – observe and learn.
Bombs as the new foreign policy doctrine
In the third grade, when sitting at lunch and one kid from our class would start whispering some secret into another’s ear, the whole table would erupt into a chorus of, “Weapons weapons are no fun, unless you share with everyone!” Maybe I’m not remembering the words exactly correct, but the United States government seems to have taken this cautionary children’s rhyme as dogma. The Defense Department has kindly opened its warehouse of bombs, sophisticated remotely piloted aircraft, and other weaponry to anyone with enough dollars.
So far this fiscal year, the Department of Defense has blown up its revenues considerably, making contracts to sell $32 billion of sophisticated weapons, including missiles and warships, to foreign governments. Whoever put together their recent selling campaign deserves a raise, as contracts in 2005 totaled a paltry $12 billion in comparison.
The Bush administration is extending these freshly inked deals for deadly weapons with some of our newest acquisitions in the allies column, including Afghanistan and Iraq. One can forgive Mr. President for forgetting what happened last time we used weapons sales to control the Soviet Union, given that he was deep into a career in the oil business and may have naturally been ignoring the Middle East.
The good news though is that these arms sales signal the US’s growing market share, to almost 52-percent in 2006, in the weapons industry and increased sales are pumping money into our beleaguered economy. With new buyers – including Argentina, Azerbaijan, Georgia, India, and Pakistan – the sky, now crowded with missiles, is the limit.
As the dollar drops in value, these high tech killing machines may become affordable not just for governments, but for any criminal enterprise with enough dollars to spare.
Your treatment of the dollar is criminal
The crowd of thugs and gangsters I’ve had occasion to meet in Evanston are some of the most discerning businessmen I’ve met. They can do purchasing power parity calculations in their heads and their currency broker is number one on their speed dial. As such, it comes as no surprise that this continent’s most economically savvy criminals have been dumping the United States dollar in favor of the euro.
A Canadian group tasked with monitoring criminal activity in the country has found organized crime syndicates are now using the euro instead of the American dollar when paying for drug shipments, neutralizing enemies, and the incidentals of organ trafficking.
Once the kingpins of Canadian marijuana – whose output supplies most of the United States and Canada – tell their gangsta friends about the lucrative euro, demand for the dollar will only go lower, making it worth less. This could possibly spell the end of the cachet of outrageous bling decorating our most beloved American criminals.
Money normally spent on emblazoning one’s name in diamonds might have to be diverted to more immediate concerns, such as food.
Did your dinner taste funny tonight?
Half of Americans claim to read the labels on processed foods before buying. So companies looking to scrimp on cost have had to finagle ever more clever recipe changes to dupe consumers in order to cut costs. Mexican oregano is being substituted for the Oriental variety to save on shipping costs and Hershey Co. has been adding more vegetable oil, less cocoa butter to… its chocolate bars.
Then there’s General Mills, who’s betting their bottom line on a hunch that consumers won’t be able to tell that pecans in the Pillsbury Turtle cookies have been swapped out for walnuts. Incidentally, the walnut has more nutritional value and higher levels of protein than the pecans of the old recipe. But once they’re on the shelf, the only thing General Mills hopes you notice is that the price hasn’t increased (too much). Companies are thoughtfully letting the changes creep unannounced on packaging fine print because they’re not necessarily good for the consumer.
Increased commodity prices – basically, the actual food stuffs, such as rice, wheat, and flour, that make up processed foods – has driven the innovation. While there’s some wiggle room with cookies and candies, McDonald’s has a more pressing dilemma – how to still make a 99-cent cheeseburger with higher cost cheese. Their solution: one slice of cheese instead of two.