What's It To You?

You can't put a price on it. You can't put a price on him, on her, on them. The Price Is Wrong. The cost of medications, of healthcare, of surgery. A matter of life or death. A pauper's grave. A penny for your thoughts. How about a dollar? Or a million dollars for your thought? That single unspoken thought, the dangerous one you can't speak even to yourself, the perverse and criminal thought that will shame and ruin you -- and you didn't even know it was a floating subterranean tidal whisper. A living wage. The cost of living. The wages of sin. Thank you for your time. Paying for the privilege of your time. Our shared time, and space. How much is it worth to you? The meter is running. Stop the meter. Rare silks and spices from exotic lands. Explorers, navigators, plunderers. A lunar rock. A Roman emperor on a broken coin. Fragment of fossilized bone. Anonymity. Secrecy. Mystery. Coin of the realm. The crown jewels. Cupidity. Need. Want. Bartering this for that. Transaction. Gold. Dust. Silver. Rust. What's it worth? What's it worth to you? And to me. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, crystal. Paper or plastic? Ultimately, what's it worth to them? Currency. Flow. In circulation. Streaming. Exchange. This for that. You for me, me for you, us for them, them for us. David Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)," $18,000 in 1972; $90.3 million in 2018. Off the grid. Unavailable. Digitally absent. Gone. Missing in inaction. Flood of images. Verbal inundation. She of few words. He of sphinxlike silence. Rare blood type. Bloodlust. Donor fatigue. Daylight Saving Time. Daylight Saving Space. Saving for what and how? Freedom isn't free. Currencies of blood, time, space, platitude, demagoguery, faith, courage, history, and myth. Terms and conditions. Are you available Thursday? They're never available. I can never reach her. He never answers. Rarely. Rara avis. Rare bird. Rare book. What am my bid? Going once, going twice. Sold. How much was that again? 

Carry on, Jevons

"Carry on, Jevons" sounds like the beginning of a British comedy of manners. To the manor born (not "manner," as people erroneously write), that sort of bit. Square jaw. Clenched. Smoking jacket. Leather-bound volumes. A glass of sherry (but none for abstinent moi).

But Jevons here refers to the Jevons Paradox. As David Owen (if you like smart contrarians, always look for him in The New Yorker) put it in "The Efficiency Dilemma," in the December 20, 2010, issue of The New Yorker magazine:

In 1865, a twenty-nine-year-old Englishman named William Stanley Jevons published a book, “The Coal Question,” in which he argued that the bonanza couldn’t last. Britain’s affluence and global hegemony, he wrote, depended on its endowment of coal, which the country was rapidly depleting. He added that such an outcome could not be delayed through increased “economy” in the use of coal—what we refer to today as energy efficiency. He concluded, in italics, “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”

Some, if not most, economists and environmentalists assert that the Jevons Paradox has little effect in the modern world. But, as Owen notes, no one has ever really studied all the variables that go into a macro-study. And it would be impossible to calculate. Owen says the Jevons effect is essentially the history of civilization. It happens all the time, in many ways.

It's only common sense, isn't it? Cheap gas? Hummers galore. Expensive gas? Less driving, smaller cars.

Let's extend the Jevons principle into more metaphorical realms, if you will:

• More talk equals less thought.
• Less thought equals more talk.
• More blogging equals less originality.
• More sex equals less pleasure.
• More channels adds up to less entertainment.
• More money results in more poverty.
• More faith means more science.
• One leap of faith begets a dance of doubt.
• Two Kierkegaards tie one Buster Posey.
• Three pas de deux surprise a guillotine of guilt.
• Seventy-seven haiku hijack a hiatus of hilarity.
  

It is possible these are skewed conclusions, not proportionally propositioned or logically legislated.

That's okay. It's my venue.

In veritas veritate.

Age quod agis.

Or something like that.

As you were, Jevons.

Dear Economy

Dear Economy,
How are you? We have not talked in a while, have we? How are you, Economy, and all your relative economies? Are you feeling better, Economy? Has the fever broken? I sure hope so, Economy. I need and want you to feel better so I can feel better, so we all can feel better, especially those of us who do not work for Wall Street financial institutions, whose tentacles spread to Our Street. We hear so much talk of green, Economy. Dude, the green economy I want and need, Economy, is the kind that folds easily into my left pocket, right pocket, wallet, or purse. Economy, this green economy (unlike your alleged recovery, Economy) can be measured very accurately. This green economy is paper (although it can magically become paperless and digital) is 2.61 inches wide, 6.14 inches long, and 0.0043 inches thick. Did I mention it was green? These green pieces of healthy economy, Economy, are 75% cotton and 25% linen. Anyway, before signing off, Economy, my whole family sends you warm hugs. We really, really hope you are feeling better. Here's to a full and healthy recovery, Economy.
Love,
US

Wordy Wordilicious Word of the Year

My award for 2008 Wordy Wordilicious Word of the Year is:

tranche.

It describes an arcane financial instrument that symbolizes the economic collapse visited upon us by people using obscure words for even more obscure products. To round out the chimera obscura, news stories about the handout of up to $700 billion (to the guilty parties no less!) refer to the "first tranche" of the bailout, as if a French word prettifies the robbery.

One might say, "We are in the tranches encountering a tranche da vie avec la tranche l'oeil." Somesing like zat.

Freegonomics: Food for Thought -- and Word Blenders

As you know, I like wordplay. The title of my blog declares it. (Of course, laughorist is a blend of laugh + aphorist.) So, when I read an online piece today about some folks in the San Francisco area who succeeded in complying with their vow not to shop for a year (with some exceptions), I was all set to declare myself as the inventor of the blended neologism "freegonomics."

Read on.

The news story made reference to so-called freegans, people who advocate minimal consumption -- with some going so far as to eat out of Dumpsters. (Please note: the former newspaper copy editor in me warns you that Dumpster is a brand name and should be capitalized when you read it in print or online.) The word freegan itself, of course, is a linguistic blend of free + vegan. (Turns out that some freegans are meagans, because they allow themselves to eat meat.)

Well, I cannot claim to have coined the term freegonomics (the link here to the word is actually a thought-provoking essay by columnist Lucy Siegle in The Observer back in February 2006). A simple search of "freegonomics" indicates that several others already beat me to it, by months if not years.

Even if I did not coin the term, I feel the concept raises issues worth considering. When I was in college, during the Vietnam War, I remember a philosophy professor, John McNeill, challenging our class at LeMoyne College with respect to those who protested the war. He said something like this:

"A Franciscan movement could end this war in 90 days. But you can't do it. If everyone from, say, the ages of 15 to 30 disciplined themselves to the point of buying only necessary goods, you would be able to get anything you want from the government in no time. The economic effect would be huge, and you would be able to stop the war. But you don't have that ability to sacrifice."

Something like that. And I suspected then, and now, he was right.

There's little doubt that consumption (is "overconsumption" a redundancy about redundancies?) in capitalist (well, in all societies) involves abuse, destruction, waste, and greed.

But couldn't the same be said ever since Adam and Eve (easy on those apples, kids)?

I don't disagree that we (we in the U.S. and the so-called developed nations, as well as we who pollute the air and foul the rivers of a booming China) are ravaging the planet. But on a macroeconomic level, if "we" all were to cut back even to a sensible minimum of consumption (a sensible minimum, however you define it), does that impoverish thousands, if not millions, of suddenly jobless people?

I am neither a microeconomist nor a macroeconomist. I tend to be quite frugal (some would say cheapskate). I am not an extravagant buyer. When clothes are given to me as gifts, I feel sheepish (well, that's true for anything made of wool - HAHAHAHA).

I don't know what to conclude about any of this.

Just some food for thought.

And, speaking of word blenders, as opposed to food blenders, even Wikipedia (the source of many definitions above) is a blend of wiki (Hawaiian for fast) + encyclopedia.

You can look it up.

Laugh. Or....

Else.