shovel-ready

Why would anyone believe anything they hear, see, or read in the media about the highly touted economic stimulus plan - aka "stimulus package" (which strikes me as a little too sexy)?

a) Because they want to believe in something - anything - even if it's patently bullshit. In that case, any project it includes is automatically shovel-ready.

b) Because if they even pretend to believe it, maybe other people will really believe it, and that belief will translate into increased confidence in the financial system, which will then spark a widespread change in behavior that actually changes the economic conditions in some sector(s) of the economy.

c) Because my belief in lie X, rather than lie Y, encourages other people to buy product or service X, whose continued existence hinges on the perception that X is good and viable (and Y is not), which puts money in my pocket. It's a zero-sum game out there, folks, and money that goes in the pocket of the maker/seller/distributor of product Y doesn't go in my pocket, so screw them.

You're always selling. I have it from a reliable source that this is one of the natural laws of business. No matter what you're talking about, the discourse you and I are engaged in is a pitch for a version of reality in which something is at stake, and if you're not making the sale, you're losing the sale, sucker.

Okay, call me paranoid, call me skeptical, call me oh ye of little faith, whatever, but are the talking heads on channel 10 or CBS or Fox disinterested parties? Are the reporters for the Columbus Dispatch or the New York Freaking Times not stakeholders in this thing? Clueless and misguided stakeholders but stakeholders nonetheless. They are just doing what they know how to do, given their position in the food chain.

How about the high-minded radio voices of progressive wisdom on the self-congratulatory "All Things Considered" on NPR? Responsible journalists every one, but give me a break, why not just call their little show "Absolute Truth From the Mountaintop Interview with God." Robert Siegal, whom I like and who does an excellent job of reading the news that's written for him, wants to keep his job and his nice house in Chevy Chase or wherever he lives, and his employers want to keep their business afloat, and all of them have an interest in other people - millions of other people - believing a certain version of material reality that keeps them in white wine and broiled salmon.

Let's not kid ourselves. The minuscule minority of power brokers who control the flow of information about how to solve the current crisis have everything to gain by not changing the very institutions and conditions and procedures that created the crisis - or at least they believe they do, so their packaging of the information reflects, rather than rectifies, the kind of thinking that perpetuates the problem.

Do not rock the boat, do not change the system, and do not upset the applecart of immediate, short-term, known commodity, i.e. this paycheck, this supply chain, this management organization. Any structural change in the way of doing business could potentially damage the bottom line this week, month, or quarter, and even if that is a bump in the road toward long-term health, we here at channel 10 don't want that, so we're going to report the news that's good for channel 10.

If you and I sit in front of the TV screen and take it all in, uncritically absorbing the carefully crafted messages bottle-fed by the various talking heads - from the chubby, blow-dried local Cabot Rea to the studious and analytical national David Brooks - then we won't know any better. Otherwise have your shovel ready.

What Congress knows how to do is throw money at it. Problems on Wall Street? Look disgruntled on camera, deplore things for the microphone, have your staff investigate the problem, and then throw money at it. Don't change the rules of engagement in financial transactions, energy generation, vehicle manufacturing, or home financing, that might actually, um, you know, change something. I think they call that a lack of political will.

Don't stop building things that don't sell or don't work; don't stop mining fossil fuels that are poison to humans and other life forms; don't stop lending money in ways that guarantee very expensive failure by one or both parties. Just make more money available to keep doing what auto companies, oil and coal companies, and money lenders have been doing so badly for so long.

In the meantime, the same players are getting more money for doing what they have always done, the way they have always done it, which is the only way they know how. Why? Because it's easier - and politically more expedient - to get money out there quickly to fund those projects that don't require any new plans, new designs, new ideas, new start-ups, or doing anything that hasn't already been done before. That is, if your original, creative, groundbreaking, problem-solving project isn't shovel-ready to play the same old losing game, you need not apply.