Economics

I live as though a midnight nurse might appear anytime and ask for my symptoms. Of course they vary hour by hour. Dawn cracks open like a soft-boiled egg and pretends everything’s fine. I no longer step in puddles. I detour. I strategize. A relaxed stroll in cheap shoes can apparently lead to pleurisy or some Victorian inconvenience. First you get the sweats. After that you’re on your own.

The Knitpic café doesn’t make money. It just washes it's face when a white tour bus coughs up some retirees. Lochs, Castles and Bridges road trips. Then it shuts on weekends, because logic is optional. The toilets are closed too. They will be fine. You can probably guess my financial future.

I have a feeling of not knowing. It stays with me. I stand outside of things and watch them move. I do not always understand how they move or why.

I think about the men and women who design birthday cards. The ones who draw flowers and bright balloons and write small jokes in some careful script. They open Esty shops. I think about the people who shape up plates and cups, or print patterns on tablecloths no one will really remember a year from now because they’re not Ikea. They must earn their keep somehow. Most of it is made far away, in China, where the provinces are all different from one another and the work is hard and constant. So I imagine. I’ve yet to visit. There is talk of energy there. Of a work ethic that does not stall or complain. Brutal or just kind in a knowing, human way?

Here it feels slower. As if a man must be nudged out of bed. As if he must be promised money before he will bend to lift. And even then he gives no more than he must. But why should he give more, when the men above him take more than their share? When managers talk of discipline, tight lines and teams but reward themselves first. Who has more “rights”? Shareholders; they’ll let you drink the poisoned water for a profit.

Finance is a dark room to me. Investment and industry are words spoken with confidence by men in good suits that fit their bad mood. We are told the markets will correct themselves. That traders will be fair. That prices will find their proper level. It is like handing the keys for the till to a man who has already shown you his dirty money stained hands. He still calls on you to trust his speculations. I smell phoenix schemes.

There is a faint ringing in my ear. It comes and goes. It sounds like a signal carried on under the noise of the day. As if something unseen adjusts the dials. Turn down what is good. Turn up what is bad. You will have what we decide. They say it plainly. We will have what we can take. Easy money. Avert your eyes and don’t trust your senses.

The ringing stays.

Toothpaste costs seven Pounds a tube. Oral-B. Instant coffee costs seven Pounds a jar. Nescafe. A pint of beer costs seven Pounds in a clean city bar with polished taps and a quiet floor. Seven British Pounds - might be Bucks or Euros where you are. The numbers increase and repeat themselves like a joke told too often. Don’t believe a man who laughts loudly at his own joke. He’s not really laughing. Neither are you.

People shake their heads. They are angry. They are tired. But they get on with it.

The ringing goes on.

Now I blame Richard Nixon. I found the root. A lot of things grew up from that. Nests of snakes. Still putting their eggs out and about. There, that’s your economics.