I am an expert on low finance. By that, I mean my own finance. For most of my adult life I was overdrawn and owed money. I sort of understood it, enough anyway to eventually rise out of it - just! But high finance is a mystery. It is one of those subjects, like quantum physics, or knitting, which are tricky mostly because no-one can explain them to outsiders. You either 'do' them and you 'know', or you don't and therefore, er, you don't - if you take my meaning. Of course, in the case of high finance the picture is further complicated by the fact that there are a great many crooks and sous-crooks involved. By 'sous-crooks' I mean, for example, those incompetents who bungled and blundered their way into the 'Crash of '08', not quite criminal but almost! However, at the stratospheric level of high finance where bankers meet politicians, that is where the really serious and serial crooks, cheats and liars do their dirty deeds and the likes of you and me are denied any chance of understanding.
At CNS News, Mr. Terence P. Jeffrey, an excellent reporter, makes a gallant effort to explain the inexplicable which has recently taken place at the US Treasury Department. The story begins with a simple 'fact' and the use of inverted commas round that word will become clear. On May 17th the US national debt stood at $16,699,396,000,000.oo. Yes, it made me wince, too, but seventy days later the US national debt stood at, er, well, $16,699,396,000,000.oo. Not a cent more or a cent less. For seventy days. Whodathunkit? Nah, me neither!
This is the Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and you-know-who. I assume they both carefully counted their fingers after the handshake! The answer to this apparently unsolvable conundrum is simple - Congress passed a law stating that the national debt must not exceed $16,699,421,095,673.60. So you see, it's simple in the Alice in Wonderland inhabited by the top levels of the American government; if the law states that such-and-such a figure must not be exceeded then you freeze the figure for as long as you like whilst you go on borrowing money. Of course, you, like me, may not understand these subtleties of high finance conducted at government level but if you just think of it as lying and the perps as lying liars then you will probably just about be right.
Well, I don't know a damned thing about quantum physics (nor do I want to) but I can teach you to knit and even crochet if you like.
Just let me know when you're ready. I'll provide the wool and needles - you should probably start with a scarf. Any idiot can knit or crochet a scarf.
Posted by: Andra | Tuesday, 30 July 2013 at 22:51
Hah, how wrong can you be Andra?
I've had multiple lessons on knitting, crocheting and sewing (Grandma, Mother, sisters and even that nice CSM in basic - please don't ask what he threatened to do with the bobbin of thread. I survived by bartering bulling skills for 'sew this damn rank/unit patch on' services) and still can't manage to cast on, figure out which end of the needle to hold or thread) I am quite good at causing self-inflicted minor injuries though).
So, some of us idiots ... oh? Forget I said anything.
Posted by: Able | Wednesday, 31 July 2013 at 03:07
What are bulling skills?
Posted by: Andra | Wednesday, 31 July 2013 at 07:44
As in 'bullshit', that is, polishing and cleaning military style.
Actually, I remember a bloke in 9 Sqdn Engineers who used to knit. I sat opposite him once in a plane on the way to a drop. Long row of paratroopers all kitted up, weapon bags, steel helmets and so forth - and this bloke sitting there knitting! Somehow it didn't quite fit the image - but they were an eccentric lot in 9 Sqdn.
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 31 July 2013 at 08:47
Didn't sailors used to knit, Duffers?
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 31 July 2013 at 14:00
Ermmmm... Perhaps you are thinking of 'knit-picking' dm.
Posted by: Up2L8 | Wednesday, 31 July 2013 at 19:57
Andra, don't believe a word of it.
'Bulling' is the regimental British military tradition of designating those troops chosen to maintain the peace, and proper decorum, by mounting bovine horns on their helmets. Since other weapons were not allowed, should the miscreant attempt to resist .... Thus the origin of the term 'to be charged with a crime'.
Honest!
Posted by: Able | Thursday, 01 August 2013 at 00:17
Hmmmmm!
Posted by: Andra | Thursday, 01 August 2013 at 07:23