Murder by Numbers
SSSmart people agree that murder is ________?
There are many words that could fit in that space, but culturally we have made the action illegal as defined by various codes and procedures. But what is murder, at core? The taking of life without its permission. Some would say that killing a dog in the street because it is chattel and the potential fine is low to be murder. Chickens and cows and pigs lost their right to life millennia ago. In war, young men are conscripted by the state to murder men conscripted by other states. So there are many places to draw the line.
For better or worse, we are not here to have a philosophical debate. This manifesto is about numbers.
I am a middle-aged white guy in America. I have no political party affiliation. As far as I'm concerned the country is run by red and blue circus clowns as a distraction from the real business of exercising power. I'm not here as part of your political divide. I come from the Market. I follow the math. And there are points that need to be made.
As a human in a modern capitalist economy, I need to pay people to murder plants and cows and chickens so that I can consume the nutrients required to sustain my existence. If you are reading this and can comprehend the words, you have the same problem. We are both murderers by design. Apex Predators. The fact that we outsource the skull smashing bit to others doesn't absolve us of anything.
The question we need to ask ourselves is; "How do we get the money to buy the chicken sandwich and fries?"
In the long long ago people were gifted land by the government as an incentive to develop the new world. In the generations that lived and died since, that land has been subdivided and turned into the cash that paid for sustenance to the people who owned it.
For most of American history "slavery" was a very real and very important aspect of the macro economy. When it ended we (those in power) focused on the use of capital to maintain control instead of state sanctioned violence against chattel human property. This focus on capital accounting value as a guiding light eventually financed Henry Ford's automotive expansion, which made the industrial revolution what it was.
Apart from a brief period following world war 2, capital has been used to control a population of wage slaves rather effectively. And in the modern world, where the average human born today will never own any land or any means of producing capital for itself, how we manage economy is a genuine matter of life and death.
All that is to say that I understand why things are.
Now, I'm not going to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do in a modern capitalist system. If you get away with it, good for you. But know this, I too need to eat and I am actually rather fond of a particular type of murder. Did you know that the United States Supreme Court has ruled and made law of the land that corporations are "people?" More importantly, did you know there is an entire code of federal rules on how to properly kill (bankrupt/dissolve) said corporate "people?"
In other words... corporations are people that can be legally murdered in the United States. You don't even need a reason!
The BEST part is, with knowledge of a specific set of equations and system rules you can turn a corporation's death into cash to buy food and shelter and health care!
Intrigued? You should be. You should also know that there are rules. Many Many Many rules, all of which need to be followed. Nobody is advocating breaking the law here. On the contrary... success is exploiting the law and system rules to extract value for myself and my team.
Thankfully, there are a good number of terrible people out in the market today who commit vile acts and use corporations as a liability shield. Finding and eliminating their securities fraud from the marketplace is a noble, and in many cases profitable enterprise. The fact that the "evil" entities are slain on the field of battle is just bonus points.
Truth be told I've been playing this game on my own for a very long time. I enjoy it. And at this point I aspire to assemble a syndicate of like minded merchants and traders to tackle bigger fish. Think predators hunting as a pack, murdering fat corporate frauds for profit.
Anyway, there is much more to say on this subject but this is neither the time nor the place. If you want to know more: Login.
- A Predator
