I Doth Protest...

I hear we're in fer some mighty big protestin' o'er there in the French quarter o' kaybeck city there. And protestin's good ain't it? Gits the point across don't it? Bullshit.

The chain link has been pulled taught and brought about the core of Quebec City. Not that I mind so much except that I would prefer the Quebecois to be in it and surrounded by a firing squad of KMW 155mm/52-cal PzH 2000 self-propelled artillery systems. But I digress and I'll likely save my rants on the French for a later article dedicated to dissecting frogs. So the downtown of Quebec's Capital has been sealed off with windows boarded, doors locked, entire business shut down, just to stop a bunch of protesters from decimating the entire place. Which they are likely to do anyway since they won't be anywhere close to anyone worth protesting at. Thus an even bigger media driven frenzy must be created in order to make their point. Not that those pencil necks at the Summit of the Americas are going to be watching the news either.

Now don't get me wrong. I do believe in the freedom to stand in groups. Perhaps even carry signs that have been moiled over for days. Maybe even scream clever little slogans that would make Dr. Seuss proud, but when it comes to leveling several city blocks for no other reason than to exemplify your own purity of ignorance to what is going on in our own little dimension is completely asinine.

The reality is that most of the people involved in these protests haven't the faintest clue of what it is that they are protesting about nor do they even show the vaguest inkling that their assumptions (read propaganda) are completely off the mark and, more than likely completely counter to reality.

Most of this stuff comes down to basic economics, which is wholly lost on 99.9999% of the protesters, that you should be expecting to see throwing Molotov Cocktails at security forces and generally trying to break things. The true roots of economics lie in the following two books:


Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith c.1781

Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshall c.1890


Both of these volumes were written hundreds of years ago and yet are still 100% accurate to the core aspects and workings of micro and macroeconomics today and quite likely for hundreds of years on into the future. The efforts of breaking down barriers, borders, tariffs into the eventual concept of this "globalization" thing, will change nothing so far as how economics work on this insignificant marble of a planet. Jobs that are around now won't be around later - we've seen it many times in the last century. Things that we do today won't be done tomorrow - we see this happening every day. The world would be too boring if nothing ever changed or progressed - I can only sit on the porch and watch fido chase his tale for so long before I just have to get out my shot gun and just blow him away. Technology has done more to ravage the employment and society landscape than any past change in economic policy. Yet people aren't out in force trying to burn effigies of PalmPilots because technology is taking over our lives and becoming more and more pervasive within our society every day. That is easily worthy of a protest, but certainly not the economy

After thumbing through the above-mentioned volumes you should round out your economic background by reading:


The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Frederick Engels c.1890


Probably the most unfortunate aspect of the so-called "leaders" of these protest groups is that this book is typically where their economic training starts and ends. Empowering people to do things for the sheer benefit of the people. Unfortunately all of our past attempts at Marx's concepts have usually ended up in a few people feeling empowered enough to oppress a whole lot of other people by all means at hand. Thanks professor Ivanovich, but I don't think I'd like to partake in any more little Troika experiments.

So, if we shouldn't be worrying about the WTO or the World Bank or finance minister summits, then what should we be concerned about?

Why not look a little closer to home. Why not examine your own little economic situation. Take a glimpse at how local banks handle and work with our money. It is actually amazing that the banking system gets away with putting the lion share of their customers at extremely high risk if something goes awry. It's not like we've never seen a bank go under or anything. I'm sorry Mr. Barings, you and Mr. Neeson will have to wait outside for the auditors.?

Most people don't realize that when someone walks into a bank and deposits a million dollars cash, that the bank can then go out and lend up to 90% of that deposit to someone else. So $900,000 goes into Joe's Vacuum business. Joe is so happy to get the loan he goes back to his favorite bank - which is easy to remember since it's written on that pretty 900k cheque. Joe goes and opens an account at the bank and deposits his 900k. The bank is happy because they now show 1.9 million in deposits with only $900,000 in loans. So they can now go ahead and loan out 90% of the 900k to someone else. This means that every original million dollars that gets dropped into the bank can potentially get leveraged into about 9 million dollars worth of loans and investments. With the bank raking in their 9% on those 9 million dollars in loans, its no wonder that they show some pretty hefty profits.

Now what would it take to disrupt this whole chain of events? Where is the Achilles heal in this whole process? The reality is that a huge downturn or loss of core capital or investments could result in a horrific ripple effect that would put the bank into a severe risk situation where they can soar critically above the 90% lending limit. With a potential for a shortcoming that could reach into billions very quickly, people may want to take out their money - but it turns out that the bank hasn't really got any real money anymore. Where is your couple of thousand in chequing then? How about your ten grand in savings? Wait - why not check on those RRSPs? You may want to take a peek in Joe's vacuum to get a good look at what's left.

That situation, which is standard North American Banking practice, is exactly why you want to temper some of Marx's ideas. They are still great, but I'm not seeing Dimitri Yushkevich rushing back to the motherland after New Jersey smokes the Leafs out of the play-offs. If you want a more detailed look at the previous example, plus a number of other economic issues you should really have concerns about, you may want to take a look at:


The Armchair Economist by Steve Landsburg c.1993


He also has a slightly more modern take on some of the core concepts found in the previous tomes. And with all that economic who-haw out of the way we can get back to the protestin'! cuz ev'ryone's in it fer the protestin'. This protest has to be big. It has to count. They've got their fences and their barbed wire and they got military forces and rubber bullets and don't forget the mace. Mace - It's what's for breakfast!

How big a deal is it? Well, Jose Bove is trying to get there! That has to be big. For those that don't know, Jose Bove is a French (France French) farmer that was incarcerated for vandalizing a McDonalds restaurant. Mostly because they weren't interested in buying his low quality cuts of meat. The cows likely smelled almost as bad as he does. Come on - he's French - and for a group of people that have had their asses royally kicked throughout history by almost everyone on the planet, you have to admit they are still a pretty damn cocky lot over there.

So, our friend Jose goes psycho over the big corporate conglomerate not wanting his shitty over fat cows (and by the way Jose you were supposed to shovel the shit OUT of the barn) that he causes a fair bit of damage to one of the big conglomerate's local outlets and winds up spending some time with a bunch of guys who constantly reminded him precisely where his shit comes out.

After all this he now thinks (and this is the cocky portion of our show) that he is some kind of anti-corporate-big biz-congolorate-financier-economical-banking kingpin that he has to drag has stench all they way over here to show our kids just how a window really gets broken with a baseball bat. Whoopie shit!

So to those that feel this dumbass protest is really necessary I say - go to school - heres a dime - go buy yourself a goddamn clue and find something worth shouting about.