Good reason as well. How boring.
I have this problem where all my song titles are bad puns. This song 'Not Interested' is no different. But I guess realising is the first step, right?
Somewhere around the end of 2013 I was flicking through a newspaper waiting for a coffee before work, and lurking deep inside, hidden at the bottom corner of the boring section of the paper was a small article that said "Government Gives Reserve Bank $8.8billion." I thought "Gee thats a lot of scratch!" I remembered because I needed $8.80 for two coffees.
"Isn't that Reserve Bank thingy part of the Government already?" I mumbled aloud to a disinterested empty chair.
The website had "dot gov" at the end - so it seemed legit - but how can an entity give itself cash for "challenges ahead?" I sure as a soy-flat-white can't give myself $8.80 to pay for "coffee's ahead" if I just don't have the cash.
The "official" RBA (reserve bank of Aus) website provided a standard circular goose-chase explanation that seemed to explain things similar to your drunk mate at a party who says the ocean is blue because it reflects the sky - and the sky is blue because it reflects the ocean... But don't worry - its all in control, look here's a word salad of financial jargon to chew on - now get back to work and keep paying that mortgage Joel, you peasant.
That Orwell bloke you were supposed to read about in school also warned us nearly a century ago that language could be modified to control a population. Not only can you reduce the capacity for humans to be able to explain things to each other, they wouldn't even be able to organise their own thoughts due to a restricted internal dialogue. I feel like this 'monetary newspeak' also panders to some kind of tribal ego which reinforces an exclusive fraternity among the uptown suits, but also elevates them from any form of critique, as it makes anyone who can't keep up with the jargon feel uneducated and therefore not qualified to enter the debate.
If I was hanging out on the Death Star with Vader and that guy in a hood with the vitamin-D deficiency, plotting ways to extend the empire's fiscal grip around the collective neck of the universe, this would be my presentation to uncle Darth:
"…If we can increase the amount of complex terms to the point where simple concepts are made overly confusing, then we can manipulate a large portion of people who don't have the time, or interest to figure it out."
[click to imaginary slide 2]
"We will repackage some key terms to confuse the 'law-makers' of each planet, we can then make some incredible gambles with money that isn't ours, backed by credit that doesn't exist - to build the biggest, Death-iest Star ever! If it all goes bad, don't worry - we will threaten to bring the whole system down, if the law makers don't bail us out! Kind of like privatising the wins and socialising the losses!"
"How do you intend on doing thish?" Vader breathes at me through a black plastic cheese grater stuck to his face.
"Those law makers" I say "They'll pass anything because they won't understand it, and they'll be too afraid to speak up - check this ridiculous word I just made up, 'Subprime-Mortgage' Bahahahaha! Credit-Default-Swap!! BA HA HA HA!"
…and we all collapse on the cold steel floor of the deathstar-boardroom in a chorus of evil laughs.
Back on a galaxy close-close to Earth I can understand why no one cares. It's boring stuff, and I personally don't have the time or interest to figure out how the empire is even achieving this incredibly rigged game of monopoly.
As a species, it seems we've only just stopped to take a breath after running from sabre-toothed lions and cheetahs, now we're running from a different kind of beast with mortgage teeth, conjured by liars and cheaters. Sheesh, the word even tries to tell you itself, 'mort' literally means hunted or death. But don't you dare stop to figure out whats happening to you! Get back to work - here put on this cheap suit and let it devour you instead.
In the sixty odd years that I will possibly work, twenty of it will be given to the government for some heaps efficient and effective services (and paying off their own special debt with interest), and another twenty will happily be given to my very own carefully selected vampiric money-lender, so that I can pay off a patch of land that I have no real claim to.
If this was a sickness or some sort of skin disease that stole 20-40 years of my life I would be completely absorbed with it. I would find out all about the medical jargon associated with it - I would look at a variety of mainstream and alternative ways of curing it. I'd get in a circle and hold hands chanting COOMBA-YA in a self-help group who've also been diagnosed with the long-term effects of Socially-Contracted Acute-Mortgage-Disorder (SCAMD) and we would all figure out how we got it, what we can do, and most of all who can we sue, because someone else has to be at fault.
We don't have the same approach to personal sickness as we do to a global financial system thats infected everything. I'm not sure what to do, but I guess realising is the first step, right? I wrote a song about it with a terrible pun in the title, bought some Bitcoin, then kept calm and carried on. After all - I'm not using the correct jargon so I'm not qualified to enter the debate.
ABOUT ME
Hi I'm Joel. I live in Sydney Australia, I do electrical draughting by day and play bass and write tunes at night for a group called Lese Majesty. I hope to one day write something good. But until then, I'll keep trying to improve.
You can check out my band at http://www.lesemajesty.com.au