Let’s Fix The World — Part 2

As I said on Tuesday, the world is a mess (“Let’s Fix The World”) but here are three more things that would fix the problem — if only we’d start thinking outside the box.

Bring Back Bullies! — When we eliminated bullies from the classroom and the playground, we unintentionally created a bigger problem. We produced an entire generation who a) don’t understand the world is full of nasty, evil bastards and b) don’t know how to handle them when they show up. I’m lookin’ at you, Vladimir — or Donald ( whatever your pleasure.) So, every time some pipsqueak Kim Jong-Un dick-tator starts waving his nuclear weapons around, the entire world has to come to a screaming halt while we try to figure out what to do with the guy. This is a waste of time. It would be far better to have the bullies show up in the first grade (like they used to) and we could learn how to deal with them long before it gets to nuclear-warfare-scary. That way, we’re not playing around with these nutbars for years when we should be concentrating on serious things.

Build Some Useless Stuff — This isn’t my idea, but it’s brilliant. What we do is take all the students coming out of university with worthless degrees (art history, media studies, leadership, philosophy etc., etc., etc.) and put them to work building a bunch of massive, useless monuments. Things like Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid or the Great Wall of … uh — well — maybe a wall isn’t such a good idea — but, anyway, stuff like that. This would keep these half-educated cretins so busy they wouldn’t have time to sit around bitchin’ about their lot in life, blaming the 1% and causing trouble on Facebook and Twitter. And they’ll be too tired to be constantly yipping about “safe zones” and “cultural appropriation” and why we have to change the he/she pronoun to some made up “ze” bullshit. The result would be the rest of us could quit wasting a ton of time, trying to placate these malcontents — and we can get on with trying to solve the world’s real problems. Plus, we’d get a pile of new roadside attractions for selfies and such.

Buy Things — It’s pretty obvious that our world is crap at solving problems. Just take a look! When we tried to feed Africa, we ended up with Sir Bob Geldof, stumbling around like a tramp looking for a hot meal. When we tried to halt Global Warming, we ended up with Al Gore whose personal carbon footprint is the size of Milwaukee. And now that we’re trying to solve the refugee crisis, who do we find on the front line? George Clooney and Susan Sarandon! (Why don’t we just ask Sean Penn to run the UN and get it over with?) However, there is one thing our consumer society does extremely well: we know how to buy stuff. We need to use this ability to our advantage. For example, if we’re serious about saving the African White Rhinoceros, why don’t we just buy them all? (There can’t be that many left.) We buy them all, stamp them with “Property of …” and hire a bunch of Los Angeles policemen to look after them. Poachers might be mean and ruthless, but there’s nothing on this planet meaner than the LAPD! And, honestly, how much would it cost? The EU spends 100 billion Euros every year on foreign aid: a few rhinos would be a drop in the bucket. Another example. Want to end poverty in Mali? Buy it! Then send a couple of boatloads of liberal arts graduates (from item #2) over there to build pyramids, and you’d probably get your initial investment back in a couple of years from tourism alone. This could work for everything from saving the rain forest to stopping the cocaine trade. Plus, if we just use the money Western politicians waste every year, nobody’s going to feel the financial pinch. So this year we buy all the whales and tell the Japanese and Norwegians to go hang; two years from now, we buy all the heroin in the world and burn it in the Libyan desert — because we bought that the year before.

Actually, the sky’s the limit. All we have to do is quit wasting our time and think about it.

Let’s Fix The World!

Let’s face it, folks! We’re screwed — like totally. Western society is in an unholy hole, and every time some bright-bulb-somebody shows up with a shovel and tries to fix things, they just end up digging us in a little deeper. In my lifetime, the poor have gotten poorer, the hungry have gotten hungrier and the homeless have gotten — uh — well, you can’t actual get any homelesser, but given the wretched state of things, they probably would be — if it were at all possible. The point is, we need to do something — yesterday — or we’re going to find out rock bottom has a basement. Unfortunately, our world has been hijacked by stupid people. We all know there’s no cure for stupid, but with a little ingenuity, we can limit the ability of these morons to control the agenda. This is not a quick fix, and it could take a generation or two to get things under control, but if we act now there’s still time to save our society. Here are three things we need to do immediately, or the next voice we’re going to hear is President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho from Idiocracy, declaring war on asparagus.

1 — We need to make people take a test (and pass it!) before they’re allowed to vote. Here’s the deal: plumbers have to take a test (and pass it) before they’re allowed to play around with your sewer pipes; electricians have to take a test before they’re allowed to install a light switch; even cab drivers have to take a test before their allowed to drive you home from the bar. Yet, when it comes to politics and selecting the folks who are actually going to run the world, we abandon all due diligence and let every dumbass who can make an ‘X’ have a say — an equal say, BTW. No wonder most of our leaders have nice hair, good teeth and no brains.

2 — We need to make people who want to become parents go to Parenting School. Here’s the deal: if you want to be a teacher and teach kids, you have to go to school. If you want to open a Day Care and look after kids, you have to go to school. Hell, in some places if you want to be an occasional babysitter — you have to go to school. Yet, if you want to become a parent and be totally — 100% — responsible for a helpless child’s comfort, nutrition, safety and education, their physical, psychological, moral and spiritual wellbeing, and work diligently 24/7 for 18 years (without a day off) to turn them into responsible adults — all you have to do is have one too many tequilas, let a foot massage get out of hand and 9 months later — Shazam! — you’re a parent. Does this make any sense? Letting a bunch of people who haven’t got a clue about life have kids and pass their cluelessness on to the next generation is what’s exponentially killing our society.

But first — before we do all that:

3 — We need to take the warning labels off everything. This is Darwinism at its best, and it might be exactly what our world needs right now.

Mean Words About Insurance

The entire insurance industry is based on the simple premise that there are any number of ways to rob somebody without sticking a gun in their face. Over centuries of thievery, insurance people have mastered every one of them. To call insurance companies shysters is an insult to shysters everywhere. Here are a few things everyone should know about insurance.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I’ve had insurance in one form or another for most of my life, so I am well-versed in the wiles of these swindlers.

Insurance Agents — These are magical people who are literally everywhere when they’re trying to sell you insurance but suddenly vanish off the face of the earth after you buy it.

The Policy — This a mind-baffling 60 page document written by a cabal of blood-sucking lawyers. (No, not all lawyers are bloodsuckers, but the 99% who are give the others a bad name.) Its express purpose is to legally deny everything the salespeople (agent) ever said to you — including “Good morning.”

Deductible — This is a sneaky way of saying “We’re always going to keep some of the money we owe you, because — uh — we can.” Nobody has ever given me a satisfactory reason why the “deductible” even exists. What is its actual purpose? Or how do I, the customer, benefit from having a “deductible?” Want some serious John Oliver grins? Phone up your insurance company and ask them to explain the “deductible” to you.

Claim Form — This a mind-baffling 60 page questionnaire written by a cabal of blood-sucking lawyers. (No, not all lawyers are bloodsuckers but the 99% who are give the others a bad name.) Its express purpose is a) to prove you’re a lying, cheating criminal or b) to frustrate you to the point of gut-splattering suicide.

The Payout — Should catastrophe actually befall you, get ready for a trial by fire. This ordeal will include (but will not be limited to) a mountain of paperwork, months of argument, 19 emails, 27 telephone calls, 8 hours on hold, a letter to your political representative, a formal complaint to the Board of Trade, and thousands of dollars to your own blood-sucking lawyer. Then, at the precise moment you’re seriously contemplating homicide, suicide — or both — the insurance company will offer you a minuscule amount of money (minus the “deductible”) for your trouble. This will be an insulting fraction of what they promised you when you bought the damn policy, but a word of advice. Take it — or they’ll start the whole process all over again.

So what’s it all about:

What is Insurance? — Insurance is a bet you make with a nameless, faceless, soulless corporation that something terrible is going to happen to you. Every month, you ante up a sum of money (called the premium.) This “premium” is held by the insurance company, and if you happen to avoid disaster for 30 days, you lose the bet and the nameless, faceless, soulless corporation gets to keep your money. This little exercise is repeated — month after month, year after year — until you either go broke, get sick, die or your house burns down. Thus, weird as it sounds, every month that life is good, you lose the bet and lose your money. But if your life does go to hell and you finally win the bet — you still lose!

DISCLAIMER: This is satire, and I am sure that there are plenty of insurance companies out there who are honest and trustworthy — but like unicorns, leprechauns and howling banshees, I’ve never seen one.

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