ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

I'm putting on a play about our current world. I won't be giving any of the actors scripts so they'll have to improvise any old shite that comes into their heads. I'm hoping for some monologues that make little sense, but sound powerful anyway - in a strange way.

I'll also cue light changes and sound effects and pull up and down the curtain at entirely random times so as to disorientate the cast and audience alike.

The whole show will finish with the theatre catching fire and everyone being directed to fake emergency exits that all lead to the toilet.

It'll be just like real life. It'll be very realistic.

Then of course there is the encore. Played by the final living actor, burnt a gaudy orange, coughing and sooty upon the remnants of the stage. The last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history, is second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste*, sans everything.

*Oh, definitely tasteless.

POOR PEPE

Bullying was normalised by reality TV, pop star judges and tough guy celebrity chefs with Deirdre Barlow hair.

Young Pepes learned that to win you must be malicious. That empathy is a weakness. That sympathy is passé. That spite is right!

Poor Pepes. Sad, insecure, mutually stigmatising, profoundly petrified Pepes. Discouraging each other. Stealing each other's strength.

The least equipped of us to deal with the challenging vagaries of life, should Pepes be pitied?

Pepes degrade and humiliate each other in an attempt to exorcise their own degradation and humiliation.

But self-hate is non-transferable. They curse each other and they are all cursed.

Jungian shadows are projected wildly. Insults and caustic humour betray an overwhelming dissatisfaction with existence.

It goes on and on. From snide to cutting. Accumulating. A toxic tsunami sweeps across our world. An inescapable, global hex.

Discourse is corrupted and now those racing to be POTUS exchange cruelties. So presidential. What good influences.

Being kind or even considerate and thinking 'hey, there's a whole human being inside that human being' is history. 

Climate change, warfare, whatever, the Doomsday clock is reaching twelve. 

It seems the concluding act of the human race is to piss on its own grave.

But if you can't beat them, join them. I think I'll give it a go.

So, my first and final insult to the poor Pepes of the world is this...

My remaining hope is that I live long enough to see you all die.

Die.

In cowering, sobbing, isolated regret.

Inhaling the Arctic methane.

Your world in unrest.

Dying. Dying. 

Dead.




That is all.

Release the gas.

Send in the drones.

Whatever.

HOME FOR SOCIETY'S FAILURES

A private home for the relics of the establishment. They wander the corridors shouting out half-remembered things and attempting to adhere to protocols from days gone. Doddery TDs roar for imaginary Ceann Comhairles. Their minds suspended in battles yesteryear, they emit non sequiturs. 'Don't interrupt me, I didn't interrupt you,' they protest to no one in particular about nothing in particular. Senility clutches to the remnants of instinct. It's an attempt to make sense of what never made sense.

A spoon is raised to Sir Anthony's gaping mouth. The most ancient of them all. Vacant. The train has left the station and the stop long since terminated. The comparatively sprightly Denis giggles and hides Sir Anthony's slippers. Then Denis can't remember where he hid the slippers or even that he hid them at all, so he looks for the slippers so he can hide them again and wails when he can't find them. His memories redacted, he can only be calmed by a little treat. Lobster bisque or something like that. Then he scurries to the corner and whispers legal threats into the ear of a husk that was once a leading journalist. The husk weeps and pleads for mercy.

Undead ex-ministers cut deals with dementia afflicted tycoons. Brown envelops are exchanged but there's only shit in them. Speaking of shit, along come Joan and Enda, collecting water charges with their bedpans. Buttons are dropped in with a clinking sound and they shuffle on, droning about the future of the nation and muttering some vague legislation.

There's a large fence with snipers all around. Whether the guns are there to keep those seeking vengeance out or keep those who killed the future in, no one is quite sure. Perhaps it's a bit of both. The situation is being contained, that's all that matters. That's all that ever mattered. Actually dealing with situations was never the aim. It was all just a perpetual crisis management game, with some money made on the side. The profits of chaos for those presiding over that chaos. They felt it their due. 'You'd do the same,' was their internal excuse and cognitive guilt inhibitor.

Their time long passed, their power in the past, they are now put out to pasture. Rendered harmless and bovine, they await slaughter. Night falls and along comes the Reaper. A soul is collected and another shameful cadaver is left for inclusion in the annals of this home for society's failures.

THICK CRIMINAL

Do you remember the time we kidnapped that millionaire's kid and it took you ages to write the ransom note because you thought it had to rhyme? You're some thick. And you kept calling it a ramson note too didn't you? You did. You thick.

And then you kidnapped yourself, remember that? You kidnapped yourself and sent a 'ramson' note to yourself demanding that you send all the cash you have to yourself to get yourself back. You thought that if you paid yourself all the cash you had to get yourself back you'd double your money. Jesus God in Heaven, you're an unbelievable simpleton.

And do you remember that time we were planning to burgle a house and you said we should burgle my house because I had loads of nice stuff? Unbelievable. You even told me when not to be in to make sure we didn't get caught. You complete dope.

And then there was the time we robbed that bank and after they handed over the money you immediately tried to open an account with the bank to put the money in. Remember that? You said it wouldn't be safe walking home with that amount on us. 'What if we're mugged?' you asked. 'There's loads of criminals around these days,' you said. 'Even we're criminals,' you pointed out. Jesus Lord MacFuck.

Then there was your counterfeit money scam but instead of using forgeries you used real money because, as you actually said yourself, 'it's more realistic'. Remember that? Remember how pleased you were with yourself for coming up with that one? And you said your favourite part of the plan was that you couldn't get caught because you weren't doing anything wrong. I was lost for words that time, absolutely lost for words. It reminded me of the pyramid scheme you set up with you as the only member. Remember that one? You said you couldn't lose.

Honest to God, how you ever got to hold a ministerial position I'll never know.

THE JUDGEMENT BIRD

Do you remember the Judgement Bird? Remember? It was in Dublin Zoo. It was a huge thing with dark grey feathers and deep set eyes that peered straight into your soul. It usually just stood there with its wings all folded up but when it extended them it was a sight to behold. The span was enormous, like some mighty cloak it could wrap you in and you'd never see the sun again. It was night time under those wings. It was the world before light.

We all made the pilgrimage. We'd queue up and watch the Judgement Bird as it watched us. Judging us. Silently calling us to account. Feelings of great guilt would befall all who looked upon the Judgement Bird. There would be sudden sobs and confessions. 'I slept with your missus', 'I diverted the funds', 'I cogged me maths ekker', that sort of thing. Politicians and various establishment figures seemed reluctant to visit the zoo around that time. There was even an attempt made on the Judgement Bird's life but the assassin broke down and took his own life instead. I heard John Charles McQuaid curled into a ball and rocked to and fro for four days just after seeing the Judgement Bird on the telly.

There was something in the Judgement Bird's eyes. Something primeval, something pure and atavistic, irrefutably authentic and devoid of mercy. Something that spoke of a world lost to us or perhaps even rejected by us. The Judgement Bird seemed to be from an angry Eden. No one actually knew where it was from. It wasn't captured or anything. It just landed in the monkey enclosure. The monkeys were quite deferential where it came to the Judgement Bird and shared their food with it. The zoologists didn't have a clue what type of bird it was exactly. They guessed it was some kind of crane or a stork but who knows? It looked a bit like a giant vulture to me. An ornithologist lost three fingers approaching the Judgement Bird so it was left alone after that.

Even people who didn't do anything wrong felt guilty when they met the gaze of the Judgement Bird. They said that they felt incriminated for behaving themselves in the wrong way, in the way of man, a corrupted way. 'You are not good', the Judgement Bird seemed to say to them, 'you are just scared, obsequious and indoctrinated.' Only very small children enjoyed visiting the Judgement Bird. Everyone else dreaded it but felt compelled to return to it again and again. 'It's like confession', said one visitor, 'only it's God on the other side of the grille and not some dreary old hypocritical bollix'.

The day came when the Judgement Bird took off. First it did a dance of sorts, stretching out its legs, moving around in a staccato fashion and throwing its head about. Storm clouds, great and black, gathered above as it performed. Then the Judgement Bird opened its wings and lifted up and soared away. It was swallowed up by the premature night it had summoned. It never came back.

The Cosgrave government had all footage of the Judgement Bird immediately destroyed. The only thing rumoured to remain of the Judgement Bird is a long streak of silver shite it left behind that was smuggled from the zoo by one of the lads that cleaned out the enclosures. If you know who to ask, you can get brought to a secret place where you can look at the Judgement Bird's shite. They say there's a queer smell off the shite and when you inhale it you're left with the tremendous sensation that we've all let ourselves down. This sensation is said to be accompanied by another feeling, a premonition of sorts is how it is described. It's said that upon smelling the shite of the Judgement Bird you are possessed with an unnerving certainty that the Judgement Bird will return and, when that day comes, it will not be alone.

THE REBEL

Tattoos. Piercings. Dressed in black. Playing Xbox. The counter-cultural rebel. Hates 'skangers'. Collects Marvel comics. Almost voted once but didn't bother. 

Not out of principle, it was just raining. 

Has a thing for things with skulls on them. Smokes from this fucking huge bong. 

Calls people 'douches' but mainly online. The movie Fight Club changed his life. 

Read most of The God Delusion, well some of most of it. Has the gist of it. 

Mentions it on the LiveLeak comments where he has a Family Guy avatar and likes to wage the occasional flame war. 

Used to play bass in a band called Sinister Decay. Never heard of Jean-Claude Trichet. 

Does IT for the IDA. Can name every hold in MMA. Hasn't been tested but reckons his IQ must be high. Has a Guy Fawkes mask but doesn't know why.

JOAN IS GAS

FUGGER COMMUNICATIONS

My job is to make you aware of summer blockbusters, international acts of aggression and new family packs of fish fingers. My click farms provide the trends you hashtag on twitter. I don't just promote products and points of view, I alter the fundamental perception of reality itself. You check the facts but my public relations company, Fugger Communications, makes the facts. I email the media and they cut and paste my press releases into all your heads.

When it comes to geopolitical conflicts, Fugger Communications is unique in that it often works propaganda for both sides. Let's imagine that nation A is at war with nation B, well both A and B will hire Fugger Communications to make the other look bad and to make themselves look better. Fugger Communications (Unit F-15E, Nangor Road Business Park) doesn't pick sides. I take both assignments and execute them with the utmost due diligence and standards of excellence going forward.

The main task is to build a wall of nonsense that the truth can't penetrate. I tell a lie, I counter it with another lie and then I tell a third lie to counter the second and then I add a fourth and so on and so on. One brick after another in a Tower of Bable. It's a game of He Said She Said but I'm playing it alone and getting paid by both himself and herself. That's PR for you. It's a lovely earner. No one wants to hear the complex realities anyway. (TLDR.) Folks just want simple stories to reassure them that their side is the good side and the other the bad side. (There are never two bad sides or any shades of grey whatsoever). As for those the conflict does not directly involve, they like a choice of readily understood backstories that allow them to pick a side and enjoy the show, commenting on the plot as it unfolds as if experts. Those who don't buy into my narratives are usually pretty clever but, thankfully, apathetic. If the Holocaust was unfolding today, they're the kind of people who'd groan at the sight of a Nazi death camp and change channel to watch something 'less depressing'. Family Guy probably (warmed by the 'knowingness' of their cold laughter). They're the 'smart cookies'. They matter least. Really, they don't matter at all.

The only other people who don't buy into my spins on events are those caught up in those very events – seeing reality unfold at ground level. These people are of even less concern to me because they're either the ones making the decisions or the ones being killed by the ones who are making the decisions. I need not fret about the latter because the dead testify to nothing and the former are the ones who hired me in the first place.

Helping the opposing leaders of two warring nations achieve their ends by convincing everyone else that all the suffering is worth it leaves me feeling no moral qualms or shake my certainty that I'm performing a service to all parties. You see, to do other than disseminate simplistic propaganda would be severely unkind. The alternative would be to allow people realise the truth - that it is not worth it and that there is nothing they can do about it. Imagine how everyone would feel then, stripped of the compensation of jingoistic righteousness? The truth would kill their hope and leave them in despair. The truth is something to be avoided at all costs because the truth is cruel. The truth is no one's friend. In fact, it is the truth that is the real enemy. The only war truly worth fighting is the war against the truth. I am fighting that war. The fact that I'm handsomely paid to do so is neither here nor there, I am fighting the war against the truth for all of us.

Knowing that I'm making the world seem a less complicated, frightening and futile place than it really is allows me to sleep easy in my bed. As for the rest of you, you can just go back to sleep easily.

There's no need to thank me.

Just stay glued to your TV.

2014 PREDICTIONS

The edition of Old Fugger’s Almanac for 2014 has been released. Here’s what it says is in store for the year ahead. How many of these predictions will actually come to pass? Remember, I got everything right enough…ish last year kind of. So, here are the Old Fugger’s Almanac predictions for 2014…

1. There’ll probably be another fucking earthquake.

2. The first ever world leader to be made with a 3D Printer will prove popular with the world's first ever 3D Printer made voters.

3. People will complain about ‘ghostfood’ and culinary psychics will be called upon to exorcise haunted plates.

4. During a controversial appearance at the 2014 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, Miley Cyrus will perform cunnilingus on herself.

5. The mystery of who the fuck actually buys Hot Press magazine will remain unsolved.

6. Saoirse Ronan will undergo gender reassignment and change her name to Ronan Saoirse.

7. Prediction 8 will be this prediction.

8. This prediction is prediction 7. (See, I told you. That’s one I’ve got right already)

9. Expect a mind-blowing introduction to 3D entertainment without glasses called Real Life.

11. Mass attendance quadruples when the Catholic Church replaces transubstantiation with a raffle.  Winning tickets will be drawn from the tabernacle and whoever wins will get all the cash that was collected in the baskets.

12. Amy Huberman will cut the ribbon at the launch of a new property bubble.

13. A fatal virus will exclusively target right wing internet posters with Family Guy avatars. The death is protracted and agonising and there is no cure. I repeat, THERE IS NO CURE!

14. RTE will set out in a brave new direction and commission more lifestyle programmes. (You can absolutely count on this one coming to pass.)

15. Clouds are given the vote but people fear tropospheric mists of condensed vapour mightn’t be all that bothered about participating in the democratic process. The €7.5 million spent on airship polling stations is considered by many to be a waste but the party contributor whose company won the profitable bid to make the airships expresses delight.

16. The FIFA World Cup final in Brazil will be ruined when the ball is kicked right out of the stadium into a nearby garden and a grouchy neighbour refuses to give it back.

17. Economics correspondent Sean Whelan will have a breakdown on the Six-One News tearfully admitting that he knows ‘fuck all about fucking fuck all’. He will be replaced by Jim Power.

18. During the summer, you’ll be drinking a can of fizzy orange and a bee will fly over and start hassling you. It won’t piss off and you’ll be forced to leave the can on a wall and forget about it.

19. Later in the summer of 2014, you will leave the sliding glass doors that lead to your garden open as well as the door to your fridge and a badger will sneak into your kitchen and get inside the fridge and then you’ll come into the room and see the fridge door open and close it and later that night your daughter will get up for a midnight snack and go into the kitchen and not bother turning on the light and open the fridge and loudly scream when a frosty badger leaps out at her and runs for the sliding glass doors and smashes against them because you closed them too and then, concussed and angry, the badger will skid around the linoleum making a really weird high-pitched sound and your daughter will never recover from the trauma and never fully trust you again. Remember, this is just a prediction and it is still within your power to ensure the events described in the preceding long sentence do not come to pass.

20. Bloggers will continue to blog, Facebookers will continue to facebook, Tweeters will continue to tweet and journalists will continue to do whatever the fuck it is they think they are doing and all of this content will continue to rise like steam and merge with the psychic ether forming a kind of layer of trivia over everyone’s heads that blocks out the sun and prevents us all from seeing anything worthwhile, going forward. LOL!

And that’s the end of today’s trivial little listy distraction. Happy New …yeeaaauuuugh

UNBELIEVABLE EH?

People believe what they want to believe even if they know, deep down, that what they believe is entirely unbelievable and that they don't actually believe it at all. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it is more efficient to believe the unbelievable or perhaps it is advantageous. Either way, belief seems largely to be a matter of choice.

Let me explain why I (choose to) believe this:

A few months ago myself and a few mates (Corbo, Duggie, Phlegmo, Aine Manning and her fat sister whose name escapes me right now) staged a chemical attack. We rented the gymnasium at the local recreation centre and took footage of ourselves weeping and wailing over sheets with bunched up coats, bags and cushions arranged under them so as to make the sheets look like shrouds draped over dead bodies. We made it so that some of the 'bodies' were smaller than others, like little kids. We put on a pretty good performance. Then we uploaded the footage to the internet saying that it was a recording of a chemical weapon attack in some hot country. I'm not sure what hot country we picked but it was one of those places they mention a lot on the telly.

Well, let me tell you, there was a right 'to do' altogether. Our video went viral and got on the news. Some people said that the footage was staged and didn't even originate in the hot country, pointing out that two of the people in the video were wearing O'Neills Dublin tops (oops, messed up there). Luckily these doubters also suspected that we were members of the Illuminati or giant lizards or something so no one took their suspicions seriously. In fact, most people chose to consider the footage genuine so as not to be associated with the nutters that didn't. World leaders bought it too and went on the telly saying that it was unacceptable for such a thing to happen and threatening to bomb the hot country in question, which I'm not sure would have helped but anyway...

Next came phase two of our experiment. We released a second video on the net that featured us pulling back the sheets to reveal that there were no bodies under them and just a load of bags and cushions and that. It was always our aim to demonstrate to the world how easily it could be duped – for the LOLs like, you know - and this is where it got interesting. Imagine our surprise the next day when the world's media reported that the hot country in question had developed a weapon that could transform people into bunched up coats and bags and cushions. The 'international community' (whoever the fuck that is) demanded that the hot country surrender its 'Clothes/Bag/Cushion Tranformo Weapons', which, of course, the hot country couldn't do because it didn't have any such weapons and no such things even exist. Inevitably the hot country was bombed to shit and lots of other videos appeared online featuring the grieving citizens of the hot country weeping and wailing over shrouds. This time no one was wearing O'Neills tops and this time there weren't bunched up coats and bags and cushions under the sheets, no, there were actual bodies under there. These videos didn't get anywhere near as many hits as our original one did. That's when I realised that people believe what they want to believe.

The hot country was continually bombed to such an extent that the entire place was turned to dust and then the searing heat of further bombings melted that dust into glass and then that glass cooled and the whole place was turned into a gigantic skating rink, the largest ever, and people from all over the world travelled there and paid top dollar to enjoy themselves and myself, Corbo, Duggie, Phlegmo, Aine Manning and her fat sister whose name escapes me right now bought shares in the skating rink going forward. Oh, and I got a job with a massive public relations firm.

Unbelievable eh?

Join me next time for more of this compulsive bullshit.

A SURE VOICE

(pictured – you forgot the ties guys)

Just say things in a sure voice. That's all people want. A sure voice. If people hear things in a sure voice they'll feel assured. It's all about sureness. It doesn't matter what you actually say. That stuff doesn't matter at all. People will probably know that you're lying but they won't mind as long as you sound sure. If you sound sure people will pretend to believe you even if they don't believe you. It's a kind of agreement. You are relieving people of responsibility while you do the terrible things that must be done so as they can remain in a relatively comfortable state of complacency - and not feel bad about it. You get to make the decisions because you sound sure and they get to say they believe you. If anything goes wrong then they can blame you and complain about how sure you sounded and they can say that's why they trusted you. Even though they didn't really trust you. They just pretend they trusted you because not trusting you is too much hassle. So, just pretend you're trustworthy by sounding sure. Say any old shit about why you can't eliminate poverty despite your best efforts or why people's electronic communications must be monitored at all times or why some place should be bombed to fuck. Just state the reasons, no matter how untrue, in a sure voice. Don't state the real reasons though. You don't want to be telling the truth when you're sounding sure. Everyone will think you've gone crazy, even though, deep down in a part of themselves they rarely visit, they'll know that you're telling it like it is. So, when you're sounding sure be sure to be lying. That's the trick of it. The scam that we're all a part of. It's a protocol. A mutual cognitive dissonance. A kind of play acting at civilisation, values, and compassion in a world that frequently requires the opposite of those things. Empathy and morality are dull aches that are best assuaged by a sure voice. So, if you're prepared to be the one with the sure voice you can do whatever you like. Knock yourself out. Let people starve. Kill whoever you think needs to die. Just be sure about it ...or, I mean to say, just be sure to sound sure about it.

Oh, and there's one more thing I forgot to mention, put a tie on for fuck's sake.

AUTOMATIC FREEDOM

Soon there’ll be only automated check-outs at the supermarket and there’ll be no need for people to work there. In fact people will send automated shoppers down the shops to buy things from the automated check-outs and there will be no one down the shops at all. Meanwhile drones will fight our wars and be operated by automated enemy detectors that will use an algorithm system to analyse internet content to select potential threats and then send the GPS coordinates of these potential threats to a drone that will go and eliminate the potential threat in an extra-judicial automated operation. Sadly, not all detected threats will actually be threats. In the same way that you might Google the word ‘terrorist’ and get a random picture of some sexy glamour model, the automated enemy detectors will get similar tenuous results but act upon them anyway. In short: a lot of sexy glamour models will be bombed by drones.

But it won’t matter too much. The bodies of the innocent dead will not bother us because we won’t see them. The images will be out there alright but we’ll have bot-drones looking at the media for us and filtering out such content to pick the ‘hot’ topics of the day (celebrity divorces, scandals, new products) and the tales of the innocent dead won’t make it anywhere near the top of the pile. We will be liberated of the angst such images might cause.

In the future we will come to realise that automated devices are doing a very good job of managing our affairs. The most highly regarded amongst these automated devices will be the war drone. It will be seen as a brave defender of our automated freedoms and eventually a drone that has served several tours of duty in a variety of conflicts will be elected the first automated president of the United States (and the freeish world). The drone will appear in several photo-ops with its wife, an automated supreme-court justice dispenser, and their two children, an electronic voting machine and a blender or something.

And what will we do? Us lot? The fleshy flawed humans? Well, we’ll assemble the drones of course. Simples!
. . .oh, and we’ll be bombed by the drones the odd time too. Especially if we’re glamour models.

YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM SO JOIN THEM

Hedge funds, directional funds, nondirectional return funds, credit default swaps, naked credit default swaps, distressed securities, risk arbitrage, crypto derivatives, topple domino commodity profiteering, speculative risk facilitation instruments, junk turkeys, monetary growth/loss manipulation dysfunction, systemic marginalised bond haemorrhoids, quantum fundament cluster fuck exchange spasms.

Hmm. All that complicated banking tomfoolery has made The Market seem a tad unappealing hasn’t it? But worry not. You can still play The Market and keep it simple and straightforward. I, Fugger, the people’s blogger, am here to show you how. You too can be a winner!

‘But Mister Fugger, The Market is callous and evil’, I hear you bleat. Well yeah, so what? Life is not about being nice and neither is The Market. Life is about getting as much as you possibly can and so is The Market. The Market is an inclusive game that anyone can play so quit occupying Wall Street and start making a living there. All other forms of revenue generation are obsolete. Buying is the new working. Selling is the new earning. You can’t beat The Market but you can play The Market.

What you want to do is invest in companies that produce things that are going to be in demand. Take a look at the world around you and speculate on its future, a bit like a science fiction writer would. What’s coming down the line? Right, well, for starters, the world is fast becoming an environmentally degraded shit house. What would people want in an environmentally degraded shit house? That’s right! Breathable air. Buy shares in fresh air. The more polluted the environment becomes the more demand there will be for fresh air. It’ll come in spray cans with names like Mountain Valley Gust and Odeur du Vie. Check and see what corporation is making moves re: fresh air, keep an eye on their shares and BUY BUY BUY!

Right, we’re off to a good start. What else happens in an environmentally degraded shit pile? What do people do? They choke yes, very good, but what else do they do? That’s right! They protest! They riot! (If they aren't doing so already over the bailouts, guffaw!) So, how can we profit there? I’ll tell you how. Invest in batons, water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, tasers, cattle prods and plastic zip tie handcuffs. Find out who makes these things, keep an eye on their shares and BUY BUY BUY!

If riots are coming wars are probably coming. Diminishing reserves of natural resources are going to make nations desperate. There’ll be land grabs all over the place. The towel heads and sand nig nogs (not being racist, just using the terminology of The Market) will be going crazy and they’ll need weapons and all the things associated with weapons. Missiles, guns, armoured trucks, tanks, electrodes, body bags, coffins. The French and the Russians profited greatly during the Iran v Iraq war of yesteryear. Over one million died. Many more millions were made. Remember that! Keep an eye on arms manufacturer shares and BUY BUY BUY!

Once you’ve made enough money on The Market you can start sponsoring election campaigns and that means what you say goes. You’re making policy! You’re king of the world! So, look at what’s around and see what money can be made. Keep those wars coming (there’s no money in diplomacy) and keep those fumes pumping (there’s no money in the oxygen this silly planet provides gratis). Take stuff from people and sell it back to them. Remember, you can only do this if you have bought a politician so find out who’s for sale and BUY BUY BUY!

Finally, buy the media. Seriously, just buy the lot of it. Tell everyone the story of the world and give it any ending you want. Don’t worry about the journalists. They’ll do whatever you say. You don’t even have to pay them that much. They are happy enough with just the attention. So, don’t just go down the shops and buy the paper, no, enter the market and BUY BUY BUY the paper.

Once you own the media you’ll own people’s minds. Just think, you’ll be the majority shareholder in human consciousness. You’ll own the world and the minds of the people who live upon that world. You’ll be a God! Maybe you can be THE God. Let’s face it, that other guy’s stock has fallen. God’s stock has fallen so it might be just the time to BUY BUY BUY!

Praise be to The Market! Hallowed be your name! See? I told you that you too could be a winner. Now get out there and BUY BUY BUY!

Straight Talkin'

"I've said it before, I'll say it again. There is no silver bullet to deal with this crisis. It is best to just ring-fence resources and front-load revenue into fiscally sound endeavours with due diligence. "

...rubs forehead and adopts mildly pained expression...

"Let's not change horses at this juncture. A leap from a centre-right/centre-left party coalition to a another centre-right/centre-left party coalition would be far too radical a step to take at this present moment in current time."

...produces pack of Milky Moos from trouser pocket and pops one into gob...

"It's quite simple, the ship is going down no matter who is captain. Let's just make sure the first class passengers board the lifeboats first, ...going forward."