The Elsewho

In 2007, there were more financial engineers in the US (creating Credit Default Swaps, Collateralized Debt Obligations, and Over The Counter derivatives) than there were physical engineers, like me, who actually create all these things worth swapping, obligating, or deriving.

That is a stunning metric. All it shows is how useless such a large swath of American workers actually are. And we're getting worse.

Think...how many of those now-unemployed financial sector pricks are now involved in the actual production of useful things? How many are now carrying trades in agriculture, horticulture, blacksmithing, engineering, milling, or welding?

None.

And you know, when I worked for the California ISO, I was also engaged in the business of trading energy produced elsewhere for consumption by the elsewho. And deep down, while I knew I was fundamentally opposed to that concept, the whole time I didn't truly question the worth of such an enterprise, nor did I posses any vocabulary for defining exactly how/why I didn't value it. But I do now.

I remember traveling in 2004 to Deutsche Bank in lower Manhattan to train new energy traders how to engage the CAISO day ahead market. Their trading floor was similar to many others I've seen over my years at ISO -- rows of monitors manned by well dressed monkeys keying in entries, evaluating bids, offering contracts, etc., etc. I remember thinking, how can it be that a handful of hotshit traders three thousand miles away can legally bilk money from California electricity ratepayers by buying a schedule of energy from a power plant in Arizona, shipping it into a congested path into southern California, and receiving payments for never delivering the energy based on their decremental bids?

But I never questioned what I was engaged in. Indeed, that's the American way these days. In 2004 we were collectively a group of over indulged, over entitled, over compensated sheep who happily perpetually motored about in new vehicles, purchasing items with our 20% annual home equity increases...and man, how we long for those days back. This has led to our current laissez-faire approach to everything...we just mindlessly accept that the government, or our city councils, or retirement fund managers, or bank executives or road construction crews have our interests in mind and that everything is going to be OK. We don't question anything anymore. Wanna wage simultaneous wars? Ok...that's Ok. Wanna spend two thousand billion to bail out Wall Street? Ok...that's Ok. Wanna stimulate our economy through more tunnel boring and more highway building? Ok...that's Ok. Wanna destroy a region's agricultural base and install new residential tracts subsidized by tax credits? Ok...that's Ok.