WayneCokerBlog I Blog -
Hello, I'm Wayne Coker the author. In my discussion with the “audience tonight”, I’ll be taking a fresh approach to entertain you with trending topics to enlighten your knowledge on economics, systems limitations, and off-the-wall subjects…
Wayne’s 1st blog
Opening Tonight’s Discussion is…
How Design Influences Results,
with our Guest Star in her Cameo role…
Lindsay Lohan.
There is a loud applause for the show’s theme song as Wayne walks out on the stage…
“Thank you, thank you… Welcome to tonight’s discussion is a fresh approach to the world economy…
I see some of the same smiling faces from our last show where, as you may remember, I had President Trump and Paris Hilton on stage with me to help create a dialog that made for a lively show.”
I take a moment for the nice applause to die down.
“Well, I asked Paris if she could attend this session, but she has plans in London for the week, so she told me I should ask her friend Lindsay Lohan.
Lindsay is making a great comeback, and her turnaround story would be an inspiring one for all of us…
So, since we are having some heavy discussion on economics coming up; we thought Lindsay could lighten things up and help out with some interesting conversation…
So Lindsay, please come out on stage and join us.”
As Lindsay sashays her way out on stage, we all give her a nice warm welcome.
She is all smiles and appreciates the sincerity…
“Thank you all so much… I’m really grateful for the nice reception from such a prestigious audience.”
“Well Lindsay, I must say you are truly an added attraction for us tonight, especially, with that dress you’re wearing…
It’s just long enough to cover the topic, but short enough to create everyone’s interest…”
Lindsay and the audience respond with loud applauding, laughter, and some whistles…
“Okay Lindsay, please take a seat, and we’ll begin our show with how design influences results…
How Design Influences Results…
For those of you who have read my Book… Change for the Right Reason, or understand the limitations of systems, you can appreciate the idea that when nations or civilizations fall, if you will, after a long stable economic journey, they don’t just eventually go into a slow decline; it becomes exponential as it falls off the cliff… But yes, time can be relative…
So, Lindsay, if you would, why don’t you give us an example of such a country that fell off the cliff in the late 20th century?”
“Ah… Well, as a little one, I remember my parents always talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union. But, I’m sure the little big man; President Putin would have something to say about that…”
…This has the audience laughing and applauding.
“I’d say Lindsay's description of Putin, fits Robin Wright’s story in The New Yorker by saying, Putin, had a ‘distinct quick duck-footed waddle that twists his upper torso and makes him look like a mechanical toy’…”
…The audience loved the story sending laughter and applauding throughout the auditorium…
“Well, when touching on the Soviet Union, you must have clairvoyance because the Soviet Union is on our agenda tonight as an example showing how a country’s economy can eventually break down sending it over the cliff and crash, owing to its economic system design…
Lindsay, you look puzzled…?”
“Puzzled, yes… Me? …Me with clairvoyance? I don’t think so, hell, I’m unconscious most of the time,” Lindsay said with her self-deprecating sense of humor.
The audience comes unglued with laughter and applauding.
“Come now Lindsay, we know better…”
I take a moment to assemble the words for my next subject…
“Well, let’s move on for a quick pass of a more current subject matter to illustrate an economic disaster owing to its economic system design… And that would be, Venezuela…
The country was once the most democratic and richest country in South America. But After Hugo Chavez came into power in 1998; the country took a turn for the worst. He began with his strange in-between political system of not holding up to a normal democracy or even function as a normal dictatorship… Understanding systems and economics was not his strong point…
But it didn’t take long for Chavez to take the necessary steps for a dictatorship, and replaced the existing Congress with one he controlled, the New National Assembly, which rewrote the constitution to establish himself in power…“
Wayne is interrupted when someone in the audience yelled…
“That sounds like what Trump would like to do…”
The audience chuckles.
“Interesting point, I said, “There are some who say that President Trump’s qualities are similar to Hugo Chavez, a rebel outsider waving the flag of the popular discontent towards the political system and having no clue of economics and the world economy working as a system…
Let’s see what Lindsay’s thoughts are on Trump… Lindsay?”
“Well, I’m not really sure about comparing qualities… But lately, we’ve seen an unhappy president with him reportedly having significant difficulties finding legal representation after John Dowd resigned from leading the team last month.
After hearing he’s been unsuccessful soliciting a wide range of D.C. attorneys to join the case, I thought I’d send a twitter to tell him of an attorney website I represent...
My twitter said, “Hey, Donald Trump heard you need a lawyer, at Lawyer.com we are always here for everyone.”
The audience loves it and burst out with laughter and applause…
I’m still laughing and finally said, “I must say, Lindsay, you are always full of surprises…
…Nonetheless, let me finish up with Venezuela’s economic problems…
And now, with the country’s economy in a serious downward slide, President Nicolás Maduro comes to power in 2013 and continues the majority of Hugo Chavez’s economic policies. It would seem, it matters not the country is now in a freefall with hyperinflation at eighty three thousand percent annual inflation rate that’s driving millions out of the country.
General Padrino head of the Venezuela Army has now been granted the power to manage the country’s economy… Ah… Dictatorship at its finest…”
Lindsay looks at me with worried eyes…
“What are these poor Venezuelans going to do?”
“I don’t know Lindsay. Maduro won’t even let in any humanitarian help in the country… But, on the lighter side, the only thing I’m ever sure of… is you’ll never here Trump tell the truth on TV or Twitter…”
The audience cracks up with laughter, nodding heads and a few moans and boos.
“Well, enough said of this tragic outcome to such a beautiful country…”
Needing a moment to unscramble my thinking, I consider my take on our main subject…
“Ah… Before moving on to the Soviet Union, I wanted to mention Greece in her fall off the economic cliff. In late 2009 Greece reported that it had been understating its deficit figures for years. It didn’t take long and Greece was shut out from borrowing in the financial markets, which set off a new financial crisis…
Ah. I see a gentleman with a raised hand… "Yes, Sir.”
“Thanks, Wayne, I’m wondering if Greece is still in a financial crisis?”
“Good question. I’ll take a moment to explain…
The poor citizens of Greece have lived in a terrible state of poverty for nine years now, owing to the government’s financial system that took them down the path of financial disaster…
However, on August 20, 2018, the greater share of the outstanding debt is now owed to the EU emergency funds, mostly funded by German Banks, allowing the country to try and normalize itself,” I said nodding at the man.
He responded with a smile and a nod.
“I just mention Greece as a reminder that when a financial crisis raises its ugly head, it doesn’t take long for a country to move toward the economic cliff…
Okay, it’s time we move on to the Soviet Union, our main agenda tonight…
Let’s start at the beginning and walk our way up to the fall of the Soviet Union and its replacement, the Russian Federation…
In Petrograd, Russia, on a grand, but rainy night in late October 1917, the cold wind came in off the Baltic Sea, scattering the curled brown leaves across the pavement. Lenin, though chilled, was protected with an umbrella and a heavy coat as he climbed the steps that will take him into history. He enters the Soviet Workers Council where a large gathering is obsessively awaiting for him. It was in this environment that he declared…
Long live the world socialist revolution…
Not long after Lenin’s declaration, Alexander Kugel, a Russian journalist said…
Everything that we see now is just part of the agony. Bolshevism (a communist form of government) is the death of Russia. And a body the size of Russia cannot die in one hour. It groans.
Lenin, however, had different ideas, he felt the free market would eventually bury itself in the ashes of history, and since he was a revolutionist, his idea was to have central planning be the defining way the country should be run…
Well, after Lenin nationalized all the basic industries and allowed the peasants to take over the large estates where they had been tenets, Lenin’s world became a disaster…
Well now … this isn’t working as planned, so I have a much better idea, and this will work, he said to himself…
And then again, maybe not…
Lenin finally ended up with a new agenda, and the assumption was that if central planning balanced the total output of the economy with the total consumption, there would be an equitable distribution of resources, thus the elimination of waste. What they experienced, however, was shortages and stagnation, a total failure…
This kind of market is called an equilibrium market where there are neither surpluses nor shortages for goods or services.
The problem with Lenin’s idea of an equilibrium market is that all systems have fluctuations owing to the interaction and behavior of inputs and outputs and that of other systems. (Understanding systems is a major topic in Wayne’s Change for the Right Reason.)
When considering that central planning (Gosplan) needed to balance the economy with nearly twenty thousand commodities, one could see how chaos would spring up with thousands of different systems and all their natural fluctuations…
How Value was Set…
The Gosbank knew of the total amount of money given out for wages. This is now considered “value” because it’s now available for consumption that is set to equal the value of all the goods produced for the year. They could arbitrarily set a price for goods sold, but the total of all goods sold had to match up to the workers’ total wages… Therefore, a balanced economy with no waste.
They did, however, have an unusual incentive plan according to the workers…
They pretend to pay us… And we pretend to work…”
…The audience came unglued and let out a roar of laughter…
As one could see, the company managers didn’t have the option of using rational thinking in production decision-making. For example, it got to a point where the citizens even had shortages of toilet paper, to which the people cried out,” and I chuckled…
“you can’t wipe your ass with a TV…”
…Lindsay and the audience responded with a roar of laughter…
“Who would have guessed the Soviets had a sense of humor—
…Yes, Lindsay, I can see you have a question or something to add?”
“Thanks, Wayne. I have a comment…
Not having a good grasp on economics or systems, I can see how the basic idea of central planning might have been a reasonable thing.”
“Well Lindsay, don’t feel alone. Some very bright people were involved in that thinking. A good point though…
I would say, maybe you’re not up on economics or how systems work, but you are obviously smart and very talented in many things… You’re an entrepreneur with your hands in a new nightclub in Greece while developing a new Beauty Brand. And now that your new home is in Dubai, you’re considering the idea of building a resort on one of the Dubai islands, called Lohan Island. You’re just amazing Lindsay…”
Lindsay smiles and thanks me as the audience give her a welcome and supporting hand of applauding…
“Okay, let us be moving on with the Soviets problems in central planning… To help us out, I’m going to put up a simple system diagram as an example of central planning on our screen illustrating how design influences the desired results… Ah. There we go…
Lindsay, this should give you a good visual understanding of why central planning sucks,” I said with a grin.
Lindsay and the audience crack up…
…I pointed at the text and read to the audience. When I got to Results and finished reading about the farmers feeding their farm animal’s bread…
…The whole audience cracked up and applauded…
“…At some point, however, the feeding of bread to farm animals would eventually get back to Central Planning and would influence a price change...”
I got up from behind my desk and paced about for a moment, then looked out over the audience…
The End of the Soviet Union and Central Planning…
“…We’re nearing the end of tonight’s show as I bring to light the beginning of the end of Central Planning…
Along came the 1980s when it became apparent that central planning had some serious limitations…”
Lindsay touches my elbow and speaks up…
“This makes me think of Central Planning seeing everything coming their way, but late on reflexes as they soon realized they were in the wrong lane…”
…This brought the house down with applauding and laughter, me included.
I had to wait for a moment until the laughter ended…
“Lindsay, you are obviously a natural on stage and bring with you a great sense of humor…”
More applauding…
“In the 1930s, Ludwig von Mises predicted that communism would eventually fail because it did not rely on prices to allocate resources. He predicted that the wrong goods would be produced –too many of some, too few of others. And that, of course, turned out to be true.
Along with the Soviet Union’s economic problems, Aleksandr Bovin wrote in 1988…
The ideals of perestroika had ‘ripened’ amid people's increasing irritation’ at corruption, brazen thievery, lies, and the obstacles in the way of honest work…
With expectations of essential changes floating about, the Soviet Union’s world socialist revolutionary form of governance had finally risen to its system’s limitations—both economically and morally…
People had become reliant on the state, which of course, erodes the peoples’ self-respect, sense of self-worth, work ethic, and their independence. The people, therefore, had had enough, and so the revolution began…
Owing to the change in the people’s view of the state in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced on television…
I have relinquished my duties as the last president of the USSR...
Having reached the system’s economic limitation in design and as a world’s power, it dropped off the cliff with only a whimper, as the hammer and sickle was lowered for the last time…”
“Well Lindsay, it’s nearly time to say goodnight for this show, any last thoughts you’d like to leave us with?”
“Thanks, Wayne, well, no, but afterward, do you think you might call Johnny Zapata (a handsome and fun-loving character in, Change for the Right Reason) and see if he’d meet me at Gladstone’s for lunch tomorrow? You know the place; it’s where Sunset Boulevard dead-ends into the Pacific Coast Highway?
“Yes, I’ve been there. But Lindsay, are you sure you want to do this?” I said, “He’s getting married you know.”
“Married? Oh yeah…no problema, he is so hot.”
This brings a round of laughter from the audience.
Well, okay, anything for you Lindsay, and I’m sure Johnny would be overjoyed. But I’m thinking that Sheri, his fiancé may have different thoughts on him having lunch with you.”
The audience has a good laugh…
“Thanks, Wayne, but I’m just kidding with you,” she said with a fun smile.
The audience loved it as Lindsay and I say goodnight to the audience with Lindsay blowing them a kiss…
Tonight's performance received a thundeon…