Golden Age of Euphemisms

This semester I’ve signed up for an introduction to economics. My professor spent the first half-hour of this week’s class explaining the difference between a command economy and a market economy. In a command economy like the old USSR, he said, assets are theoretically allocated according to need, but in practice allocated according to proximity to power. In a market economy, however, assets are mostly allocated according to the individual contribution to production.

He actually managed to say this with a straight face.

I know economics 101 is a gross simplification of the actual functioning of an economy, but it’s so far from reality that it’s almost unrecognizable. If assets in the US economy were allocated according to individual contribution to productivity, teachers wouldn’t have to work multiple jobs, Disney wouldn’t have so much influence over copyright law, Betsy DeVos wouldn’t have so many boats, and her brother Erik Prince wouldn’t be marketing a privatized war service.

Euphemism and Dystopia
“Great reporting,” says Matt Yglesias about a recent Washington Post article, but “my God are we living through a golden age of euphemisms.” The euphemism in question is “racially charged.” It means “racist.”

For example, when we say the acting director of ICE attended a conference hosted by a “racially charged” group, we mean “the person in charge of immigrants in this country is a racist.”

Or when we say that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has been trying to fiddle with the census in ways that have racially charged implications, we mean that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is trying to stop Latinos from voting.

Even the wolves are getting radicalized:

YOU WILL NEVER BE A BILLIONAIRE BUT THERE’S STILL TIME TO SEE WHAT THEY TASTE LIKE
NOT A WOLF (@SICKOFWOLVES) September 14, 2018

On the plus side, we may yet avert the eco-pocalypse through infertility. Although probably not.

Willie Nelson has a good message for people who want to vote for Ted Cruz: