To say in business we have "two bottomlines" is to say we have none. The first bottomline is a quanitity. The second is a quality. The first is demoninated in dollars. Only God knows what the second is denominated in, maybe quality of life, maybe subjective preference, maybe some "metric" of justice, maybe Salvation. The two bottomlines cannot be summed, which is why we have two bottomlines, which is to say we have none. Only when lines on a balance sheet can be netted do we have a balance sheet at all.
In the logic of the double bottom line the mythology and methodology of capitalism has reached its limit and gestures beyond money, measurement, and management into poetry. That the poetry is of depressingly low quality is understandable for it is written by grown children stunted by advertising, marketing and MBA logic from birth. The second bottomline is us, the product and producer of this false art. We are intellectually, culturally, aesthetically, politically, morally and spiritually bankrupt; that is the second bottomline to be netted with our material affluence.
The cure is not found in the MBA curriculum. For our disease the Roman cure is still the best, for those who survive it. The cure will hurt, but do you good. For those who do not make it through the operation, we offer embalming at no extra charge. Better to embrace the chance for redemption than to live a walking dead person, talking about bottomlines when what is already lost is your soul.
The Explorer was doubled-hulled, but it lies at a depth of 3,000 feet, beyond salvage.
According to Wikipedia, double hulls are a more extensive safety measure than double bottoms.
Experts predict that the sinking will have little effect on the Eco-tourism industry - which is probably a pretty good example of a double bottomline operation.
"Soul" is a placeholder word that draws its power precisely from the absence of what it purports to denote. This has led to the rise of a fiduciary class which earns its living from marketing salvage operations directed at what has always already been lost. You could say the same about nature as about soul.
The only people who "have" soul are those who able to perform it, such as the Calypso singers of the Carribean, or even people consigned to Hull.
Posted by: sa'luk | November 29, 2007 at 11:30 PM
Speaking of a sold out fiduciary class, what better instance than commercial musicians working for record labels? Better to make music as in calypso by beating on an oil drum or trash barrel.
Posted by: Phil | November 30, 2007 at 08:57 AM
What does the worker gain from his toil? We all have seen the burden record labels place upon musicians. They have distributed beautiful recordings in timely fashion. They have also created a demand in the hearts of consumers; yet the musicians cannot fathom what record labels have done from beginning to end, due to their ignorance of double-entry bookkeeping and related skills.
Roger McGuin testified before congress in 1980 that the Byrds never saw a cent in royalties from their biggest hit, "Turn Turn Turn."
No, the musician is a gullible trustee, at the mercy of the corrupt fiduciaries, known as the Big Four. Which no doubt helps account for plethora of independent labels run for or by artists, which make little profit but get the product out.
In the end less than a fraction of a single percent of working musicians can earn a viable living from a relationship with a record label. I suppose there a few lucky ones who are rewarded handsomely for their roles as assistant soul fiduciaries, for lending a sheen of authenticity to the enterprise, but the rest of us, as we watch them on the stage, may find
our hands are clenched in fists of rage.
Posted by: Sa'luk | November 30, 2007 at 07:41 PM
Q. What are you doing sitting on a pile of garbage like that in your Dumpster, naked?
A. I am stewarding the Commons.
Posted by: Phil | November 30, 2007 at 08:42 PM
Seeing as a dumpster's purpose is to contain and conceal its content prior to hauling, you could make an argument for a relation: although haul may be only a homonym. There certainly is something apocalyptic about the raising of a dumpster's lid on a hot summer day.
Posted by: Sa'luk | November 30, 2007 at 11:36 PM
Garbage belongs to the undiffentiated matter that comes before and after life, before and after private property. Garbage is taboo, sticky, smelly, unsightly, like the corpse rotting in the garden. From such stench, what rebirth?
Posted by: Phil | December 01, 2007 at 09:40 AM
Clinton II?
Posted by: sa'luk | October 18, 2016 at 11:33 PM
Neoliberalism or conflagration. Hard choice. I go for neoliberalism, as a slower burn.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | October 29, 2016 at 08:59 AM
And now conflagration triumphs, as neoliberalism, reloaded.
Posted by: sa'luk | November 29, 2016 at 08:05 PM
Lawful looting is not illegal, and to protest it would be a crime.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | December 09, 2016 at 11:26 AM