Is it just me, or have we officially entered the House of Mirrors economy? Although I have better things to do with time right now (like compiling more Project August headlines, running important DreamBot scripts, and getting ready for Saturday’s interview), I feel compelled to ask some more vital questions about the state of the world, particularly if no one else is going to do it.

Before I begin…thank you all for taking the time to evaluate your dreams and supplying me with matching headlines. I have a quite a list now, and I’ll be shuffling through those this afternoon. Basically, I mention this because I don’t want you thinking that I’m ignoring you.

Economic Parody: Pillar 1

For many years since my MBA, this pillar actually looked normal to me. It never fails in today’s stock market. A company slashes jobs and their stock goes…..UP! How absurd can we get? A company is in such dire straits that they must cut THOUSANDS of jobs, and the execs at the top then get to enjoy much higher stock prices.

But it gets even better today. Microsoft announces that they are cutting 18,000 jobs, most of them chopped by the end of this year. Wow, that sounds like an emergency. Just wait…

It’s also important to note that this beheading will cost them over $1.1 billion, and still the stock goes up. By the way, who pockets this supposed charge? The taxpayers? HA—aren’t we gullible.

Microsoft to cut 18,000 jobs, book big charge

July 17, 2014, 8:46 a.m. EDT

By Michael Calia

Bloomberg

Microsoft Corp. said it plans to eliminate up to 18,000 jobs, or 14% of its work force, over the next year, part of a sweeping plan to streamline its operations following the recent acquisition of Nokia’s devices and services business.

The software giant MSFT +0.65%   also said the plan would result in a restructuring charge of $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion over the next four quarters.

Of the 18,000 planned cuts, about 12,500 will be professional and factory positions eliminated through synergies with the Nokia operations.

The company said it expects to substantially complete the plan by the end of this year, with full completion expected by June 30, 2015.

Chief Executive Satya Nadella, who took over the role from Steve Ballmer more than five months ago, has been seeking to streamline the company’s operations in order to focus more on developing technology to help people improve their lives and businesses run with more efficiency.

(I almost spewed my morning tea on that last statement!)

Economic Parody: Pillar 2

Banks are the backbone of this particular economy. So, when the stock market is reaching new record highs daily, should we also expect great numbers from the healthy banks? Yes, and that’s why this is a parody…

Bank of America reports 43% drop in quarterly profits

Bank of America has reported a 43% drop in its second-quarter profits after a fall in mortgage revenue and a rise in legal costs.

The bank, the US’s second largest, said net income of $2.3bn (£1.34bn) was down from $3.4bn (£1.99bn) a year earlier.

Its finances have been hit recently by huge payments to the authorities to fend off accusations of wrong-doing.

In the past year its shares have fallen from 32 cents (19p) to 19 cents (11p) per share.

In April the bank agreed to pay $9.5bn for misleading US mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the financial crisis in 2008.

It then agreed separately to pay $783m (£470m) in fines and refunds, for mis-selling payment and identity theft insurance to nearly three million credit card customers.

Economic Parody: Pillar 3

When you want to know the real state of the economy, start looking at what the bankers are doing. Ever since 2011, they’ve been killing themselves (or at least that’s the story line). More banker deaths again here, and as you read the article, imagine an upstanding citizen in a suit and tie carrying this out. Seems surreal.

But as the economy deteriorates even further (you’ll have to ignore the record setting happening on Wall Street), expect even more of this surrealism. Those who we always thought sane and respectable, are the ones who will least be able to handle the ultimate reality about this inevitable end.

Banker Suicides Continue At Alarming Rate: JP Morgan Executive Kills Wife, Then Ends His Own Life

By Mike Bundrant

Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2014 at 06:40pm EDT

It’s happening all over the world. Banking executives are ending their lives, leaving a trail of tears in their wake.

The latest of US banking executives is Julian Knott, age 45. According to reports, Knott blasted his wife Alita, age 47, multiple times with a shotgun, then turned the same weapon on himself.

This is the 15th banking executive commit suicide in recent months. See a full list at the end of this post on International Business Times.

The Knotts are survived by three teenage children.

Knott moved to the United States from London in 2010 and was working at JP Morgan’s Global Network Operations Center in Whippany, New Jersey, at the time of the tragedy.

A statement released on Tuesday reported: “Through an extensive investigation conducted by the Jefferson Township Police Department, the Morris County Prosecutors Office and the Morris County Medical Examiner’s Office the preliminary investigation has revealed that the two adults died as a result of gunshot wounds and the incident has been determined to be a murder/suicide.”

“This preliminary investigation revealed that Julian Knott, age 45, shot his wife Alita Knott, age 47, multiple times and then took his own life with the same weapon.”

Notes from Sister Rosemarie

I certainly can’t leave you today with open-ended maladies from the economic front. If you ever need a pick-me-up, just dial Sister Rosemarie. She’ll combine her latest cosmic dream travels with her morning poem writing, and here’s the result (sorry this is a couple of days late on my part, by the way)…

My dream is a snippet that encompasses several things:  it is a discussion with China… maybe stemming from a comment about furniture from China…sold and copied at a low price with wood from Russia.  Also an oriental Sister on EWTN Life on the Rock.  I had written a paper some years back quoting a Chinese philosopher: “When you hear someone talk, look into his eyes – what can remain hidden there?  A man may say ‘welcome’ but his eyes we can read: “Don’t stay too long, I’m busy.” One may call another ‘brother’ but in his eyes the other can read: “Let each of us mind his own business.  I’ve nothing to share with you’ A brother may call his brother friend, but his eyes make it clear. “We will never understand each other. We are on different wave lengths.”  Given the present problem at our borders… I guess this is what I was dreaming…

The other inspiring young Sister was telling how she became a Sister. She asked a friend how she prayed and the friend told her to just sit in the chapel and let God gaze on you.  She found that God’s gaze drew her into Religious life so that she might share that gaze with others… and be love and compassion and the Light of God’s mercy.  Wearing her habit was a witness to others that they should be able to find Christ’s welcoming gaze in her.

The gaze theme continued in my morning prayer and another headline about water:

O God, you are my God, for you I long,

For you my soul is thirsting, my body pines for you.,

like a dry weary land without water.

So I gaze on you in the sanctuary, to see your strength and your glory.

My prayer continues as I gaze into the heavens and ask for rain, which in African language is Mulungu, interchangeable…Rain and God!

Tomorrow

….and for tomorrow, 3D printing needs a villain, particularly if your ego is too attached to this current economic paradigm (such as those highlighted in the Economic Parody above).