Hitchhikers guide to AI, my eureka moment

 Sometimes things come together in my head and Pazza, its a new thought, I can sense it.. often I forget it, life gets in the way, sometimes my phone is in my hand and I'll quickly record it. This time, I'm at my PC, so I'll spit it out here first in the universe. 

What if we're in '42' but not the way we thought it.

When the ultimate computer (in Hitch hikers guide to the universe) was asked the great question, what's the meaning of life, it thought for several thousand years and came up with the answer '42', and because the beings that asked the question didn't understand (I mean, c'mon its pretty obvious right) they asked the computer for an explanation, it replied, it can't give a meaningful answer because the questions was not meaningful. So, they asked, what's the question?

The computer claims it can't answer it, its too complex, but it can help build the next computer that CAN. So they build this huge "computer", spoilers, its earth, and humans are the 'chips'

So, I'm watching some kid genius, hears a song once, and then breaks it apart and re-writes it, and while I'm doing that, I'm using AI to build out some lists for work, and also some images for my book, and I get this idea..

What if WE were meant to be the AI. 

What if.. each human, was meant to be a 'token' in an AI engine, building up to an eventual actual 'I' (though, to an outsider, we would be artificial). We come together, randomly, and pop out a new token, which learns some things, advances human knowledge a microstep, and then it, being more superior, pops out the next token to advance the knowledge set again.

We are AI tokens, to US we are slow. but to some external super computer that we are all a simulation inside of, WE, our lives, are mere blips, microseconds, to building up this new AI model. 

This Kid, he's a super piano player, he's able to do for music, what AI cannot, control it meaningfully. 

AI right now can create 'random' music, and even check that it matches 95% what we CALL music, but its random, it can't repeat itself for the same song, and change it ever so slightly (you can call up a new AI that its job is to do that, but thats not the original AI that made it)

You can ask the AI to make a picture of a nice fresh red apple, and then you can ask to take a bite out of it.. but the computer won't access that original apple and 'take a bite' it will re-imagine a brand new apple and the bite of that apple, it might be 90% the same apple, but the human eye can spot the 10% difference and know, its not the same apple.

So, now that we've invented the answer to the original purpose to us being here, will it all end? if AGI nails actual AI, will our program shut down?,

The Great RESET For the People.

 

The Great RESET

For the People.

Not for the big wigs, not for the fat cats, not for the uber rich, who, no matter where they are at, they have the skill and talent to pull themselves out of any hole that the govt might dig for them. (and if they don’t, they didn’t deserve to be there in the first place)

Sure, they’ll scream and shout, as they should, its part of human nature. 

We warn Society, the banks, ‘this is going to happen, you have no ability to stop it, the human race needs this to happen.

All credit cards are frozen. you can pay them down, but you can’t buy anything on them any more. No more personal credit. Its strangling society, it’s been strangling us since we invented it. Borrow tomorrow's money to buy stuff today. Steal from your tomorrow, and hope you have no ‘needs’ then? HA!

Next, we spin a wheel, of the top 5 banks. one takes the hit. everyone in that bank loses their jobs, all the money in that bank pays off the credit cards. clean slate. if its not enough, the next bank in the list does it, then the next, until eventually all debt is wiped out, and all the big money lenders are destroyed. All the debt those banks have? are distributed to the other banks : You get to survive? well sure, but you have to take on the debts of the one that died.

Let that stew for a month, then we start looking at the rest.

Car loans: If you car earns you money, that is a good investment. If not. repo, you do not want average Joe spending money he doesn’t have on a car he doesn’t ‘Need’. If he wants it, he buys it, no loans. save up. 

There are a few million university papers on why this is better, why saving for items, decreases the prices. people will willingly spend someone else’s money (including their own future self) on something they want, but will be reticent to spend their own money, now, unless they need it.

So the manufacturers will bring down their prices in order to sell their goods.

Then also, people will want goods that last longer, get their moneys worth.

So the manufacturers will ensure the goods have a longer shelf life.

Its a vicious cycle we’ve gotten into, ‘free money’ = poor decisions = cheap quality goods = throw away goods = new appliances every 2 years = constant trap of paying down debt from having to rebuy all your household appliances every 2 years, because nothing lasts anymore.

I still have a 1979 Westinghouse fridge that works. nothing past 1990 still works. It all dies, on purpose. we know they do this on purpose. They can sell everyone a new fridge every 5 years, even though we have the technology to make fridges last 50 years.

Do you see how we spiral the drain? How we need to correct?

The Last one is the Mortgage.

In Australia, housing prices have gotten far out of control, the rest of the world is up there, I don’t understand how Australia has it the worst other than this:

At some point in the late 90s and early 00s, we convinced ALL kids they needed a university education. Looking at the American system, we can see why this is a very bad idea. The lack of Trades people, with skill, is hurting.

If all our ‘smart’ kids go off to be office workers, and we leave the trades jobs for people who a) didn’t fit the schooling system (square pegs in round holes) b) didn’t have the socio economic ability to attend Uni, and chose not to, or rarer c) were not smart enough. They entered the trades.

Because of the negative connotation of being a tradesperson, the smart ones had to ‘dumb themselves down’ to fit in or move on to other jobs.

So the lack of skilled and smart tradespeople is rare.

Housing requires trades people, poorly skilled ones take more time to do the job, and make mistakes, which cost money. So, the building industry starting costing more. people demanded better skills, so the builders' unions started certifications. which cost money. lots of money.

Housing prices reflect the costs of building.

But, since prices were starting to go up in the 80s, people started doing their own work. this meant shoddy workmanship, which mean accidents which meant insurance costs, so those insurance guys got together with those unions, and now its illegal to do your own work in many areas.

So you HAVE to have licensed contractors, under a properly qualified builder. and the demand for that increases as more work needs to be done, and less qualified people to do it. 

Low supply, high demand = higher prices.

Long story short, trying to find builders to do your house in 2 years? = premium prices = everyone is doing it = higher prices.

For 1000s of years, people could build their own house to live in, staked out some unused land, built it over 3 months, more if you had friends & family. cost you 500 man hours. 

You used that shelter to survive and built a better house over the next year or two, 2000 man hours. 

Your kids used that shelter to ‘live’ and build a better house, but still was only 2000 man hours. 

Now, the average house requires a person 60,000 man hours. not because it ‘needs’ that much, but a 30 year mortgage is a lot of office work.

This is a hard pill to swallow. trying to reverse the whole mortgage industry is near impossible. people need a place to live to be able to go to work. they need running water, gas, electricity, on top of shelter from weather, and enclosed for warmth.

Halting Mortgages, forcing people to 'save' will take years, and the suffering for people to attempt this would create massive unrest and riots. Its not tenable. there is no replacement, Halting Car Loans means more people catching the bus until they save, reducing the bus 'costs per person' and increasing employment of transport workers, people can use the alternative. But halting New homes? where will the next generation live? with their parents? Who will be able to save enough to buy? and when?

Banks also, pay interest on accounts, based on money they earn on business loans and mortgages. Without mortgages, the pinch will be so much, storing money in a bank will be practically useless, and since now we've become so reliant on electronic banking,  how could we even consider this.

The Only Solution I see is recreating the building industry, allowing people to do courses, for free, online, so they can build their own house, for themselves. They can't sell it, they can't insure it, but they should not be blocked from building it. If you can build a decent house, following the rules, inspected to be sound, you can insure it and sell it. You can spend 20 years, adding, refining, tweaking, and making sure its compliant. it'll cost you man hours, and not much more.

People in Europe are building their own houses, properly, filming it on youtube, making enough money to help pay for the house, yet still build a house for $50k. You can't even get a single room renovation for $50k in Australia. I've had my bathroom, laundry, toilet and kitchen quotes to be renovated in a proper style, not cheap IKEA crap, (which by the way, an IKEA kitchen which will fall apart in 10 years, costs $10k) a Proper kitchen for $55k, a proper bathroom for $45k. Yet in France, my friend did an even bigger kitchen in the same style for $5k. wtf!?

So, once we can 'build' a 50k home, on (sadly this wont likely go down) $200k property on the edges of the nearby towns of a capital, the demand on those million dollar places will go down, then maybe in 50 years, things will settle to a more realistic 3x income prices.. 

Eh, maybe I'm dreaming. of the old days, after the WWII reset

IOS is Married, ANDROID is a player

This Article, I wrote, in 2017, but didn't publish for what ever reason, now with AI marrying us in deeper, I felt it more relevant, so I'm publishing the Original, then adding edits/notes at the end.

 Working around all these young kids arguing about which system is better, Apple or Google, Mac or PC, iOS or Android, reminds me when we were kids about if transformers or gobots.. after constant bickering and arguing, I think this old man noticed something in what they are on about...

Married or Single

For years, decades, centuries, young men (and probably women too) have argued about the freedom of being single vs the safety of being married, the loneliness of bachelorhood vs the depression of complacency. The construct of all arguments is looking at the flaws of the opposing view and the benefits of your own view, while ignoring the flaws in your own and benefits of the other, this is never going to stop, but what we can learn from it is understanding how to argue better.

IOS is being Married
Apple has been the bastion of safety, no viruses, Apps must be approved before going ahead, they have limited memory so as to ensure decent code, no chances of going outside of the protocols, but this means that things run smoothly, efficiently and rarely crash. This is great for the average user who just doesn't want their phone to explode or get bugs or have problems, users need a safety net, the knowledge that nothing is going to change.. except when change is needed, and a whole new phone comes out.. because a refresh to life is good for you.

[2026:] 

Marriage is like iOS.
Marriage is the bastion of monogamous relations, no viruses, Activities must be approved by both parties, but also society, before being engaged in, yes that might limit their choices and budget, either party must not engage in activities outside of the marriage, but this means that both parties, parents and children can rely on the marriage as a support structure to all, and society as a whole. This is great for the average citizen who wants to know their partner is not going to cheat on them, leave them alone with the kids, allow them to starve or be homeless. The female being on average more caring will be there for the emotional needs of the family, while the male, being more aloof will be able to fend of dangers, and bring home food. Things won't change, unless the female has a need for change, because society shows her new things she has to have, and society says is good for you.

[2026:]  

Both are more expensive in the long run.

reverse everything I said and you have Android..

Android is being Single

Android has the freedom to roam the marketplace for games you want, and even 'make your own', sure they're not specifically checked by the Android network, google play does a fair job of filtering out the common bad guys, but some get through, worse, so many Android games and even apps are filled with adverts, you think your getting a decent game, but the extra costs means you often have to abandon that awesome game, because it chews up all your time with ads. You can step outside the safer markets for those indie game, they are often free, but you have to be more scrupulous, you cannot trust the game isn't stealing your data, infecting you with viruses, infecting your contacts lists. 

Being Single, can be like Android

Here the Analogy breaks down a little, [but only if you've never travelled]. Google play is a safe-ish environment, you have a fair understanding of the rules of engagement at a bar or club, safety requirements when you first get intimate, your relationship progresses enough you drop your guard to allow them into your heart, and if they are decent, you progress, and if they are not, they take advantage of you and break your heart, you break up, and have to look all over again. The main problem is, modern feminism has spoiled so many middle aged and young women into thinking they deserve everything and don't need to do anything in return, this is like adverts in games. The constant requirement to re-run the relationship, through a ringer, just to keep it going.

[2026:] iOS: Now, with AI in your phones, tracking your every move, its like the partner has lost trust in you, and is installing monitoring programs, to make sure you don't cheat, in which I mean, cheat on your preferred shopping, and by that I mean 'their' preferred shopping. You must buy apple and apple approved fridges, gadgets, pets, insurance, etc etc.. its worse than being married, 

Can I say, Feminism is to relationships, like the enshittifcation bill, the DMCA 1201 is to modern devices?

Now, interestingly, if you travel, outside of google into the realms of SDKs, and in real life, into other countries and cultures, (as I have, clocked 44 countries to date) you come across some very VERY different concepts.

In Games and Apps, you can find.. get this.. games which have NO ads. No payment expected, its a working app that does what it says, without fail. JUST, some of them do it to mine your data, some, do it because the developer is an awesome person, some do it to impersonate your phone, take out loans in your name, and infect your friends with the same virus, from your phone list. For these apps, you HAVE to be careful, due your homework, due diligence. 

The same for girlfriends and brides from other countries.. in some countries, the girlfriends culture expects the man to provide, not just for her, but her whole family. If you marry into her life, you better check her brothers and cousins.

I know guys who bought a nice house, the family came to help paint, clean, sort, transport goods, help buy furniture, 2 beds, 3 beds, more, suddenly the guy has a house of 9 people, and it was supposed to be his retirement home. they chewed through half of his retirement fund before he got wise.   

But, if you go to the right countries, learn the language, the culture, you can find the most wise, most gentle and kind partners, that know how to be an equal half, how to make your life wonderful either by caring for you, or creating a caring environment, supporting each other. In these places YOU are the virus, that needs to clean your attitude up, be a better person, you don't deserve this god/goddess, so you better do better for him/her now.

I heart a funny joke in this vein:

The Perfect Life, Australian/American Man, Russian Woman, English Cottage, European Food (insert Spanish, French, German, Italian for your flavour)

Hell: Russian Man, American/Australian Woman, European Apartment, English Food.

This was told to me in the late 10s and was even then slowly becoming irrelevant as more American men were getting weaker in nature, and now Australia too, Also, I think this discounts cities, as human nature in a city is worse by all accounts.

Explaining jokes sux, but if you didn't 'get' it:

Imagine a Rugged Australian Man who treats women with respect, vs a Rough Russian Man who drinks his paycheck away and abuses women.
Imagine a Beautiful Country Russian women, who treats her husband with respect, vs a Fem-nazi American Women who expects everything, and gives nothing.
Imagine a beautiful English Countryside, a thatched roofed cottage, flowers in the garden, hens in the backyard, gorgeous painted windows and doors, vs a conformity grey apartment, down a smelly side street, 4 floors above 16 neighbours, at least someone arguing loudly somewhere in the building every day.
Imagine, All the delights of seafood, pasta, carefully prepared meals, time taken to prepare, eat, drink wine, enjoy friends, vs the English sausages and Mash potatoes, seated at the table, quietly eating.

Don't Ever Sell - Housing

 Caveat: I used to sort out mortgages for people, as a jog. Mortgage refinancer. I saw hundreds upon hundreds of applications. Interviewed people, talked to them about their finances, what they wanted, what they did. Now.. 20 years later, those thoughts have bubbled up, and I have some insights.

The Argument to not Sell.

Regardless of how the rich get richer, which I'm sure enough people have vlogged and blogged enough about, these are my thoughts on just logic and math and loans and life.

You: 1950s, have a job, a decent enough income to apply for a loan. You've gone through all the hoops, saved 20% and bought a house. Your Income is $3000 a year, and houses cost $9k (I'm averaging from across multiple sources, and rounding off for readable math). So since the advised payment was $1k a year (one third to one quarter of your income, but for simple math we'll go a third) you'd have paid it off in 15 years, dependant on you getting pay rises, interest rates, investing a little into your loan or not, and other small issues.

Lets say 15years. Its now the early 1970s, your income has climbed to $4000, and houses cost $16k. you're house is paid off, but it cost you $12k to buy it. consider.. don't compare the $16k you can sell it for, compare the $9k price tag (and the $225 stamp duty, and another $25 in bank fees)

You paid $12,250, for a $9k house. In 1970s terms, your $16k house cost you $21,700.  

You 'can' sell, you'll probably get $16k for your house, and be looking to upgrade to a $20k house, only needing a $4k loan. That may only take 5 years to pay off, but you might have paid stamp duty on the new house of $500, capital gains tax on the $16k for $2k, So, this new house is costing you $100 a year in interest, for a total 'upgrade cost' of $7k. BUT remember, you've "paid" $21700 to own this house, you're $5k equity in the hole, now with the new $7k, you're equity is $12k backwards.

How is it possible to ever make money on a house?

Well, its super tricky, and likely you never will, but if YOUR house is worth $21,700, while the rest of the market is $16k, THEN you could break even on the sale. Likely though, to do that, you'd need to not just maintain the property, but invest in it to make improvements, BUT since that costs money, and we all know, you'll never truely make back what you put in, you'll be push a rock uphill. 

Pity we can't convince the govt, that capital gains tax, doesn't take inflation into consideration. 

Lets say, your grandpa did this in the 1950s, and you're sitting in the 2010s, inherited the house, and are thinking about selling. 

That house in 2014 is now worth 300k, your income is $55k, so even after paying inheritance tax, capital gains tax, and income tax, you're looking at a take home of 2 years paycheck.. Thats worth it right? 

well no, a) because of all those taxes, b) because that's your heritage, c) you're giving up the family wealth, that could support your family for generations, just so you can make some dumb purchases? (lets be real, unless your an avid investor or businessman, in which case you probably already know this, you're not going to spend it wisely)

Most rentals go for 5% of the property price, so over 20years you'll earn back your houses worth, again. Better yet, take out a loan ON that house to buy a 2nd house, rent that out, now you can deduct the interest from the house, from the taxable income. Make repairs, even improve the house, comes out of the taxable income (and might increase rent). Use some of THAT money for your dumb purchase.

Long Term

Consider, Had your grandpa been informed of this knowledge, in 1970, he's have bought a 2nd house, instead of selling.  

Your parents, instead of paying rent to some other person, could rent out this first house, and help pay off the mortgage. This likely means grandpa could have bought a 3rd house, 10 years later, just before retirement. If you have a uncle or aunt, they could have rented that one.

By the 1990s, your family would own 3 houses, instead of paying $5k a year in rent, it'd have been invested in the family houses. now, not needing to even GET a mortgage, your dad and uncle, could both, use the equity in the houses to get an extra house each (though, in the 90s interest was so bad, maybe they would have held off) but lets say, split the difference, they bought 1 extra house, put both  their 1/4th incomes into it.. 7years and it'd be owned (even at 15% interest as it was)

by 2000, you are born, and you already own a house to move into when you're in your 20s. in the gap between then and now, your dad and uncle have bought two more houses, renovated the other four for wifi, cable, aircon, insulation, etc. and had enough left over for yearly holidays.

Your grandpa, likely passed on (god rest his soul, sorry for your loss) created a legacy for your family, you don't pay rent, but instead contribute 1/4th your income to the family (trust?) to build a healthy portfolio of property for your kids. your family owns 8 houses, lives in 4 of them and rents out 4 of them to also contribute to the trust.

This.. by the way, is what I referred to at the top, about how rich families exist. When grandpa passed, all houses, re-evaluated at worth, passed on to the family trust, pay no capital gains (because you don't sell) nor inheritance (you didn't inherit) you don't pay mortgages or rent, ever, and your trust borrows money, spends it on new houses, and gives you all tax free bonuses (new cars? holidays?)

p.s. this is all just conjecture and opinion. be smart, talk to lawyers and accountants about setting this up for yourself. everyone has difference circumstances and life events to deal with.  

 

You, Me and AI

Rambling Thoughts: When ever a new technology comes along, there are people, adopters, who have an interest. Cutting edge interest. They are enthusiasts who wish to own one of the 'things', Engineers who want to understand how the new thing works, and if they're both, maybe want to make a better version. And then there is a 3rd group, who can be broken down into Entrepreneurs and Vultures.

How we need to be aware of AI, because of the Vultures

When the car came along in the 1800s, it was a great idea, to move people from location A to location B on any fairly flat surface, back then the uses may or may not have been thought of, from motorbikes, trucks, planes, pumps, submarines, the concept had so many uses. Each allowed a second, third, forth entrepreneur the ability to asses, create, test it, go to market with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and become profitable. 

We had time to identify the market niches, varieties and discover if was a good thing or not to develop a company to supply a product, some stayed, some left, but over all we had a good range of products. It wasn't viable to cannabalise other companies. Some smaller manufacturers created cheap ripoffs of the market, but the cost to produce a car plant was very high, it took dedication and often govt inclusion to invent a local car to resist the imports. 

When the mobile came along, We saw a range of phone being developed by companies in multiple countries, and because of the ubiquitous nature of the mobile, many could create knock offs and replicas and cheap versions, Yet it eventually boiled down to two to three main rivals, and everyone else couldn't cope with the cost involved to stay relevant. Developing a major phone, and marketing it was expensive, if you were not in, in the early days, you would struggle to bring a product to market, and gain enough share to be relevant.

Today, AI stores are live. You can create a 'store' of a concept for an AI, and go to market, and because its new its still a good time to jump in. Yet, be aware that because its so easy to create a store, many people are going to create one. the barrier of entry is low, the flow of information how to create your own is high. The best will rise to the top, and if they price themselves right, will be the be all and end all of that niche. 

What do I mean by this.

If you create a Baseball AI right now, you might be lucky to create the right kind, the right style, maybe no-one else has thought to do a baseball AI, so you'll have enough lead time on the competition, to get your product working well. Price it within the market average, say $20 a month for now, and rake in a few hundred grand, to figure out how to do it better, price it a bit lower to maintain the edge on your potential competitors, and stay relevant, as it'll come.. The vultures will begin to swirl.

The cost to enter this market is low, extremely low, I doubt any $20 a month product will stay relevant beyond a year. The race to the price floor will be swift, maybe swift enough to kill off the whole idea, but you can be sure that the companies that stay afloat will have done one of two things. Sold out [data], or Consumed the competition.

Probably Both. 

Hold up.. Are you even aware?

Incase you've been living under a rock, the generic AI that was GPT 4, is so overwhelmed with data, its slowing down, so they decided to split it into sub sets of itself, based on specific topics, and instead of doing all the effort themselves, they're 'leasing' the whole thing to us consumers, to create our own niche AIs. 

You can upload all you know about baseball to your baseball AI and have it feed back specific information about existing games, or maybe predict future games, or maybe tell stories based on game stats, what ever you decide your app will do, and then you'll promote it to consumers, to use, and pay you for the advanced versions. They'll use it to make their lives easier, and you'll be providing data to GPT to they can train their AGI better. win-win, right?

But, this will only work for the 1st Baseball AI. and maybe the 2nd. just like Android and iPhone. There will be 2 camps in the end, BaseBall-AI and AI-Baseball. Each doing the same thing, with a slightly different feel. And all the rest of the world, won't have a chance to create a baseball AI because you've already done it. The barrier of entry will not be price, not be skill, or ability, it'll be recognition of who was 'first'. The cool kids will use the main one, and that'll be it. 

Are you going to be first?  

Ai in Me - story idea

 It happened, I managed to get my internal AI to work autonomously recently, 

I was in conversation, a boring average conversation. 

I just went through the paces, and realised I had done so, without needing to do any effort.

My internal AI managed to take over at last and do it all for me. 

It spoke about mundane things

It spoke of the weather and up coming events on the news,

I didn't need to.

My Social Life has become sentient. I can now retreat into my own mind and think more about more important things.

Its been a week and I barely noticed. 

I wonder if this is a good idea.

The Ever Swindling Supply

 1980s Christmas, for 24 days before, parents take to the shops after work, scrambling to find the toy their child asked Santa for, in hopes of getting that latest Barbie or matchbox car or science kit or light-up jump rope. Even on the 24th you could still make it to the shops to get it. Today? HA!

What's Happened?

Lets explore some of the problems I see, from supply chain to internet shopping, Santa's Letter to the night before Christmas, how stressful its amped up in the last 40 years.

December 1st, up go the decorations, before that, the Grinch would notice, steal into your house and damage things to need replacing, and you' have to double up on your spending for the year, Fear Not, no, lets stay the course and delay like good Traditional Folk to December 1st. 

Up go the Decorations. Out comes the Christmas Cheer, all the good boys and girls make up their Christmas list for Santa, post the Letter, having shown it to mum and dad for "spelling" So that mum and dad have enough time to find those toys in the stores.

Today, Shipping costs means the prices of goods, and this is 90% of goods for most places, are up as much as 50% from those shipping costs. That $30 toy you want to buy your kid, is $10 in shipping costs, if it were produced at the same cost locally, it'd have been $20. 

There is far too much choice, and at the same time, far too little ability. The cartoons that the toys are based on can come from a multitude of origins, which means the toys are not likely to be on the shelves for your kids, locally. So when little Susie says she wants a Masha and the Bear doll, well sorry, while the internet is world wide, that doll is produced for Russians.. good luck getting one of those these days.

Oh except of course, China probably does produce one of them, fake, cheap, will break in a week versions, and your kids will find that on google and ask Santa for it.

So what happens next, Your kids asks for the toy on December 1st, you quickly scan the internet that very day, and can take a chance on 21 day shipping for 50% markup, 14 day shipping for 100% markup, or 7 day shipping for 200% markup. 

Yeah, good luck if you kid takes 2 weeks to make up their mind, and another to write the letter, "Here daddy, can you post this for Santa, " on the 22nd "I want a Mongolia Sheep Herder doll, and a African Tribe Doll" which has a 31 day shipping and 2 day overnight shipping is 1000% of the dolls price, even if its cheaper than the barbies in Target/Kmart/Walmart.

So, what to do? How do you tell your kids that Santa couldn't get that doll in time, he can travel around the world overnight, and his elves (or Yetis) can make *any* toy. But he couldn't get *your*kids toys? 

Thanks Capitalism, Thanks.