“YOU SEXIST PIG! HOW DARE YOU SAY SUCH PERVERTED THINGS! LATEX CHAX!? ARE YOU SERIOUS!’ I am, and frame of reference has everything to do with the phrase Latex Chax. You assume that latex refers to the kink people play with latex costumes and chax is some abuse sounding SBDM thing. That says so much about you, reader, and your unchallenged biases.
“LIAR! LIAR! PANTS ON FIRE! TIMES A THOUSAND! YOU VOTED FOR TRUMP! TRUMP IS A CONVICTED RAPIST! THAT MAKES YOU A RAPIST! PLUS, YOU CONFESSED TO BEATING YOUR WIFE! LATEX CHAX IS SO OBVI PERVERTED! WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT!!!” Are you done? [crickets] Three errors here. First, confirmation bias, second, guilt by association and last, once accused forever guilty. I’d be careful where you point that rhetorical canon. Rather awkward if those words became about you. Those moves worked until about 2021 or so when the hot air in them started to deflate.
Did I beat my wife? Yes. Now . . . do you believe repentance is possible? Or are you so zealous that the mite in my eye you see so clearly cannot be unseen? The only way forward for you is more struggle sessions for me where I confess my toxic masculinity and whiteness. If so, your attachment to my past chains you to resentment that is killing your spiritual life and maybe also your health.
Latex Chax Dreams
Primaris Solenne Vexton Ulyth had a parade. It was beautiful. Full of matchy-matchy uniforms, banners, decorated vehicles, the full show. The parade staged on University Avenue below San Pablo Avenue and went up University, made a left on MLK Jr. Way to Civic Center Park. In Civic Center Park a stage was erected with a dias and decorated with gladiolus and Red Amaranth.
At Civic Center Park the protest was catered—Fermented Tofu and Kimchi over steamed rice served with grass jelly tea. Lotus paste mochi snacks were given out to early arrivals. A quartet of Mikako robots sang and danced until it was time for Ulyth to speak. What’d he say? The usual suspects were the cause of the city’s miseries. The usual answers were more of the same: promises of increased Universal Basic Income, claims that women can’t get basic health care services because the county objects to obligatory GHAT for pre-teen children, and work on the Opportunity Zone continues.
Those rumors of food poisoning from the rations handed out at the post parade protest/festival? LIES! Why would you insult our Dear Leader like that. How awful of you! Anyway, it’s Monday and all is well at City Hall. You should take a plate. The food is still good.
Latex Chax Grumbles
Except . . . it isn’t good. 臭豆腐 smells like piss. It doesn’t taste like it smells. But the smell is hard to get over. Ditto 김치. Both of those were safe. But Vexton’s fans liked energy drinks, protein snacks, and instant ramen. Weird, stinky tofu and cabbage smelled like death. Most of the parade goers ate the rice and drank canned Viper Redline. Nobody questioned the Redline. Stories of people getting sick weren’t blamed on the tofu or pickled cabbage. The rice? How do you screw up rice?
The rice. To be ready to serve the parade crowd the rice was prepared the morning of the protest. Which . . . should be fine. It wasn’t fine. Two hours is enough time for rice to go bad. It has to be stored correctly to make that safe. About that . . . People trusted the rice and got sick.
Let’s get Latex Chax out of the way. It’s a turn on Rubber Check. Why? What were you thinking it was? Latex is rubber before it gets processed. Organic rubber if you will. Chax? Chax is a made-up thing between myself and my coworkers from my CapitalOne days. 100,000 chax is worth a dollar. So Latex Chax is fake currency that causes “insufficient funds” rejections.
What Money
Vexton’s world is in the future by a century. His time period is 2125 or so. He’s sixty-something so he was born in 2065. USA, the Mecca of Constitutional Republicanism, falls in a hundred years. Read my post on NUUSA for a fuller explanation. A century of warring states and unstable government opened the door to Vexton Ulyth Primaris Solenne. Primaris Ulyth promised law and order. He promised to ensure food safety, basic income safety, and healthcare safety for women suffering from a Gestational Onset Event.
In 2125 the pain of a warring states period is intense. Infrastructure is unreliable. Public utilities are unstable. Sometimes things work, sometimes not. Supply chains are unstable. Enter Ulyth, a high-ranking General Services Administration bureaucrat in NUUSA. He promised to fix all this shit.
Vexton did, for a while. People loved him. “The rich need to pay their fair share!” Fiefdom tax rates on combined income and net worth exceeded 80%. And still the litany said, “The rich need to pay their fair share!” Fair share had no end. The true believers remaining in the Citadel who had that kind of net worth began to move to Contra Costa County or other tax-friendlier municipalities. Lines at food-bank distros grew to absurd lengths. One social media post alleged that a single mother of six children waited a week for a loaf of bread. The Citadel denied that this was fact.
You Can’t Cash Latex Chax
We count on our governments to behave with our tax money. This week (11-10-2025) the Senate made progress on a Continuing Resolution to fund the government for another month. Vexton has an elected City Council he controls. His City Council has been at war on social media with him. A minority of Council members are suggesting a smaller increase in the city budget for FY2126.
The position of the majority? Tantrum, “Spend LESS! YOU ARE INSANE! YOU HATE CHILDREN AND WANT GRANDMOTHER TO STARVE! HOW DARE YOU YOU TWISTED, SEXUALLY DEVIANT ASSHOLE!” Ok, chaxed. The orthodox liturgy declares that the populace shall own nothing and like it. What could go wrong?
What goes wrong is that the money runs out. Zealots assume the wealthy will just pay and not feel anything about it. Wealthy zealots feel it is the price of inclusion. A tax you pay to stay in the clique. Each budget cycle brings the same loop: the money isn’t enough. We need the rich to pay their fair share. The next budget approves an increase. Because it is the duty of the wealthy to pay for their evil bourgeois ways and be happy about it. So saith Primaris Solenne Vexton Ulyth.
Exfil
As I type this Berkeley’s population is ~115,46 and has decreased 1.49% since 2020. Let’s say that the exfil from Berkeley maintains this rate. By 2125 and exacerbated because of the collapse of USA, the remaining population is 26,000. If “tax the rich” means that 1% of those left pay most of the operating cost of Vexton’s Citadel then his budget is carried by 260 people.
Let’s do some numbers. Berkeley’s General Fund Budget is $334 million for FY2025. Projecting a 3% increase in the budget for the next century gets us a 2125 budget of 15.6 billion. Vexton’s 260 most faithful would owe 60 million each. Have you noticed that Socialist utopias sharpen the disparity between bourgeoisie and the proletariat while promising exactly the opposite?
It was a tasty fantasy. Vexton Ulyth Primaris Solenne would get all the riz, all the money, all the things. He’d have a harem of hot, docile porn stars. The rich would pay and he’d have bank. That parade? Paid for with Citadel loans it can’t afford to pay back.
Reckoning
No boom. No penultimate battle. Just a hangover on Sunday morning and an inbox stuffed with NSF notifications from JP Morgan. Vexton chugged a couple swallows of Pepto Bismal. He got dressed in a Citadel hoodie, Ranger panties, and Red Wing boots while he waited for his robotaxi. Nothing decent in the castle to eat so he grabbed one of the gift cards given to him at the protest. The robotaxi picked him up and took him to Andronico’s.
At Andronico’s he picked up a flat white, an almond croissant, and a sausage egg and cheese English muffin. He ate while he shopped. Steaks were on sale, so he grabbed some of those. The deli case had some Mac’N’Cheese so he asked for a quart of it. Mountain Dew liters, and from the freezer case, a couple Meat Loaf with Mashed Potato frozen entrees.
Then put his groceries on the belt to be checked out. $54.73. He swipes his Citadel p-card. Rejected. Insufficient funds. NSF? How? How is it possible that the war lord of a city of 26,000 tax paying people would have a p-card with no money on it?
Duex Ex NSF
Ulyth remembered the gift card he grabbed back at the castle. He swiped the card and there was enough on it to cover the tab. Crisis averted. The rest of his Sunday was uneventful.