No one I know is spending any money. People open their wallets and dry dust and moth pieces fall out. This is the problem.
Everyone knows that the credit party is over, and now they are learning to live within their means. This means paying off the debts and trying to work up a savings account.
Everyone is having an epiphany at the same time. Everyone is too deep in debt and now all of the sudden this revelation is hitting home. But the revelation means the death of the trashy, disposable, vulgar way of life we have all so enjoyed the last twenty years.
The growth of the economy for the past decade or so was based on buying shit with money we didn't have. The phony money circulated through the economy and gave everyone a chance at a simulacrum of the good life. But now the money has stopped moving.
Everything we have built over the last twenty years is teetering on the edge of collapse. A stiff breeze and it will fall. Picking up the pieces will involve the labor of at least three generations.
So relax and watch the fall, this revolution will probably be televised. The ex-middle class and the poor will realize that the government has been pawning their children's livelihoods for one time payments to the current crop of wealthy. It will take a bit of time, but there will be blood on the streets.
I would strongly recommend keeping your head down and your mouth shut. Concentrate on the little things that will allow you and your loved ones to get to the other side of this mess. The next twenty years will decide the future of the American experiment.
So start figuring out your life and working out how to get by with less. Teach your children that the gilded age of the fin' de siecle and the first decade of the millennium were a mirage to be avoided.
2 comments:
I was cussing and discussing the new jobs program the government is launching.
While I have never been big on the government I can say that it seems a bit too 1930s to me. Someone else mentioned they would be better off expanding NASA's budget and accelerating the moon and mars missions plus the new space telescope and expanding the space station program.
You know. That made a lot more sense.
But I think that even that will not be sufficient. Jobs are flying out the window right now. And I started to think. During the great depression we had unemployment of roughly 25%. Now what was the population of the States in 1935?
If we reach 10% unemployment this time around as they seem to be suggesting that would be roughly 30 million. Now granted not every one of the 300 million is a worker to start with. But the same would have been true in the 30s if not more so.
So the percentage may be lower but the overall number of unemployed may actually be higher this time around.
Great post except for the part about every one having this epiphany. I ain't seen anyone coming to MY balcony and asking me to come down and teach surivivalism. No way.
And tell the truth, you know the main topic of discussion amongst the blithering idiots that populate this country is when will the economy get back to "normal?. The morns want another round of this shit!
Michael
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