The Most That You Can Keep
An opinion piece carried by the Associated Press contrasts what Erica Werner calls the new “spare, fundamental” American Dream to the “rhetoric from Obama’s 2008 White House campaign.” The soaring promises have vanished; in its place is the new line that Obama is the best candidate to keep you from losing it all. “With the economy showing no signs of life: no jobs, mortgages they can’t pay, dwindling retirement funds and college savings,” it is hope of a different kind. The residual aspiration is you can actually have a “job, a house, a college education for the kids, health care, money for retirement,” some day anyway.
The article quotes Xavier professor Michael Ford, who explains that the downsized dream is pretty much all anyone can still believe in without laughing out loud: “It’s pretty basic stuff (Obama) talks about and I think as it turns out that’s pretty much where the dream is right now.” But Werner says it’s working, because now Change You Can Believe In is real. Hoping for food on the table is so much more convincing than promising the oceans will fall and the Earth will begin to heal.
And speaking of food, MSNBC says a new poll shows Americans really want smaller portions at food outlets:
What if the server at your favorite fast food joint asked if you wanted to downsize your order, instead of asking you to supersize it? That’s a strategy that might make some patrons happier — and a lot thinner, a new study suggests.
Consumers want higher gas prices too. Describing the steps necessary to remove the carbon threat driving global warming, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” It was an idea the president opposed — unless it could be done gradually:
I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.
Then presumably higher prices would be alright. Some on the Democratic Party’s left wing argue that this does not go far enough: a certain amount of poverty — just how much is open to debate — should be an actual policy goal. Greedy Western capitalist consumers already consume too much of the world’s resources, so the thinking goes. Lower levels of resource consumption are actually good for the Earth. Then there is the argument from necessity — that higher levels simply can’t be delivered. Sorry if President Obama campaigned on them — he misspoke.
James Kunstler writes that President Obama had better get down to managing expectations. He will need to:
Dear Mr. President, you are presiding over an epochal contraction, not a pause in the growth epic. Your assignment is to manage that contraction in a way that does not lead to world war, civil disorder or both. Among other things, contraction means that all the activities of everyday life need to be downscaled including standards of living, ranges of commerce, and levels of governance. “Consumerism” is dead. Revolving credit is dead — at least at the scale that became normal the last thirty years. The wealth of several future generations has already been spent and there is no equity left there to re-finance.
If contraction and downscaling are indeed the case, then the better question is: why don’t we get started on it right away instead of flogging rescue plans to restart something that is DOA?
Why not get started on downscaling indeed? Why not change the optics on the American Dream? The new watchword should be “keep all that you can keep.” Rhetoric is equally useful when describing the valleys as well as the mountaintops.
When Edward Kennedy eulogized his brother Bobby, Ted paraphrased his deceased sibling’s catchphrase, itself derived from George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?” But that is so Sixties, an age when more seemed better. Today the motto should be: “Some men see things as they are and say why? I say, why not less?”
The Guardian calls doing with less “an exciting idea.” In a piece that begins by expressing its disgust at American crowds stampeding through shopping malls on sale days, it paints the picture of a newer, better — and yes, ok, poorer world. Poorer yes, but cooler and trendier too:
Rachel Botsman, a “social innovator” who has presented her ideas at Downing Street and before Microsoft and Google executives, retells the event in her book, What’s Mine Is Yours: How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way We Live. “It’s a sad and chilling metaphor for our culture at large — a crowd of exhausted consumers knocking down the doors and ploughing down people simply to buy more stuff.”
Botsman rails in the book against the excesses, futility and contradictions of mass consumption, but she doesn’t rehash the usual tropes of anti-consumerism. Rather, her book is a cry for us to consume “smarter” by moving away from the outdated concept of outright ownership — and the lust to own — towards one where we share, barter, rent, and swap assets that include not just consumables, but also our “time and space” …
“Cars are 90% under-utilized by their owners,” she tells me from her home in Australia. “And 70% of journeys are solo rides. So we now see car club companies such as Streetcar proving very popular in cities. In Munich, BMW now has a scheme where it lets members pay for a car by the minute rather than by the hour. And websites such as ParkatmyHouse.com are allowing people to make money from unused space outside their properties. A great example is a church in Islington, London, which was facing financial trouble. But it started renting parking space out front and it now makes £70,000 a year from doing so.”
Isn’t that exciting? And even if it ain’t, perhaps we’ve got no choice. Carpooling, smaller portions, vehicles left in the garage for lack of gas and barter. These had a name once: it was called poverty. Today it’s just smart consumption. It’s good for your soul too, as a figure of speech of course, since Heaven does not exist and Hell isn’t as bad as it was cracked up to be, now that it’s here.
Adbusters, which played a role in starting the Occupy Wall Street movement, featured an article by French philosopher Bernard Stiegler which argues that rather than attempt to boost production and create more products, policy should focus on “what Aristotle called philia, and which would then form the basis of a new type of economic investment.” Stiegler, who “taught himself philosophy while imprisoned for armed robbery,” teaches that we should all groove on our navels, at the exquisite way in which the lint just sits there, poised between the protruding hairs:
[Stiegler] is concerned with the way in which the industrial organization of production and then consumption has had destructive consequences for the modes of life of human beings, in particular with the way in which the loss of savoir-faire and savoir-vivre (that is, the loss of the knowledge of how to do and how to live), has resulted in what Stiegler calls “generalized proletarianization.” In this series Stiegler makes clear his view that, in the light of the present state of the global technical system, it is not a matter of overcoming capitalism but rather of transforming its industrial basis to prevent the loss of spirit from which it increasingly suffers.
Which means, if I understand Stiegler correctly, that we are moving toward a future where we’d all like to buy the world a Coke without actually having the money to afford one, even for ourselves. It’s an exciting future, one which at any rate will surprise many. Though maybe they shouldn’t be astonished. It’s worth remembering that Jonestown started out as a project to build a socialist paradise on Earth and ended up with a universal requirement to practice “revolutionary suicide.” The dream became a nightmare, but maybe it was always that under the mask.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $3.99, print $9.99
I also want chains around my ankles and wrists.
Why would Ms. Botman suggest bartering is a good idea? Because Ms. Botman has never had to barter for anything in her life except perhaps trading a Kit Kat for a handful of M&Ms with her friend. Ms Botman in real life: “Could I trade you 15 minutes of my advice as a ‘Social Innovator’ for a gallon of your gasoline?” The reply by 100% of gas station owners: “Ahhh, no.” There was a reason currency was invented. Suggesting that we bypass it and go back to bartering is pure idiocy.
…it is not a matter of overcoming capitalism but rather of transforming its industrial basis to prevent the loss of spirit from which it increasingly suffers.
So Compassionate Capitalism emerges from the derivatives rubble. I’d settle for responsible Risk Management, but whatever keeps unemployed academic ex-felons off the streets.
This is exciting: Patient gets new jaw from 3D printer.
@3: I see that fun and quirky Japan festival floater ad refuses to go away. Apologies as required (I admit I looked at a few of the pictures – this is a strange group of people.)
Ah, so she wants us to share. Is she sharing her home, her income, her things? What do you want to bet that she doesn’t.
Whitney @ 2: “Could I trade you 15 minutes of my advice as a ‘Social Innovator’ for a gallon of your gasoline?”
Social Innovator? The previous thread having brought back some memories, surely some people must recall the bumper sticker on every 1960s hippy-filled VW bus: Grass, Gas, or Ass – No-one Rides Free.
W – but mayBE it was always that…
But of course.
This is just the campaign that Jerry Brown used to be elected governor of California – 37 years ago! It is President Carter in his sweater.
But just look how well it suits Obambus.
It is a psychological chain everyone has, that they will do crazy things to hold onto what they have – however small that is, less seldom seems better. However, typically this is a CONSERVATIVE trope, in fact THE conservative trope. This way, Obambus hijacks the very idea of negativity. Otherwise (and still) the Republicans would run on, “Throw Obambus out before you lose it all!”
Secondly, it fits in with his share-the-wealth community organizer mode. Add to the social fairness theme, now it’s also lifeboat theme.
Third, it fits with Obambus’ green ideas, that Americans consume too much anyway.
But basically, I think it’s the timing, the old Jerry Brown democratic proto-ecological themes of the 1970s. That’s when Obambus’ conceptual structure was built, and he seems to have very little flexibility in it.
Defining the American economy down. Do your part. Share more, eat less, drive less, shop less, and quit exhaling so much – it’s CO2, you know. The new motto – “Less is more!” A utopian dream? Not mine!
Speaking of sharing…
The Federal Reserve has been busily rewriting the rules of the financial system for years now, and it’s been doing almost all of it behind closed doors. [WSJ subscription with open comments]
People have a right to know and hear the discussion and hear the presentations and the reasoning for these rules. All of the other agencies propose and approve these rules in public meetings. – Sheila Blair, ex-FDIC chair
“It depends on what you mean by transparency.” – Bill Clinton
THE OBAMA OPTIMIST
In 2008 the country was flooded with optimism. Obama promised the moon would be of the finest cheddar, the stars would glitter on every Obamagirl’s finger, the Earth would rise and the seas would fall. He promised clean, cheap energy for all, and two cars in every garage. What he neglected to say was that the moon has a dark side, the stars were in the wrong epicycle, that the tide paid no heed to either him or Canute, that gas would be five dollars a gallon and that at that price the cars would have to stay in the garage. And so we have a new optimism, the optimism of deferred gratification. I spoke to an Obama optimist recently, and here is what he said.
I thought if we got rid of Bush
That we could quit the Hindu Kush
I thought green windmills would provide
All energy so we could hide
Those ugly coal plants that just spew
Pollutants in the pristine blue
I thought he’d bring us wealth and jobs
Instead we have a world by Hobbes
Where trouble lurks at every turn
And those in charge can’t seem to learn
That bowing to the Saudi king
Won’t change the world, won’t change a thing
I still have faith though out of work
It’s not O’s fault it’s just a quirk
He needs to have another term
Although the thought just makes me squirm
I never thought the moon was cheddar
But I still think things will get better
Didn’t I say this was coming, at least in so many words?
I used the expression “down so long it looks like up to me,” to describe an acceptance of the “new normal” by many would-be voters. Right now it tranlates into thinking that an 8.3% unemployment rate is cheery news because it’s definitely less than 9%. Of course the fact that this number is a fraud (and so was the 9%) doesn’t matter unless the GOP and alternate media can break through the DNC/MSM shield wall.
Unemployment may be going back up, as are gas prices. If the GOP weren’t the Stupid Party, they’d find an effective way to make these potent campaign issues. “Effective” and “Republican” seem mutually exclusive these days.
More worrisome is the acceptance by many people of Obama’s “go it alone” gimmick, which looks effective when Congress is held in such low regard. Many people don’t see Obama’s approach as the lawless mendacity that it really is.
This is the end game the Enviro- Nazi’s wanted all along. Buraq just needs the right optics to get it done. After all it’s for the children, Mother GAIA and for our own good after all.
But Wretchard you forgot to mention how this “doing with less” will have a caveat : the connected few will be exempted from it all.
If the GOP weren’t as I described it in my previous post, they might employ the following as one of their tactics: Play up the Obama of 2008 vs. is lowered expectations, and toss in the leaked memo where Obama himself says it will take a couple more years to really get the economy going. Juxtapose that aginst the argument that the business community will feel liberated and motivated if there’s a Republican president and Congress. Have them interview business leaders (especially ones that supported Obama in ’08) who would say just that.
Highlight — in video clips — that the champions of “making do with less” are all rich or affluent. As an added embellishment put their net worth next to their names and pictures as you quote them. Then sum up by pointing out that they themselves have no intention, nor any need, to “make do with less.”
Make an issue of the fact that Obama had no clue what he was getting into, and has only made a bad situation worse. Tell them that a GOP-led country can realistically have higher expectations. It happens to be true.
I suspect modern national economic systems are intrinsically unstable, i.e. the standard of living can either go up or down but it can not remain in equilibrium. It’s interesting that American Indians and their predecessors previously lived in the continental United States for almost 13,500 years, refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture
The good news about American Indian culture is it was relatively stable. The bad news is they lived very short nasty lives where their infant mortality rate, reduced lifespans and deaths due to inter-tribal warfare kept their population stable for over 10,000 years. Of course the extremely bad news was there being almost nothing left to show for this culture except for a few ruins in places like Mesa Verde, the odd arrow head, burial mound and their oral traditions which have been mostly recorded by European anthropologists.
I am reminded of these fascinating Australian aboriginal wall paintings that I saw at Carnarvon Gorge National Park refer to:
http://www.walkit.com.au/carnarvon-gorge.html
You can see this place where for thousands of years, the father would come with his son, make a stencil painting of his son’s hand and his boy’s toy boomerang. Then above those paintings, the proud father would make a stencil painting of his hand and his hunting boomerang. Over to the side you can see down below the father’s hand stencil that he made as a boy and above it his own father’s hand stencil. So one can see generations of hand stencils that went on for thousands of years until the climate changed and/or the Europeans came to Australia and the aboriginals were wiped out. I wish there was some traditional place that I could take my children to and have their hands stenciled and over to side I could see my great-great-great-grandfather’s hand stencil. There are definite down sides to being part of a dynamic civilization that self destructs after a couple centuries.
I wish our Space Program wasn’t so fouled up. It’d be nice to get off of this rock.
“Cars are 90% under-utilised by their owners,”
Maybe she can let out her vagina for the sexually needy. She wasn’t using it for anything.
I noticed in Auckland a year and a half or so ago that they had rental bicycles locked up around the city that you could rent on the spot, unlock it and return it at another spot. I never really checked out the particulars but wouldn’t demand leave all of the bicycles at the bottom hills eventually? It kind of reminded me of the ol’ socialist, sentimentallist trope, Ecotopia.
“Otherwise (and still) the Republicans would run on, “Throw Obambus out before you lose it all!””
The Republicans are outraged! They’ll immediately demand additional tax incentives for wool sweaters and promote free parking at public libraries for families who commute with five or more people.
Ah yes, the old bait and switch. I will mend our economy, unless I can’t. In that case it immediately becomes cool to be poor. Revel in your new coolness America. If only I had known this in high school, I was so very cool but didn’t realize it, so I proceeded to diminish my coolness through continuous employment.
Why any of the GOP hopefulls are talking about anything besides the economy is beyond my understanding.
Also, the lowered expectations hang-on-to-what-you’ve-got makes the rich look that much more out of phase, in case Romney is the candidate, and in any case Obambus has demonized the Republicans as The Rich since he was no taller than his golf bag.
The only really effective counter is a positive message a la Reagan, but I don’t know that any of these Republican candidates is ready for that. Gingrich maybe, if he could keep his focus on planet Earth. Yes I’m all for space exploration but the word here is “focus”.
Josh – … no taller than his golf bag. You funny. Did you make that up?
All the enthusiasm for sharing your stash by the left ends with just one statement: “you first.”
Just as when the ‘elite liberals’ were all calling for higher taxes until someone pointed out you could always pay more than the government was demanding. What they meant was higher taxes for the ‘little people’ not for we, the elite. How many sitting lawmakers are still delinquint on their taxes?
“Why any of the GOP hopefulls are talking about anything besides the economy is beyond my understanding.”
Republicans do not “speak” to America, they preen to the media because they are caught in its thrall. We are the unwashed masses and the Republican establishment intends to communicate to it by crafting their image with the liberal press.
“I used the expression “down so long it looks like up to me,” to describe an acceptance of the “new normal” by many would-be voters.”
It’s instructive to recall that the author of “Been down so long . . . ,” also the composer of “Pack up your sorrows and give them all to me . . . ,” Richard Farina, killed himself.
From that “social innovator”:
“…And websites such as ParkatmyHouse.com are allowing people to make money from unused space outside their properties. A great example is a church in Islington, London, which was facing financial trouble. But it started renting parking space out front and it now makes £70,000 a year from doing so.”
Ahh, yes, the policy wonk blabbing up other people’s ideas, and the blithely passed-over assumption by the article’s author and publisher that the act of blabbing up other people’s ideas in front of government bodies is actual productive work.
A local church actually tried the parking-space thingie. It seems our local Port Authority (the government-worker pension organization that masquerades as a mass transit service) does not have enough park and rides for riders, esp. in the suburbs east of the city. So riders have to park illegally and hopscotch from lot to lot one step ahead of the ticketing and car-booting patrol.
A local Lutheran church down the road from one of those completely inadequate & overflowing park & rides decided to let Port Authority riders use their parking lot for a nominal lease fee ($20/month). The riders were happy (church parking lot was 30 feet from a bus stop), the church was happy (lease fees paid for lot maintenance & snow plowing in the winter).
But then the government stepped in.
Bureaucrats to church: We heard you are now taking money for the use of your parking lot. You will need to build in X number of handicapped spaces. Also a permit. Zoning and all that. Council will have to approve. And insurance adjustments. Please file all the necessary paperwork in a timely fashion and provide proof to us or you will be fined. Please also get those handicapped spaces painted and signed in X number of days or you will be fined.
Result?
The church closed the lot. It is now back to sitting empty on weekdays. And the Port Authority riders are back to having to park illegally in and near the inadequate “official” park and ride.
If the “social innovator” can socially innovate the bureaucrats to go find gainful employment rather than harrassing citizen taxpayers and civic organizations who (gosh, whoda thunk) are finding ways to connect and cooperate all on their own, without the gubment’s help and without costing the taxpayers a dime, then and only then might I say that a “social innovator” actually serves a useful purpose. Until then … it’s in the same category for me as “community organizer.” The mouth moves but nothing improves. Blahblahblahblahblah-paymenow.
When the dollar dies Americans will have a lot more to worry about than whether they can rent out their old parking spot. They will be worrying about protecting their families or about getting their next meal. Obama’s re-election will finally drive the message home to the sheeple that there is no longer any hope, and honestly if the choice is between Obama and Romney, at least Obama’s re-election will put an end to the sheeple charade.
Mike Adams interviews Joe Nobody, author of Holding Your Ground: Preparing for Defense if it All Falls Apart
Re: downscaling:
To paraphrase Instapundit, I’ll believe the need for downscaling when I see the people talking up the necessity of downscaling actually doing it themselves.
My metric is my annual income, the sq footage of my house & the car I drive. Until the majority of the Elizabeth Warrens, Algores, Katie Courics and Van Joneses voluntarily downscale to where they are at or below my individual metric, then as far as I’m concerned they are a lot of hypocritical pigs straight out of the pages of Animal Farm who can go take a flying leap into a manure pile, policy papers and regulations in hand.
Ain’t it funny how the Class Warfare and Envy Game ends up with everyone in the poorhouse, having moved all the players (except for the pigs who call the game, of course) along squares where, instead of accumulating wealth like in Monopoly, their wealth is systematically stripped from them. And where those “Community Chest” cards have sayings like:
“You have been selected for an IRS audit! Go directly to the Tax Me Mo Daddy square. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $100.”
and
“City Council has declared your property blighted! Your two highest-income rental properties are now forfeited and up for auction. P.S. Don’t bother appealing to the Supreme Court!”
*********
Talk about rebranding!
We’ve moved from 2008 messaging: “Spread the wealth around”
to 2012: “OMG That empty wallet makes you look SO slim! It’s like you’ve lost 10 pounds!”
Don’t you dare ask for more, peasant. If you know what’s good for you.
‘Please, sir, I want some more.’
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupified astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
‘What!’ said the master at length, in a faint voice.
‘Please, sir,’ replied Oliver, ‘I want some more.’
The master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.
The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said,
‘Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!’
There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.
‘For MORE!’ said Mr. Limbkins. ‘Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?’
‘He did, sir,’ replied Bumble.
‘That boy will be hung,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. ‘I know that boy will be hung.’
Sometimes I think Thesaurus’ were invented simply so that Liberal Socialists and Philosophers could hide their intelligible opinions in a flotsam of words. There is a good reason why Jesus used the simple language he did. Matthew 5 thru 7, better known as the Sermon on the Mount is breathtaking in its simplicity and directness. Even if you don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God send to pay for our sins, I believe he is, you have to admire the simplicity of his message and the perfection of his words.
And Ms. Botsman, a “social innovator”, whatever that is, is correct though about people going to a barter/trade system. As usual she is wrong about the reasons why. Living in the South I know many people that are bartering and trading out services and items simply to shield themselves from taxes. Many small businesses want people to pay in cash because the IRS has a hard time tracing it especially if their services are in demand, home repair, painting, car repair, etc. They simply claim enough to keep the IRS off their backs. Now these individuals will have a hard time selling their business to MBA who wants 5 years of P&L statements. However, not many MBA’s are looking to buy a plumbing business. Too much work, they get their hands dirty and their wives don’t want to explain to the rest of the ladies at the Junior League meetings what their husbands do for a living.
The sad thing about Obama’s, the democratic message and the alphabet media’s parroting of the new message is that it just doesn’t seem to matter. We are so used to these political wonks and wonkettes, social commentators, journalists and career politicians telling us what needs to be done and then having absolutely no accountability for their opinions that it is simply noise. Like Greece, America’s day of financial reckoning is coming. It’s just a matter of time.
Great showing of how the Propaganda Organ (MSM) worldwide (at least EU and USA) frames the picture for Obama, this is just the showing us how Obama really can’t lose, there is such momentum behind the Progressive movement and it has no moral or standard to act as its Achilles heel… Even Hilter, Stalin and Moa had this but not at the grand scale Obama has, Welcome to Chaos! The truth is worse than a lie and a lie is easier to swallow!
e @ 19: no taller than his golf bag. You funny. Did you make that up?
I think so. Result of watching the LA Open this weekend, I think. For a golf tournament, it was actually exciting.
KWB @ 26.
Ah yes the signs of an economy sliding into third world status as listed by the US State Department. A growing black market for goods and services.
There is also usually labor unrest, high crime, unreliable energy supplies (electricity and fuel. Small businesses that are the major creators of jobs suffer more from government policies that government buddies do. What’s the difference between S. Africa and the US,”About ten years.”
Of course it seems even the Soccer Moms are going long on firearms these days. I pity the fools who think they are going to put up with reduced meals for their kids.
I haven’t measured and we’ve had some rain lately, but all the local lakes should be about a foot deeper due to all the firearms, ammo, and precious metals lost in tragic boating accidents.
Great comments. Here’s mine:
“America, the land of (down-sized) opportunity.”
I really miss Reagan’s sunny optimism.
Embrace malaise!
HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH OUTRIGHT LIES?
Press Secretary Jay Carney (what an appropriate last name) stated to Jake Tapper of ABC that it was the Republicans who stopped the Keystone Pipeline.
His rationale for this breathtaking mendacity was the the Republicans didn’t give Obama enough time to study the issue (3 years alone wasn’t enough, I guess).
Witht he GOP insisting on being impotent and refusing to counterpunch on a consistent and loud and effective basis, lies like these will stand unchallenged and will be believed.
Looking at my American family from a Swiss perspective what I notice is how many more toys my 2 American brothers have. Snow Mobiles, Boats, SUVs, even an airplane. One American quote is something like this: “he who has the most toys when he dies, wins”. Americans have a lot of territory in the wealth plane to downscale to. The problem is that they are giving up territory so fast. I chose to go Swiss and at the time I didn’t realize how much I was sacrificing by my decision in 1989, at least on the material plane. As the dollar has collapsed, my Swiss income has exploded. My son is working as a truck driver earning $75K/year with 5 weeks of vacation, I earn far more. But a big mac costs $17 and a gallon of diesel is now almost 2CHF or $8.80/gallon. We have reached the point where the dollar is no longer a reasonable yardstick for measuring value.
“They said: ‘Cheer up, things could be worse!’ And so I did–and sure enough, they got worse!”
I just ran across this great interview between Francis Fukuyama and Peter Thiel at American Interest: http://the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1187
Well worth a read and not at all off topic.
The traditional flip side of downsizing has always been the Show. To make people forget the lack of Bread, a Circus must be provided. And when Marx spoke of religion as the Opiate of the masses he meant to imply that Socialism would be so great that in the future there would be no need of solace.
Unfortunately Socialism was just another religion; intellectually and spiritually inferior to anything that came before, with the possible exception of certain forms of Islam. What is worse, it was materially impoverishing too. There was nothing to recommend it.
The sheer misery it imposed on its adherents, on display for all the world to see in historic Maoist China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc meant that it required a religious model stood on its head. For it now had to supply in fantasy what it could not provide in reality.
Moreover, it could not even be what Marx had called religion: “a pie in the sky”. Under socialism there is no sky and worse, there is no pie.
Since it could not stand outside of This World, the Red/Green religion was in a quandry. There no escape from its grim precincts in conventional terms since no “religion” of the old sort could be allowed to solace its suffers, not from any sort of theological squeamishness, because out of the practical consideration that the door to transcendence had to be kept shut lest the idea of liberty sneak back in.
The answer of course was entertainment. The circuses. Nothing transcendental but eminently spectacular. Constant novelty, ever larger doses of debauchery, a frenzied titillation; an encouragement to dope and cheap sex. That’s all there to make people forget.
To forget first of all that the cheap existence they have on offer doesn’t have to be that. That all the shackles and chains are gratuitously imposed. And to make us forget, most of all, not to look up. The stars must not be in view, for they are reminders of the limitlessness of possibility; of shores at on the other side of a greater ocean than man has ever sailed. The skies are reminders that there is always greater than our masters. Spectacle is the replacement for human aspiration.
Yet in the circuses too lie the seeds of downfall. I’ve always wondered whether William Buckley became a conservative because the sheer stupidity of the socialist creed simply offended him. Would I blame him if he did? Perhaps not. It is still legitimate, as 1984′s Winston Smith did, to realize in the midst of a spectacle that you are nothing but a puppet dancing to the pulling of strings and hating it. That might not be the best of reasons, but it’s good enough.
The objective of the Obama adminstration has always been 20% on Welfare, 75% working poor and lower middle class all dependent on government handouts doled out by the 5% who comprise the kleptocracy. Problem is who will be left to pay for free stuff that keeps the kleptocracy running? What works in Chicago doesn’t scale even to the state level.
The creepy thing about all of this is I can remember as kid in the late 70s seeing the same gloom and despair. These were the days not only of Jimmy Carter and the cardigan but of Logan’s Run and the Club of Rome, of duck and cover drills and the strange feeling that you were about 30 minutes at any one time from getting blow to atoms. When somebody down the road had a baby we as kids would actually feel sorry for any child born into the world.
Reagan was like a bolt from the blue, somebody who was optimistic and who believed in not only in America but that things will get better. When I think of the late 1990s, of peace and prosperity, the 70s and all it represented seemed so far away, like another country. That was great Reagan’s great gift, his legacy, was his belief that such things and times as that were possible.
Well now it seems like the 70s was never really gone, but lurked like a virus waiting to reemerge. Perhaps we need to be reminded that civilization and prosperity is only temporarily secured, but most be fought for and won every generation or 2.
Times indeed do seem dark – the one vignette I would add to Wretchard’s clips from above was that when Gov. Jindal complained to Obama about the jobs that would be lost from the Gulf drilling bad, he was told they could on unemployment. So just like you can make money on falling stock by shorting, there are those who profit from hard times.
Yes the times have given us Romney but as my boss would tell me after a multi-million dollar system of mine just crashed…”there will be better times than this…. there will also be worse.”
vx @ 34: “They said: ‘Cheer up, things could be worse!’ And so I did–and sure enough, they got worse!”
optimist: This is the best of all possible worlds!
pessimist: That’s right.
badd-a-boom
We should eat less, downsize our portions?
I was sitting in a mall food court with my wife sharing a lunch time purchase. The couple next to us with two small children had bought four full meals with side dishes added as well. Between them they left twice what we ate.
When we had kids, and we had a lot of them, first they ate off our plates and then they shared. We almost never threw anything away. My wife said, after the couple left, how could they do that?
But think what would happen if every family in America did as we did. Only half the amount of food ordered, then way down the line some small farmers are going out of business, more on welfare, more transfer to already overcrowded cities, more broken families. It is against my upbringing but I smiled. I hope they go on buying just the way they have.
The Eurozone are cutting back, by German order, I don’t see that working so well.
Looking at my American family from a Swiss perspective what I notice is how many more toys my 2 American brothers have. Snow Mobiles, Boats, SUVs, even an airplane. One American quote is something like this: “he who has the most toys when he dies, wins”. Americans have a lot of territory in the wealth plane to downscale to.
Gosh, I don’t know what I would do if I had to hock the snow mobile, boat, SUV or the Cessna! But if I don’t get some cold hard cash, how will I ever be able to hook up with my crew in San Moritz? GF swears she will die of shame if we have to miss the Venice Film Festival this year. She just might carry out the threat of wearing her Hermes Birkin bag over her head in utter ignominy.
Wait.
You mean this does NOT describe you?
I thought all Americans drove SUVs, vacationed in Thailand, lived in 5000 sqft McMansions and had illegal Guatemalan nannies for their 1.2 kids.
If this does NOT describe you … what they heil were you doing during the bubble, for Beelzebub’s sake? Easy credit, liar loans and OPM were falling from the sky. Everybody and his idiot junkie brother could get in on the action. If you did not grab a stash for yourself, well, shame on you.
Slacker.
You deserve your downscaling, you stupid murkin.
Now go sit in your rusty mobile home (that would be the one WITHOUT the cable TV) and warm up the Dinty Moore for supper.
No more Doritos. That would be decadent. And you need to lose the spare tire anyway.
(The beatings will continue until morale improves.)
#38
If you think the 70′s were down, you should have been a teen in the 60′s. Everything went insane. College takeovers, Marxist paid for war demonstrations, Lyndon Johnson creating out of whole cloth a socialist nightmare, and then we have the Bill Ayers of the world bombing things and yet, who should be O’Bummers best friend but
Bill Ayers, unreconstructed socialist radical bomber.
So now we have the adult fruition of all that 60′s-70′s stupidity writ LARGE and the 60-70′s were driven by the red diaper babies of the 30′s and we wonder how we got here. This is the adult version of cowboys and hippies the S. Texas sheriffs used to play in the late 60′s and at this point I am not sure who wins.
I do know that for the last 110 yrs. everything that America has stood for, that shining dream upon a hill has been under assault by the forces of Marxist darkness and the American people in large part don’t seem to be smart enough to see what is happening. Belmont Club folks excluded, I’m not sure we win this one and this is the last out in the bottom of the nineth for me.
Though scarcely perceived: 0bama is accelerating America towards an African economy — with women as breadwinners instead of bread makers. ( That last function now taken over by Chinese appliances. )
The rise of the ghetto Caesars will entirely replicate the tribal ethos of sub-Saharan Africa.
Socialism/ Progressivism/ Leftism is a DNA reversion to the Neolithic.
It enables polygamy / polyandry on a pandemic scale. What was ancient is new again.
—–
It’s easy to see a complete bifurcation of the species, per the Bell Curve, as top ranked females jump college degreed Alphas — and the ‘hood goes feral.
—–
The MSM (D) is already in economic free-fall. How much longer can the fourth estate puff the myth?
I’m reminded of the shrill ledes, circa 1945, in the Tokyo press declaring the party line: the war is all but won.
—–
On the evidence, 0bama’s opposition research is top drawer, and is effective enough to destroy the opposing field.
He’s done it before, so it’s no surprise — unless you’re Herman Cain.
====
Gonnabee that he is, I expect that the Wan really can destroy the Constitution and our Government.
Fiat rule and destruction of the currency should be more than enough to give Uncle Sam a stroke.
In gold or silver terms the stock market is off a staggering 50%+ since crisis. Further money printing/ hyperinflation is dead ahead.
Even now the ‘Twist’ operation is shunting European losses onto the US Federal Government balance sheet, billions at a time.
( The Bernanke is overpaying for US Treasuries at the long end ( hugely so ) so that France, et. al. can book FAT capital gains/ profits by cashing them in at the Fed. These ‘miracle’ profits permit SocGen, et. al. to drastically enhance their Tier 1 capital even in the face of horrific loses on Greek debt. So what started out as a Greek tragedy ends up as an American bloodbath at the Fed when these long coupons plunge, and plunge, and plunge.)
Not surprisingly, Iran, Russia and China are rolling off their US Treasuries — even liquidating them outright.
As I posted years ago: this is the classic early period in hyperinflation when the foreigners bail first.
Because of its liquidity and size one should expect massive long speculation in crude and refined futures & physicals.
A whip-crack move in rental properties can begin this summer. It’s one of the VERY few ways that savers can short the US dollar.
Beware.
Wretchard #36:
The Soviet Space Program was about Spectacles.
We know now that Sputnik 1 was a failure. It was supposed to be a scientific satellite launched to support the International Geophysical Year (remember that 80’s song “IGY”?). But the actual satellite was running far behind schedule, and the U.S. Vanguard launch was going to put up a real scientific satellite. So Sputnik 1 was just a little ball with a radio transmitter sending out beeps, a real spectacle but scientifically nearly useless. The first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, a few months later discovered the Van Allen radiation belts, one of the most important scientific discoveries ever made, but Sputnik 1 is given the credit for being the great achievement.
With the manned space program, it was all about spectacle over substance. JFK’s decision to beat the Soviets to the Moon produced an exciting spectacle, but left us without a useful manned space exploration capability. Ultimately, it led to the Shuttle program. And as a result now most of our satellites launch on Russian or French boosters or fly on American rockets that use Russian engines.
32 @ Don Rodrigo
I too was amazed when Carney said that and no one called him on it. I heard Juan Williams say the exact same thing weeks ago. Only in America with 8.2% unemployment (wink wink) can a pipeline plan that has been studied for 3 years and will actually create jobs be rejected by the State department (why are they even involved?) and when the Republicans say they can re-route it around a virgin aquifer that is home to unicorns and fairies (ok maybe not) the State department again denies it because they need another 3 years to study it…all the while knowing that over 5000 pipelines are actually crossing the virgin aquifer at the present time.
However, in the world of American politics, in the world of Washington DC “speak” both the Republican and Democrats can stand in front of camera knowing full well that they are being taped and say these things over and over again. The really sad thing is that Americans have put up with this for so long because they simply want to play the game long enough to get their cut of the pie before it runs out.
Ever wonder why all these grand lefty utopian schemes ended up killing so many of their own? Because the equality of the grave was the only true equality they were capable of achieving. It was a feature, not a bug. And if these radical egalitarian schemes were all so great and appealing to the workers and the have nots, why couldn’t you just, you know, leave if you wanted to? Seems like everyone would have wanted to stay. You wouldn’t have to worry about anyone leaving, it being utopia and equal and all. Instead you had, and still have, every boat, plane, train, car and game trail in the world full of people trying to get here, to the land of inequality. Wonder if they ever think about those things at Berkeley and the New York Times and if they do what they make of it?
Blert “:On the evidence, 0bama’s opposition research is top drawer, and is effective enough to destroy the opposing field.”
Buraq might have just gotten caught using White House personnel doing private investigations on the civilian opposition under the “cloak of authority” rap that sent John Ehrlichman and Tony Ulasewicz to the slammer during Watergate. http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/21/is-media-matters-obamas-watergate
It should come as no surprise. The great ones who would lead us to Utopia if only they were in power always promise that nothing is impossible if the Wise and Great would be put in charge of us all. But when they are, and the gold is transmuted into lead and the wine is turned into stagnant water they then tell us that it was inevitable and no human being could have stopped it. And sometimes they insist that the vile water tastes better than the wine. And the worst of them actually believe it themselves. That’s scary.
But as the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same.
I wonder what Ms. Botman looks like. Does she have any physical skills she could swap for material goods? Cant ask that – it would be improper.
Went to the article on Botman. Not bad, she could make a living, but she have to keep quiet.
“… doing with less “an exciting idea.””
Works for me. I’ll start by doing without the Grauniad.
The only true sin is to waste food.
Can somebody charge these people with Restraint of Trade or effectively fomenting a secondary boycott?
The elites all think of themselves as fashion models eating nothing at $200 a plate. No wonder they face demographic implosion. Clearly they have no emotional attachment to need to feed children. Obesity is a disease and waste is a vice. The answers to those problems are not poverty and ignorance but wealth and learning.
A side point, I know, but the woman is not very sharp at all.
“Cars,” she tells us, “are 90% under-utilized by their owners . . .”
Uh, no, ma’am.
Cars don’t expire a certain number of days after their birth. Cars wear out with use. If I use my car lightly – say, for only about 10% of each day – the typical modern car will wear out after approximately 150,000 miles. If I use it much more intensively – say, for 90% of all of the available time in each day – the typical modern car will wear out after approximately 150,000 miles.
So, if it takes me eighty years of driving to reach 150,000 miles on my car’s odometer, I’ve not “underutilized” it. I’ve utilized it per my own preferences, which is my right as it is my property. When you see my property parked in my garage, please refrain from speaking of it as if it is “our” property. It is not yours. It is mine.
I was wondering when we would start to see this line of reasoning from the statists. Statists NEED shortages. Their entire world view involves controlling everything (and everyone) around them. Abundance is the enemy of statism: if you have lots of anything, not much need to control it; it dispenses itself. Shortages must be allocated, disbursed, controlled. Obama and his minions inherited an America awash in abundance. It is his continuing mission to stamp out that abundance and control the resulting poverty. And after all, isn’t “friend to the poor” what the Left always claims to be?
Obama merely wants to make us all poor so he can be our friend!
@41. bogie wheel
If you work in the DC area, or in gas industry, or in the MIC, or in Sports, or Entertainment, or Law, or any of those public unions then likely you are continuing to do well. Both of my brothers have their own successful businesses.
One of the most incredible sights I have ever seen was the multiple hundred mile long column of SUV’s and motorhomes towing boats, motorcycles, jet skis, quads, etc up I5 in California on the 4th of July weekend. It actually snakes out from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, San Diego, Yosemite, and all the way to Oregon. Here are some things that Americans consume more of than their European counterparts:
- Refrigerator size,
- washing machine size,
- HDTV screen size,
- Automobile size
- Home size
- Most importantly, energy consumption
Times may be hard for you, but millions of Americans are still doing quite well, even if some of them realize that something is not well.
Here is a great KWN Nigel Farage interview. In it he talks about the 130B Euro bailout and break down of Greece. The elites better send some bread soon, because without enough bread, circuses don’t matter. I love it when he says that the EU is the prototype for the new world order and that is why things are just going to keep getting worse in Greece and the world.
my roomate’s aunt makes $83/hr on the laptop. She has been without work for 8 months but last month her pay was $8682 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Read more on this site…Nuttyrich dot com
ConfederateH,
Re: refrigerator size–we had a friend who did a graduate degree in Scotland during the 15 minutes of fame of a certain NFL player named “Refrigerator” Perry. More than one Scot asked him, as an American, to please explain this confusing nickname.
(The typical middle-class home in England has a refrigerator that fits under the counter, about the same size as a dishwasher. I assume Scotland is similar.)
Yep, downsize everything but government. Always more government and regulations, except for Defense. Always a knife for the one function of government repetitively described in the Federalist Papers as a justification for a national government.
One problem Republicans have that Democrats don’t is the ability to seize on an opportunity to shape the argument in a quick easy to say Sound Bite.
Most of the “Sophisticated” Republican types will mock me and say this idea is “Silly” or “Juvinile”. And that’s why Democrats take them to the cleaners constantly.
Obama has provided the Republicans with a Sound Bite that is both catchy, and easy to remember. Will they have the Brains to use it?
…………….
America, What kind of country do we want;
A country in which we Settle for Less
or
A Country where we Strive for the Best.
Settle for less, or Strive for the Best!
………………
Laugh it up all you Sophisticated, Reasonable, Oh So Smart Republicans.
Or
Learn a lesson from how the Dems clean your clock without any substance!
“Greedy Western capitalist consumers already consume too much of the world’s resources”
If we consume 25% of the World’s resources and generate 35% of the World’s GDP then that argues we should consume more, not less. It argues that we should further impoverish the Third World “for the good of the Earth”. Or don’t the “environmentalists” think that the Earth’s limited resources should be directed toward those who will most efficiently utilize them?
Happily, we may have finally been reduced to the lowest common denominator of defining deviancy down.
Of course, I thought that too in 2008, when I saw fawning, multi-generational deviancy prostrating with adulation before a man who would cool the earth and calm the seas, standing beside Styrofoam columns reading from a teleprompter. The profoundness of “Yes, We Can!” and chants of free gas, food and rent ringing through my TV, I was just sure we had hit rock bottom. Never say never.
The brave new world under Obama will be kind of 21st Century global commune, hey?
There are certainly things I like to share – my toothbrush isn’t one them.
I don’t know about you guys and gals, but after observing the last three years, culminating with this OWS spectacle and Obama’s closest adviser emphatically stating unemployment stimulates the economy, the natural course of Obama “evolutionary” events, I came away completely, absolutely, positively convinced of one thing:
I ain’t going there willingly. That probably puts me top of the list for gulag detail.
Serfdom is such a happier fate.
No dashed expectations. No opportunity to go bankrupt. No stress from striving to do better. No early death from over-consumption. Why, they are telling us now that 1/2 the calories makes for a longer life. Who knew?
Our masters should be rewarded with absolute luxury and total power for looking out for our welfare in this way.
No early death from over-consumption
Just an early death from denial of life-saving medical services if you are over a certain age.
Gack. washers and dryers. I have three kids. They were in cloth diapers. I iron the sposos work clothes. The kids are active in the backyard, and in sports and at the local park. SHYEAH- I use a big washer. every single day. My fastidious acquaintances and relatives who never had kids are stunned at the size of the Kenmore washer. But- I’m raising, according the the state demographers- the people who will fund those with abstemious, virtuous little dryers old age. That whole- backyard, park, sports thing- that’s a long way round to grass stains and mud patches mean no diabetes paid for out of the public purse.
Mr Fernandez, you are a barn-burner of a writer, and it is a pleasure to read your work.
Sustainability: Making Other People’s Money Last Longer by Introducing Trickle-Up Poverty Now When It’ll Be Fasionable.
Based on my experiences until age 50 in Canada and the UK, I agree completely with the premise of this article. Europeans have been “rationed” since World War One and have been socially conditioned to accept “austerity” as a secular virtue, to view american “conspicuous consumption” (thank you Mr. Veblen) as a sin.
For anyone conditioned to the shops, real estate market and car lots of Canada and England — never mind online shopping — the feeling of living in the USA is akin to what Soviet era refugees felt when seeing the West for the first time.
The pursuit of happiness (thank you American founders), which my US born spouse defines as “having many choices” (after I spent 1 hour counting brands of coffee in our local Kroger supermarket) was never once mentioned to me in four years of undergraduate studies as an economics major (in a well known Canadian university in the 1970′s) in a positive manner except by the two Yanks in the department, WWII vets both of them. And I didn’t start reading the works of Hayek etc. until I put the numerous Keynesian based textbooks aside in fourth year. All this at time when Milton Friedman was paramount in economic thought!!!
The new austerity is the old Communism as the whole basis is that the output is the problem whereas reduced output creates happier humans as long as the right kind of prole is in charge (think central european).
Is it just me or is Obama not really the first afro-american president but is in fact the first left wing white trash president.
“Embrace the Suck” should be the Democrats new motto.
“But Werner says it’s working, because now Change You Can Believe In is real. Hoping for food on the table is so much more convincing than promising the oceans will fall and the Earth will begin to heal.”
… But for Wales?!
“I’ve always wondered whether William Buckley became a conservative because the sheer stupidity of the socialist creed simply offended him.”
To stand athwart history and yell “You’ve got to be kidding!”
You want to see the Boy King’s vision for America? Take a good look at Detroit. The devastation there is the result of 40 years of failed liberal policies. And this is what obama wants for the rest of America. AOB 2012!