So, when I read gloom and doom scenarios, whether in the socialist papers or in the financial press, I move on. The socialist angle is easy enough to understand and, like the stopped clock, they will turn out to be right twice a century. But the financial press is more interesting: sometimes it's the gold bugs wanting to talk up gold -- not very effectively it seems; otherwise it seems to be mostly folks who want us to conclude things like 1) we can't afford social security 2) we can't afford early retirement 3) we can't afford pensions 4) we can't afford any "entitlements" -- it's not as if ANYONE writing for Barron's is going to say, "you know we've got to tax the hell out of the rich, and we've got to build alternative energy sources, and we've got to get rid of 90% of our useless military. Noooo. So then, it's important to read between the lines of these doomster articles and ask yourself, what are they really after? what's the next thing we're going to be terrorized and cheated out of?
So, they have a lot of breathing room. And yet, it sure looks like a housing bubble to me. I mean, to afford a "starter" house in the bay area, you're looking at a mortgage of about 3,000/month. That means two people need to be working full time making substantial professional salaries. Now what if someone gets sick? Or there's a divorce? Or someone gets laid off and there are no jobs.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the American dream has just come down to this -- the house. The house as personal bubble. The house as comfort blanket. The house as transitional object. The house as the ghost of the disappearing society. So that when you're asked to lay down more than half your earnings on the mortgage+insurance+maintenance+utilities+etc, it seems ok because the house IS your life and your identity. (No, I don't own one.)
I don't know what it's like in the rest o the country, but this is what it looks like here.
Joanna
Michael Dawson wrote:
>I totally agree with Doug. This is a $12 trillion dollar economy, with an
>85 percent capacity utilization rate (vs. a 144 rate in 1943), and 50
>percent of "economic" activity being dumped into pure waste, such as SUVs.
>The margin for absorbing crises is huge, and people who want an easy answer
>through some collapse story are wasting our time. We will continue with our
>low-intensity depression, unless and until people like us propose ways to
>solve this, and manage to escape the DP being the only option in town.
>
>Memento Mori.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
>On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
>Sent: Sunday, September 12, 2004 2:25 PM
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Fiscalopolypse ?
>
>ira glazer quoted:
>
>
>
>>Yet whoever wins the 2004 race will become the first U.S. president
>>to confront what sober-minded experts across the political spectrum
>>describe as an impending "fiscal catastrophe" lying right around the
>>corner.
>>
>>
>
>Not really. The 'crisis' isn't really a crisis, and even according to
>those who say it is, it's decades away. The austerity party is
>mobilizing again.
>
>The short-term problem is that the boy president cut taxes on rich
>people, and the economy kinda stinks. It's not much more complicated
>than that.
>
>Doug
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>.
>
>
>