Your Problem is My Solution

From:

http://kunstler.com/blog/2012/05/dancing-shoes.html

Your Problem is My Solution

A trillion people living in Tent Cities and a trillion empty McMansions that cost a million dollars each, better yet a trillion people crushed together in 10 square feet of room space, just for fun, just for the kicks of it, to obtain ever more and higher pleasure as ever more pain is inflicted, while you have trillions of empty huge luxury McMansions, oh what fun, that is so cool, that is what I want, like a cry baby, I want the expression of inequality to be affirmed, the expression of power and status to be confirmed, the winner wins big time and wins ever more as the pain on the losers is inflicted ever more and the winner has all of those McMansions all for himself, so cool, that is Metaphysical Justice Obtained. That is spiritually correct.

What many people don't understand is that there is no common ground, there is no Win Win situation in economics, the very economy exists only because there is inequality (and must always be, ever more and higher inequality to produce ever more economic activity), there is a winner and a loser always, there will always be winners and losers and the winners will do all they can to maintain their status relationship, their upper hand, they will do all they can to render the status and power (as money is a proxy for power and status and how much pain you can inflict on the losers essentially) relationship invariant, even by brainwashing you of how we are all "working together" for the "common good" or whatever. The very engine of the economy is the inequality of power, is the possibility to use others as tools on behalf of some others and so forth: without that reward, without the comparison, without the power relationship and poker game where you can win or lose, without the risk and always changing situations, and the possibility of losing your status and status changing hands, the economy would halt and die, it couldn't function, greed and egotism and being a hog is exactly what any economy is all about, and how all those impulses and forces interact and change and change hands and such.

So all the talk of a "Healthy Economy" and "Productivity" and "Competitive Economy" (especially all the BS on Training and Education and Innovation, all such huge crap) and such is BS, is just a fairy tale to make everyone think that we are working together for a common good, for something we all have in common, when in all truth, there is nothing in common with anyone or anything, it is each man for himself out to get you. It is actually a logical error to consider the economy as being "healthy" or "good" or working and such, the economy is just a random mix of contrasting forces going anywhere and ending up anywhere with a set of winners and losers (that at least have a better chance of changing places more often in the USA (more flexible economy, hire and fire, always change mentality) than in the rest of the world where status and relationship forces are so rigid and ingrained, etc.), end of story.

What did create a real Win Win situation, real growth and improvement was the application of technology to all productive endeavors in the 20th century, the Technological Economy generating free wealth that ended up really trickling down to most people, by shear quantity and force and economy of scales, and by some market forces, some capitalism, and a lucky combination of forces and status relationships that weren't too strictly enforced and too rigid and invariant as is now: case in point, the cost of renting or buying a house compared to minimum wage a few decades ago and today (you could rent a house with 30 % of a minimum wage in the 60s and 70s and now you need more than 60 % of a minimum wage, etc.).

But to really understand the economy, you can say that the only real mechanism that is working is that of creating problems to some and those problems and their solution is the the solution to problems for others: I want to make cash by building homes, I will hike the prices of the homes as high as possible, so I will solve my problem of making a profit by creating a problem for you, I will gain cash and you will have to pay a lot of cash, your problem is my solution.

The fairy tale and myth of market forces automatically adjusting the costs of housing and problems and solution mix doesn't operate anymore: the status relationships are invariant and rigid, the winner wins ever more, the loser loses ever more, housing used as a weapon is destined to continue no matter what, YOUR PROBLEM IS MY SOLUTION, there is no solution to this situation, it will always be like this.

And especially, when they say "Spark Growth", no one ever says that housing costs must go way down, must be as cheap as possible for other parts of the economy to grow, no one wants to make the cost of housing Crash Baby Crash, like it should, the powers that be want to maintain the status relationship represented by high housing costs forever invariant no matter what.

So how on earth is the economy going to grow when housing costs are still so high ? A 3 bedroom house in Manhattan and Los Angeles or Silicon Valley should cost no more than 100,000 dollars and outside important areas no more that 50,000 dollars. And the same in London, Tokyo, Paris and Moscow, Madrid and Rome, etc.

By the way, housing costs are hugely higher in the puny rest of the world compared to the USA, Spain still has insanely high housing costs for small apartments in Madrid, what are they waiting for to crash the prices like crazy ? A house in failed city of Madrid should not cost more than 20,000 dollars, bar none. And in Rome the situation is even more insane: even there houses should cost no more than 50,000 dollars in the center of the city (and Rome has a huge Housing Bubble that no one still noticed, go figure, they have prices way higher than the maximum prices that where operating in the USA and Spain at the height of their housing bubble just before it popped, but Italy is another failed and bankrupt state just waiting to roll over and die). And what about London ? Another insane city, they must be crazy or what ?!?! the prices of apartments must crash like crazy there, but you have all of these rich turds worldwide buying houses in London hiking up the prices so they can "protect their money" and especially "express their status relationship" to the rest of the world, and use housing as a weapon against the poor in London and such.

Same for Moscow and Bangkok and Tokyo and Seoul, housing prices must crash like crazy, etc. And then especially these puny make believe "developed economies" would like to grow, but how can they with such huge housing prices, another example why the myth of growth in the rest of the world outside of the USA is impossible structurally, the powers that be and the status relationships that are operating in the rest of the world will ensure that there will always be very little growth (real growth as increased consumption on behalf of the average worker, like in the USA) and they will keep on hogging up as much cash as possible through high housing costs and such.

And then, all the debates rotate around what is "objectively operating" what is "scientifically operating" and such, when in all things social and economics, there is no objectivity, only decisions and choices forced upon everyone else, only brainwashing, only convincing everyone that things are in a "certain way". So you can say that there is so much unemployment and so little work available, and everyone will believe it, and the next day say that there are millions of jobs available and so much work to do etc. when in all truth work and jobs is an arbitrary concept, is a subjective idea and invention, if everyone agrees that there is all this work to do companies will hire millions to do all kinds of invented (or real ? who knows and who can tell ?) jobs, just to hose them all the next day and repeat the cycle forever: the bottom line, there is no static objective truth or reality, only ideologies, subjectivities, new problems invented and new jobs, and new problems solved and jobs killed, and new decisions, always changing (always looking for profits or the possibility of your status changing position ?) and such.

THE APE, SUBARU SUBARU SUBARU RU RU SUBARU SUBARU SUBARU RU RU JOBSTER LOBSTER APESTER, NO DICE JOB, NO DICE, NO DICE JOSE' SHPAK A LAK SHPAK A LAK, CONFUSED BARBIE...