They have sown the globalisation wind; and they are reaping the whirlwind.
That is an oversimplification of course, but it is globalisation that has allowed the accumulation of vast amounts of money by a few individuals. This has driven up the price of housing, which is now a bubble in large parts of the English-speaking world. High housing prices raise rents which means that more and more young people are paying a tax directly to the capitalists who buy houses to rent out. But the housing prices are unproductive; they are âinvestmentsâ in depreciating assets, not productive assets.
The result? We have trillions invested in housing and we are apparently unable to develop urgently needed new antibiotics because it is âtoo riskyâ financially.
The last such bubble on such a scale was Tokyo, which at one point was theoretically worth as much as the rest of the worldâs cities put together. Japan still hasnât fully recovered from the inevitable crash. If we canât rein in the capitalists and speculators, it is going to happen in the West too. And we canât rein them in because politicians are either bought, frightened or âunelectableâ.
Would it help if the 20 to 30 Trillion dollars hidden away by super-rich people were actually being taxed, in circulation, and working to improve the economy?
Indeed, itâs the only sane outcome long term to deal with the core problem of too few jobs to sustain the population due to automation and so on.
Sadly the establishment is going to fight it tooth and nail every single step of the way though, for the current inequality makes them very rich right now. So I doubt Iâll see it in my lifetime
âItâs going to happen in the West tooâ - itâs already happening, and all over the world - forget "the West tooâ. Moscow, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Lagos.
Anywhere there is a concentration of wealth, money goes into property - because landlordism is the oldest and easiest way to make money.
But as you say - itâs a depreciating asset. Think landlords donât know this? Thatâs why they drool when they can push rents up - they can sweat the asset, converting the money income into some other asset (hey, maybe theyâre buying a ranch in Oregon, or ⌠gold). If the rents go up fast enough, then that shortens the time to payback and âtrue profitâ.
Politicians also know it.
A clever proletariat ensures the education of its mass, and co-operates on the purchase of assets. If that type of policy endures, then the concentration of assets in the wealthy classes diminishes.
But ⌠ever considered how this can be unstitched? Every nation on the planet has âsovereign rightsâ over all land. If they fancy taking the property, they will.
Weâre in a cyclone, and when itâs over and everyone is sitting around dazed, there will be people with lots of assets, and lots of people with none.
As a now-aging GenXer, I have to wonder how much of the current focus on âmillennialsâ and their problems and/or irresponsibility is just the typical problems of a generation in a bad economy. When I was in in my twenties in the early 1990s when the economy was bad (Clinton, basically an unknown then, won against Bush Sr. on the slogan âItâs the economy, stupidâ), and pop culture characterized us as unambitious âslackersâ who were disappointments to our parents.
I think itâs the particular type of bad economy. So much is so centralised on relatively few economic nodes that it seems extraordinarily, in historic terms, difficult to break the cycles.
Weâre in an âoddâ situation in terms of the Western worldâs general climb over the last 1,000 years. Other economic regions now have enormous strength, and can even ignore developments in the west as they do what they rightly should - develop their own economic âexothermicâ reactions to allow their independence - and politically, drive for hegemony themselves (this always seems to simply ⌠happen).
A massive issue Iâm seeing is the loss of morale in the young. You might say I consider them not as psychologically hardy as the 19th century - the massive boom from the 1950s onwards has yielded a generation who are soft, expect X-boxes and easy food. Confronted with difficulty, they donât have firm supports to lean on, they donât have inbuilt âactivationâ matrices that make them strive for a better life. Theyâre easily fooled and swayed into work that never nourishes.
Communities with a strong base will flourish - Chinese, Jewish, Yorkshire - all sorts. As ever. Theyâre patient and recognise the importance and value of inter-generational education and support. There is however a mass of people who are living in envious witness to lifestyles and wealth they will never have. That ainât good for the soul.
One thing driving me nuts is the phenomenon of âI wonât do that kind of workâ. Any 20 year old with half a brain, given two months of application, should be able to crack out some basic Ruby on Rails code. Itâs a wide open field. And Ruby developers here in London are paid $750 per day. More developers means lower rates - but still! And they donât actually need to be in London! They could live cheaply offsite.
Edit: Note also - and really, really note this - that chickens always come home to roost. 500 years of colonialism is going to bite the west in the ass. Think the rising African nations are going to rush to prop up ailing western economies? Ha ha ha ha ha! No theyâre not.
I agree with the idea, but collective systems seem to be somewhat fragile, and there will always be someone who wants to take a little more than everybody else, or contribute a little less. If they do not break the system, they will rip it off.
Those people are why we canât have nice economies.
Bang on the nail. It works if everyone gives some decent effort - but this usually has to be underpinned by discipline and likely religion (or some other psychological impulse to make people yield up their finger-blistering labour) - like the mormons, shakers, so on.
The head of one of the USAâs bigger private equity firms used to live in a commune. He wasnât, I believe, any kind of greedy bastard; but after a number of years of work and clever thinking, he realised 5% of the people were doing 80% of the work. He challenged them all on it, and got such a soft response he quit the commune, and set up the investment firm from an apartment and some skimpy cash.
Iâm thirty five (which apparently makes me a millennial), and I share a house with four other people.
Because I like my collective? Nope, itâs because if I wanted to rent a place on my own, my rent would be about twice as much, and my bills would probably be higher too.
To be fair, sometimes it is nice to have someone else around the place to talk to.
And yeah, thanks baby boomers! Enjoy the good things in life. I know you like to talk about how you do and how we should stop being so negative and do the same.
The major problem I have with school bonds (as we call them where I live) is they show a lack of foresight and planning by the county. I realize population swing can occur, but if your primary source of money is from you tax base (ie your population), more people just means more money. I mean if there is a high school that is 40 years old shouldnât somewhere in the budget have been an overhaul/update item when it was built? I donât buy a house and then expect my neighbors to pay to keep it in working order.
Nope. Howâd a mayor get themselves a fancy gymnasium, football field, theatre - all those lovely photogenic things with lovely opportunities for photoshots - if they actually included ALL the sensible costs in there?
Nah - theydâa been mayor of some classrooms, and thatâs it.
I graduated in 2009 and have heard a lot about all of these employers that are just waiting for workers. Having predicted the crash, I specifically chose a degree that was in demand and allowed me to move country and work online. I still couldnât find anything when I graduated, although I had gained experience and spread my net quite wide. I moved to China and gained more experience while teaching, and now Iâm studying a masters while working. Itâs still not easy to find decent work and Iâve had to work for much less than what people called ridiculous decades ago, so I can imagine those who didnât get into the right field in advance feel similarly tired of claims that weâre finding it hard due to some moral failing on our part or that thereâs more work over the next hill, in the next field, after the next course. Intergenerational support is useful, but with everyone struggling it is spread pretty thin. I have no pension plan and no college fund for the kids, even though Iâve been lucky enough to have constant work since leaving university and I am careful with money. At least I donât have debts (or at least, none to banks), which makes me better off than many people who graduated at the same time as me. My children wonât find it as easy as I did. People who are graduating now wonât find it as easy as I did.
Hey I never said those school bonds got shot down. They get passed and inevitably a few years down the road we need to raise property taxes cause there just isnât enough moneyâŚrinse and repeat.
Or the other major thing that happensâŚthe county starts running a surplus. And then immediately starts pissing it into the wind while simultaneously setting it on fire. Economy slumps and whoops back to no money.
I completely agree. And not to derail too muchâŚ
If I got something, and I donât need it (or it doesnât have sentimental value, or practical value, etc) I give it away. That applies to time, listening, money objects, favors⌠You name it. It is kinda hard in the beginning, especially when you grow up with quasi hoarders.
But nothinâ feels better than helping your neighbor dig post holes and giving them the concrete. Or paying off someoneâs dental bill without telling them (yes, I can be a little trixstery :D).
Or, and this one catches many good hearted people off guard: when someone is in an intractable position, you donât invite them over for dinner, you mow their lawn or clean their house. (The first one is imposing a job or task on the recipient to make you feel good; the second is removing a task or obstacle so they feel good).
