The Place Was Jammed Pack
I hear this often, the doom and gloomers saying we have resource scarcity, peak oil, recession, layoffs, etc. But all the stores, malls, airports, cities are jammed pack with people buying, moving, etc. So what gives ?
Simple:
-
The entire description of the economy is based on numbers, statistics which are as abstract as you can get, you can’t see or touch them or even verify them in any possible way. And any number that you have is in no way associated with what you actually see or what people decide to do and how they do it (on debt, credit ?) or what they do (visit places just to do something ?).
-
For 90 % of the people nothing ever changed compared to 4 years ago, most are doing even better, most are the same. So it is the same majority that jammed pack places a few years ago and have always jammed them and will always jam them. Remember, we live in a system where the majority rules and defines and assigns the situation, not the unlucky minority (maybe 10 %) that are unemployed, “losers”, “lazy”, “blacks”, “uneducated”, or whatever other reason “they deserve to be in the losing minority”.
And if the majority says the economy is booming, then the economy “is booming” because most people interpret and define things that way. Reality is always a vote on things, the majority decides and defines it and especially ASSIGNS it always. Same for the rules of the game: we live in a system that doesn’t need much real, productive work anymore, but if the majority of the people and corporations and entities all believe that there is all of this “hard work” needed, all of these “long hours” needed, always connected, cell phone calls and meetings in the middle of the night, you name it, then that becomes the reality, that becomes the rules of the game, that becomes the “truth” automatically, by assignment, by majority rule, no matter what. And they will force these rules upon everyone in any possible way, pretend that this is the way it is “because we are all so much more productive and competitive and need long hours and hard work because today’s environment is so competitive and demanding”.
Exactly how they make everyone “work hard” and spend “long hours” at work is anyone’s guess, but there are hundreds of ways to force them, even if they are not needed and make believe, just constantly change work programs/projects, change how work is organized, change by hire and fire, constantly change by constantly changing decisions, call meetings all the time, create standards and documentation that never ends to fill up time, courses in new systems or whatever, constant business trips - travel, there are many creative ways to fill the time up one way or another. And people constantly interacting, confusing each other, conflicting, ever more confusing and contradictory information and interactions etc. But the truth is, the Technological Economy is getting rid of more and more real productive labor, what is increasingly left is optional - discretionary, make believe fluff in many sectors.
- In the larger scheme of things, the economic “crisis and recession”, is just a small blip on the radar, is just a small irrelevant passing wrinkle. Almost nothing changed compared to 4 years ago but we need to amplify very small changes to make things happen, to make things more exciting, to emphasize things which are mostly irrelevant, to kill boredom, so every little news gets amplified way beyond their real scope (the mass media are especially experts at this): especially the doom and gloomers play this game of amplifying every little thing that happens way beyond their importance, most things are all very little irrelevant blips on the radar, but get amplified in importance and meaning beyond any reasonable point. The oil spill that happened last year in the gulf of Mexico has been mostly forgotten, but in those days, it was supposed to be the “tipping point” for the USA and Peak Oil or whatever.
And so many other news items, everything is the tipping point, everything is fundamental: the truth is nothing is fundamental and nothing is a tipping point, we are mostly governed by large scale macro economic trends, that have been going in the same directions for years, and no one can stop them.
These trends are :
A - Elimination of more and more Real Productive Labor (in agriculture and manufacturing and now even services) by Automation, Technology, Internet, Optimizations, Off Shoring, you name it.
B - The concentration of more and more money in the hands of fewer and fewer rich and capitalists; but the system is generating enough wealth that even this goes unnoticed anyways, or is considered favorably as they “deserve it”, the “worked hard for the billions they have”, etc. (construction workers in Dubai or Shanghai working 12 hours a day for 200 dollars a month don’t deserve it, they don’t “work hard”).
C - The desire to and the intention to take away as much as possible from the losing minority by keeping them unemployed, making them pay more and more for the basics (WATER, HEALTH CARE, and who knows what next). Also there is the desire to increase the number of losing minority people to maybe 20 % of the population, so that the winning majority can hog up even more money, all the money that should have gone to them through Free Salaries and Cheap Rents.
Obviously the winning majority will continue to be the majority, there is no chance of making anything better for the losing minority, given that the majority wins the elections, makes the rules, assigns what reality is, in short, defines and creates reality 100 %. So the losing minority must just abide and keep on changing their “skill sets” until they too can become part of the winning majority.
The rich and capitalists are choking on money, they are so stuffed with billions that they are constantly vomiting it out in the form of speculations, bubbles, etc. They are choking on cash and would readily give it all away if they could.
How much ? Consider 10 % interest (but the interests are much higher, and anyways the interest rates are made up, they make them up and assign them themselves, in short they print money for themselves for free, like the FED’S crazy printing press on steroids) on 100 trillion dollars present in banks worldwide (not even considering all the other hidden treasures like private funds, sovereign funds, who knows) already makes a 10 trillion dollars a year, and this just on interest on cash hanging around not doing anything at all.
That is enough to give a billion people a free salary of 10,000 a year (which is a very good salary in most of the world), but instead we choose to make the rich capitalists choke on all that cash and vomit. Instead everyone wants to take away as much as possible from the weaker classes, hike up the pension age, hike up the prices for colleges in the UK, hike up the cost of health care, etc.
Poor capitalists and rich, they are destined to choke and suffocate on ever more cash, vomiting and vomiting, what suffering we inflict on those poor devils, all in the name of some religious - moralistic imperative that we are not allowed to give out Free Salaries and Cheap Rents.