When the
media in the UK and probably
in much of Europe look over the Atlantic to the USA
it is usually to New York , California
or Washington DC Florida
Our ideas
about the rest are more or less conditioned by TV programmes, films and the
stereotypes derived from an America
The Burning
Platform is a web site of a commentator who writes long posts where he tries to
make sense of what is going on there in the economy. This time round he gives a personal take on a
very practical experience.
He takes
his son across the State of Pennsylvania to
his University to begin the next semester (term) and describes the America
But this is
not the America America
It may be
that it fits all too often and the picture of a USA
Historically,
yes it can. The British
Empire staggered on in one form or another for decades during
which it went bust during the Second World War.
The old Ottoman Empire was the Sick Man
Of Europe for a century. The Tsarist
regime in Russia China
In all
those places there were elites resolute in failing to admit that the game was
up and both their allies and their enemies did not understand the realities and
extent of the declines. As the USA
The figures
are beginning to look bad again and population increase far outstrips real
economic growth. A great deal of the
growth that is reported is simply money being sloshed around in extreme
consumerism and patching and mending, never mind that given over to propping up
the political and banking structure.
While this
is going on there is another Presidential election where the opponents are each
trying to persuade the people that one or other of the America’s they imagine
is a reality when they are just illusions.
To put into
footballing terms, the home squad is now forced back into its last quarter and
the opposition has brought on its big hitters. Survival is all you can hope for. But out there in the sticks hope is a
diminishing asset.
What sort
of Thanksgiving will it be this year?
The area he is talking about has been mostly sliding for a long time. If you follow Kunstler, he talks about similar areas in Upstate New York.
ReplyDeleteThe Southern United States, a lower cost provider, has been draining off the jobs that don't go overseas. So you will see selected areas that are doing O.K.
Add to this that rural America is seeing the same loss of jobs that the inner city did in the late 1960s, and many of the same problems, and you have islands of prosperity surrounded by a lot of slow decay. So long as you stay within the islands (and they are of a decent size) you probably won't realize how bad things are sinking. Since the media coverage in the declining areas is sparse, even most Americans don't realize the situation. Even when they live in a declining area they may not realize the decline (it has been going on for decadeds, so it isn't fast), or they may think there area has exceptionally hard luck.
The America that Europe sees is a Disneyesque facade of wealth, power and bravado paid for by the squeezing and bleeding of its former middle classes. As of now, the professional technocrats can still afford to move about the country -- in some cases the globe -- like so many locusts following their food supply.
ReplyDeleteThe swarm gets imperceptibly smaller every year as the windfalls upon which they pounce become less and less filling.
A collapse in this dynamic would lift a heavy burden from most Americans, as it would no longer be necessary to incessantly flog them to maintain support of the swarm's massive home base.