The Un-Entitled

Wa-hey! Our economy just continues to grow and grow, doesn't it? 2.4% for the last quarter, a raging furnace of productive activity from our workforce.

And hey. And hey. This last quarter marks four straight quarters of growth, so our little recession has now been over for a full year. But somehow, 2.4% ain't good enough. Why would that be? Last time I checked, the interest rate on my Wells Fargo savings account was 0.6%. The GDP growth rate is four times greater than the interest on savings, and that it grows under all this deflationary credit destruction, well, seems like it should be good enough.

Although it seems remote, my hopes for a continued another recession and depression still exist. I hope for these to mold a better nation on the back end, to build a nation of the un-entitled, to build a nation full of people willing to work with their neighbors to achieve a greater sense of resiliency and security (rather than a nation waiting around for unemployment check number 156 to be direct deposited).

Today we don't count on anyone else because the way we've laid out things we don't have to. Here in suburban Elk Grove I have no need for my neighbors; indeed, they only hinder my own access to things. When I go to work via my own private vehicle, all my damn neighbors are hogging up the freeways. When I go to the store, all my damn neighbors are in line in front of me. No, I don't count on them -- I only count on cheap, plentiful gasoline convienently and strategically positioned at fill stations near my freeway entrances, feedlot beef in nice little packages at the grocery, cheap Chinese shit at the WalMart and well maintained asphalt road surfaces.

If I'm thrown out of work, I still don't need my damn neighbors. Indeed, I'd be competing with them for a slice of that barrage of borrowed unemployment compensation, borrowed from the next generation of workers.

Of course, it is our neighbors who are paving and engineering the roads, keeping us overweight with corn and soybean derived processed foods, packaging in plasticwrap all that pork shoulder, and stocking the shelves at WalMart with cheaply manufactured imported Asian merchandise. We don't need our neighbors in a direct sense, only indirectly...and truthfully, this whole affair could just as easily be outsourced in the future. Perhaps prefab road beds that snap together will someday be manufactured in Laos. Perhaps the concept of a big box store is only the first step -- perhaps future shipping containers will simply be expanded apart at the touch of a button with finished goods lining the insides. This way, finished cuts of Chinese grain-fed pork can be displayed in a consumption depot alongside ninety thousand other containers, where the consumables are sold to American consumers without having to pay American wages to re-package all these imported consumables, where the containers can then be flattened out for their return trip to Asia. This way, cheap Asian labor can barcode the merchandise, cheap Asian labor can display it, package it, and advertise it. All the American has to do is push a fucking button, which is all the work he'll become accustomed to doing in the near future. And when legal Chinese immigrants are hired to come over and push buttons for a fifth of what the American says he needs, well, it'll only get cheaper for everyone.

The building of this new America, with its consumption depots and snap-lok roads, will all come with growth. Growth! Granted, this growth will occur outside the U.S., but hey, that's been happening for the past twenty years as it is.

And guess what...you'll have even less need for your button-pushing neighbor...