Binary Systems

I am already thinking about my predictions for 2011. How will they differ from my predictions from 2010?

For the most part, I would say that my predictions for this year held true, with the exception of the notion of crisis. We are a nation geared only towards binary objectives -- Democrats & Republicans, fear & calm, liberal & conservative, and crisis & complacency. I expected that this year would yield to crisis...but most would likely agree that this wasn't the case.

Perhaps because we haven't yet extinguished ad infinitum unemployment benefits, that they are continuing in perpetuity. Perhaps because we've blown yet another trillion dollars of tomorrow's efforts on today. Perhaps. Granted, my hope for crisis as a condition is well documented here on my monologues, and indeed it's not only just a hope, but a wish, really. A wish that a crisis condition would move this nation off its current trajectory.

Bear in mind that the profligate spending spree we enjoyed over the last decade or two is only perpetuated by the trillions currently being borrowed by the Federal government; that is, the same hallucinated increase in notional wealth we "enjoyed" between 1996 and 2006 is being propped up by trillions trillions! of future earnings. Overall I would say we haven't done a damn thing different.

As a result, 2010 was a year of overall complacency...marking time until the next crisis.

We know that wages between 1996 and 2006 didn't appreciably appreciate...yet our standard of living sure as shit did. Today we live in much larger housal units, drive more expensive vehicular units on more elaborate roadways, own multiple big screen viewing units, and carry about myriad units of electronica -- smart phones, boysenberries, iPads, in-dash nav systems, and DVRs. We get MRIs and CAT scans and X-rays for all manner of boo-boos, prescription drugs for whatever ails you, all while hiding absorbing the perpetual double digit cost increases with government expenditures funded by future taxpayers. Our standard rose, in part due to the borrowing of money we didn't have.

Ask anyone you know, including yourself: do you expect your children to carry a similar or better standard of living that you do today?

Why is it that not a single person I've asked answered in the affirmative? Why are we all such pessimists?

Let me ponder what this means:

• Tomorrow, people will be fatter and more diseased than today.
• The cost of preventative health services will become prohibitive...where insurance companies deny an increasing number of measures.
• Housal unit buyers will only be able to afford 3,245 square feet instead of 3,360.
• Tomorrow's children will (gasp!) have to choose between an iPod or a cellularized telephone...not both.
• Tomorrow's commuters won't be able to afford the 68 mile round trip, instead being forced into sub-55 mile commutes.
• Children might have to walk to school while both parents, if they even have both parents, are forced to work.
• A ticket to Mount Davis at a Raider's game will cost $355. Before service fees.
• Gridlocked traffic will become the norm as society has less money to build new freeways.
• We'll have to choose between a land line or a cell phone...not both.
• Apps for the iPhone will cost money.

All while Medicare taxes might increase, social security might go insolvent, even more jobs might be outsourced, water might become scare, imported oil might reach a limit, electricity might become intermittent, climate disruption might reveal itself negatively...

But, hey, those are crises that may be at hand tomorrow, so let's just enjoy the calm of our complacencies of today while we can get it.