A Return To What?

Now that we are on this supposed upward arc of economic revitalization, the question becomes "what exactly are we to revitalize?" 25% gains in housal unit valuations each year? Massive, perpetual increases in tax receipts by governments? A continuation of debt-based suburban sprawl? Another round of bank lending fakery and cash-out re-fi's for every housal unit owner?

I wonder what year most Americans would pick as the year they'd like to return to -- 1958? 1963? 1987? 1995? 2005? Underlying the assumption that our economy is being "restored" is that there's a benchmark to compare it to. Restored to what? Which one of the above year's economic and social measures would you like to return to?

I remember my extremely liberal state government professor at CSUS pined for 1958; he was convinced that year was the pinnacle of US culture, and he made the argument that every year since we've fallen farther away. Uh-huh. 1958 was possibly pretty good for him, yes, as a white man. It wasn't quite so good if you were a Jew, a negro, a woman, were gay, or otherwise a non-white non-Christian, non-male.

Any year in question is subjected to bias, to personal preference, or personal history. 1958 marked the peak of familial units, the peak in domestic oil production was still a decade away, all our global economic competitors hadn't yet fully recovered from near total devastation from war a little over a decade earlier; the U.S. had all the good manufacturing jobs, and one good job held by the white man could support a middle class family. But imagine you were an atheistic Black lesbian. 1958 would hardly have been the peak.

I believe that most people now in 2011 probably think that a return to 2005 is what they'd prefer...at least economically. Their housal unit values were on a tear, everyone had access to cheap credit, access to multiple vehicular units, they could pick amongst a litany of service jobs, gasoline was cheap and readily accessible, the engagement of our two wars went un-noticed unless you happened to be in the service, liberalization of homophobic laws was on the horizon along with the decriminalization of marijuana -- things were bright and beautiful.

I wonder if we've reached our economic pinnacle. No matter what you may believe, there's always the possibility that 2006 represented our peak. I argue that there's a possibility that the constraints of global oil might prevent us from surpassing 2006. We may discover that the lack of credit, the deflation occurring, may presage a decades long economic calamity as has befallen Japan. Or perhaps any of a number of other things that might occur; war, disease, destruction, or corruption.

Look to Wisconsin, whose constituents can't accept that a perpetual $3,000,000,000 state deficit might require a change to the way things have been conducted in the past. Here in my little state of California our governor has eliminated the use of 55,000 cell phones by state employees; a drop in the bucket but cumulative droppings do count; there's a $20,000,000,000 deficit to undo. The point is, there's been consideration for a change to the way things have been done.

In my estimation, if we indeed do emerge from recession, we will inherit an economy that's less able to weather any future calamity. We will continue to build new bridges and freeways per our highway lobby's prerogatives just as the era of cheap oil wanes, expecting technology (like batterized cars) to pull us forward. We will continue our suburban sprawl madness, building housal units 32 miles from everything, forcing each "owner" to charge his batterized car twice a day just to get to work and back. And all these things we import will be built by foreigners and all the things we build domestically will be built by foreign born laborers because we've lost our ability to build shit ourselves. We will have lost our ability to weather 1)an oil supply disruption, 2) global wage arbitrage, or 3) another financial "scandal".

M preference for which year we should return to would be 1987. My natural bias shows. I'm 41. This was a pretty good year for me. If we returned to the economy of that year we'd 1) likely find a domestic job producing things of value, 2) the relationships between the top 1% and bottom 20% were narrower, 3) domestic energy wasn't at the forefront but we still had the chance to alter our ways, and 4) thrash metal was at its heyday.

When our economy revives, what period do you think it look like?