Escape From New York

I am, most certainly, a doomer. I personally cannot envision any reasonable scenario where the next generation of Americans has a better standard of living than us today...or any scenario where the current generation of Americans maintains their standard or even comes remotely close to the hallucinated standard we had back in 2005.

Oh! To return to those heady days seven years hence! A new Escalade in every other South Sacramentan rental unit! And in those without the Escalade, a new plasma HDTV. $21/hour manufacturing jobs at the Kramer Carton Factory with benefits.

This nation has experienced stagnant wage growth for the last thirty years, save for many in the top 1% who have effectively stolen their 250% increases through political machinations. That we've had thirty years of stagnant wage growth is a good thing -- a good thing, because it will condition us for the next thirty years of continuing stagnant wage growth. We'll be used to it, and experience clearly is desirable in such things...it ought to count for something.

I carry no doubt that the working classes of the future will find themselves in a more precarious position than their parents. A father who spent his life working at a canned soup plant in the 1970s earning $21 in today's dollars will find his son working at a suburban Christian bookstore in a strip mall in the early 20s earning $12. The manufacturing of canned soup will have long since been transferred to Uruguay, where cake frosting is already being manufactured (yes, the tub in my fridge is from central South America). The only jobs available in 2022 (for those unwilling to carry $245,045 in college debt) will be strip mall retail workers, which, based on Elk Grove planning models, will be the growth industry over the next fifteen decades. Asian foot massage therapists and Christian book sellers and pool chlorine salesmen and 12-G network compatible iPhone peddlers and spring water kiosk tenders and mother's day card salesladies and seasonal Roni Deutch tax preparers -- all fantastic non-benefital $12/hour at-will non-union jobs.

I worked hard as a landscaper in 1991 following my escape from West Point. I landed a good, hard job and I was willing to work. I lasted five months, at which point I landed an engineering assistant position. Twenty one years ago we hadn't yet had the influx of Vietnamese and Mexican immigrants who today dominate that industry -- no, us white boys did that work. Today, if a white boy is found mowing a lawn in Elk Grove, some part of his upbringing must have broken down. Maybe his parents aren't sufficiently "successful" to afford to hire out that work to "the help." White Americans have become accustomed to "no more dirty work." Fuck filleting Alabama catfish for $11 an hour -- it's hard, it's icky, and that one can receive nearly perpetual entitlements for not working really means that the real wage is only about half of that advertised. The redeeming of Alabama food stamps means that one can buy nearly all the catfish one wants...without spending 10 hours a day/5 days a week in a cold, damp kill room.

I remember well several of the other white guys who worked in that landscaping outfit. One quit after three weeks to find success as a traveling Arkansas carnie. Another would work well only under constant supervision. A third was quite the loafer but quite the stand-up comedian, too -- he cracked Richard Gere/gerbil jokes all the way up until Friday afternoon when he'd suddenly jettison the comedy routine and bitch and complain about his shitty paycheck.

I did my job, got stronger, took the job seriously, and moved on quite soon to be sure. Glad I did, too. That job would have sucked the life out of me. I can't imagine today, can't even imagine, working a single 8-hour shift cutting asparagus or eggplants, let alone two consecutive shifts, let alone a week, or let alone a year. As a white, privileged, middle class male I'd refuse to take that job. Fuck that -- unemployment benefits would have to run out first, which would last me 99 weeks, or well into 2013. Then I'd tap all the social services my cousin in South Sacramento and his neighbors take advantage of, such as a one time month's free PG&E or SMUD bill pay each calendar year, or emergency room visits for common issues like staph infections or testicular swelling. And once all that runs out, sometime in 2016, I'll have learned how to correctly grow hydroponic marijuana and sell two pounds each month to buyers in the Bible Belt whose state's legislatures are holier than thou. Then, by 2020, I'll bank on my diabetes! You think for one fucking minute I couldn't apply for and be awarded lifetime social security disability benefits for my "chronic and acute suffering from this debilitating disease?" What, you don't think I couldn't use my last thirty years with this disease to all but guarantee perpetual payments for my 40 consecutive quarters of work? I'd be considered "totally" disabled by my hand-picked doctor, who will be forced to provide services for my "neuropathy," my "partial blindness," and my "inability to sleep."

There's no way you'll ever find this white guy filleting fish for $11 an hour.

No way.