by Professor Vapor
Trail
It was refreshing to read the article by the military chap in one of
your November issues. It was about a person who learned that self
discipline creates freedom -- it does not inhibit it. He was freed
from the trap of modern liberalism known as "radical individualism"
which, alas, in the final analysis has created a society where style
has been allowed to triumph over substance.
Radical individualism means many things including a repudiation of
solid reasoning or the need for evidence to prove a provocatively
stated assertion. That's why all kinds of half-baked, New Age
"systems" like astrology are given credence all the way to the
highest levels of society as with the Reagans who had a personal
astrologer. Never mind that, due to the precession of the equinoxes,
the Sun is in Aries now in early May, not Taurus. Let us not be
confused by the facts (sic).
The shoddy reasoning of radical individualism is now giving us our
just desserts -- the beginning of what will prove to be an absolutely
intractible decade-long Depression. In the late '90s even rocket
scientists were buying stocks with no prospects of earnings for the
forseeable future because they belonged to the ur-hip high-tech
sector. People have spent like drunken sailors and now total non-corporate
private sector debt (the radical individual!!) is more than 101% of
Gross Domestic Product -- an alltime record by an astonishing 30%.
The problem with the decline of intellect, of respect for intellect, and for
the modesty of restrained, sound thinking is that it propagates into all socioeconomic
strata and into our tastes and daily behaviors. Forget about condemning the
younger generation -- that is a total copout. My generation, the middle-aged
nouveau riche techno-shits with their goddamned gadget worshipry, SUVs, and
media intoxication are hardly models for their offspring or the peers of their
offspring. Hipness and ostentation are now more desirable than talent, thrift,
modesty, and inwardness.
Economies are merely an emergent phenomenon of a culture and, like any emergent
phenomenon, are mirrors of the culture. If the culture loses its integrity and
sanity, the economy will lose its integrity and sanity. Integrity is largely
a result of internal consistency in a person's (or culture's) values. Yet what
do we have in the political arena -- Al Gore (a.k.a. Mr. Earth-in-the-Balance)
driving an SUV after each stump speech, not an electric car. And although the
Bible itself says that no man can worship God and Mammon at the same time, we
have the likes of Pat Robertson who is both financially and theologically obsessed
at the same time. As the Chinese might say: "I turned in the direction
of the four winds and could find no virtue". The current politcal parties
simply bow to different demons.
So what's a guy to do? Join a monastery? Give in and go right out
and get a Personal Digital Assistant and a webphone? Swallow a jar of
Xanax and sleep for a few years? No folks, it is actually possible to live
a simple, serene life right in the midst of the chaos. Get joy in NOT
buying things. Get the goddamned bone out of your nose, remove the
testicle rings, junk the gangsta clothes and, like, LEARN TO PLAY A
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT or speak a foreign language!? Throw away those
self-help psychobabble books and learn some REAL subjects instead of
worshipping cheesy sophists, media celebs, shitty bands, and bad TV.
Yes, it's time to GET REAL because reality, in the form of a really
horrid economy will MAKE YOU GET REAL so you might as well "beat it to
the punch". Nature, happily, is always self-correcting. Just make sure that
you're not the one who is being "corrected". Soon, there will be no
more "nanny state" to bail out those who expect the world to respect the
fact that they want to take the rest of their lives off from work
because they have an existential ass-ache.
Finally, for you pollyannas out there who find this oh-so strident and
uber-pessimistic, here are some HARD NUMBERS FOR YOU.
1) Average credit card debt per cardholder -- $8200. In 1990, it
was $3100 which was then an alltime record.
2) The effect on the stock markets of a reduction in interest rates
from 6.5% to 2.0%: S&P 500 down 28% from its high, Nasdaq down
62% from its high. Stock markets normally soar when interest
rates are lowered.
3) Amount of money leaving America annually due to trade
imbalances: $360 billion.
4) Credit card defaults so far in 2001: 10% of cardholders -- an
alltime record by a huge margin.
5) Estimated loss to the U.S. Economy as a result of the Enron
bankruptcy -- $1 trillion. That's not a misprint.
6) Extrapolated unemployment rate on January 1, 2003 at current
rate of unemployment increase per month: 11%.
7) Net consumer debt: $11 trillion. Do you REALLY think all those
$250,000 home loans are going to get repaid? Try imagining what
happens to the banking system if only 10% of them default.
8) Total U.S. private sector debt (corporate and consumer
together): $28 trillion or, roughly, nearly three years of GDP.
9) General Motors bond ratings, if lowered again, will be below
investment grade after the greatest economic boom in history.
What do you think their margins are going to be like with
those zero-percent five year loans?
10) California's projected debt for 2002 -- $12 billion. After
emergency meetings with allegedly radical budget cutting, the
legislature has cut expenditures $2 billion. Did any of these
guys do better than a "C" in 6th grade arithmetic?
To email Professor Vapor Trail, click thee here!