The United States are fucked. Fucked as in, there are no answers that will please any of them. There really isn't anything they can do, collectively, right now, to fix the horrendous mess they're in.
And it's everyone's fault. Everyone has had a hand in creating this clusterfuck. Call it rights, call it the American Dream, call it whatever you want, it's an unsustainable system that has been moving steadily towards this collapse for years and years with every possible sign post totally ignored. There are enormous amounts of blame that can be dished out to all sides. But some of them are wronger than others.
In terms of regular people - the 99% - it's insane that people spend so much more money than they make. It's ludicrous that people misunderstand their own finances to such outrageous and damaging degrees. 43% of American households over-spend their income. Canadians do that shit, too. I watch Til Debt Do Us Part pretty often, fascinated by the rank surprise on people's faces when they are shown they spend $5000 more a month than they make. When they are shown that in five years, they will be half a million dollars in debt. That their lifestyles are completely and totally unsustainable.
Telling a single couple this, with all the documentation in front them them to prove it, often results in changes. Gail Vaz-Oxlade is surprisingly good at her job. But telling an entire nation this is useless. They have decided what their rights are, and they do not intend to relinquish any of them for the sake of anything (least of all the environment). Everything they see in their waking lives tells them this is how they're meant to live, and they believe it. It is sold to them in huge, super-size portions every single day.
The 1% is looking at that willful irresponsibility and saying, Fuck you. We earned our money. You're an idiot who can't keep yours. Eat a dick. You took on a mortgage you knew you couldn't afford, and now you lost your house.
So, I get that, what richies are saying. Knowingly taking a mortgage you know you can't afford is stupid. Greedy. Willfully irresponsible.
However.
Knowingly GIVING someone a mortgage that you know he can't afford is a sadistic trap. Here we delve into the 'wronger' side of the equation.
This country has built up an entire culture based on having flashy stuff. Flashy cars, flashy women, flashy flash. No one wants to be a celebrity like Robyn in Sweden. She lives in a normal house. She probably rides a bike. Disgusting.
No, the American Dream is to be a celebrity like Kim Kardashian. Over-the-top, ostentatious, ludicrous levels of pomp, diamante wealth. A Marie Antoinette. Utterly shameless. Crying in Bora Bora because you were wearing $75,000 earrings with your bikini on the deck and one fell in the shallow beach water.
Everyone seems to think that taxing these people more is the answer. Fuck them, they can afford it. But America's corporations already have the highest levels of taxation in the world. There may be some truth in their assertion that any more taxes and their businesses will fail.
I read recently that even if 100% of Americans paid 100% of their income towards taxes, they could still not repay the debt that they owe. The country is bankrupt, even if they haven't declared it yet.
And despite their moral outrage over what's happened, the 1% is responsible for it. They are the wronger of the two sides. It's not demonizing success, it's calling a sadistic bastard a sadistic bastard. They created all of this shit. They came up with extended credit limits and unregulated banks and high-risk loans and don't-pay-til-next-year-when-we-repossess-all-your-shit. True, regular people should not pay for their whole untenable, aspirational lives on credit. But if it weren't so fucking easy, if it weren't foisted on them in such an overwhelming way, it wouldn't be so rampantly wide-spread. Television is commercial after commercial cajoling you to spend money you don't have. Mortgaging things you don't own yet. Making sure that you've already spent the equity in anything you might one day own. A masterful system of creating utter slaves with nice things for awhile. Pretty ingenius at the high-points, but clearly it can't survive.
Wall Street did it, too, but it was bailed out. Goldman Sachs gave out huge bonuses, but posted huge losses for the year. Same stupid spending, but somehow forgiven.
There are no bailouts for the 99%. Only criticism.
I don't live on credit. I live on cash. I have to live humbly and things are scary sometimes, but my parents never believed in credit cards and I just grew up that way and have never had one. I don't have a lot of stuff, but I don't have debt. I live on what I've got and if I want something special, I have to make the money before, not after. It's not easy. I can't rent hotel rooms or cars or book things. We've created a system that practically forces people to have credit cards, and then the temptation is terrible. Luckily for me I have a sister who will book things for me if I need it. Things still get paid in cash. Transferred immediately. The favour is the booking, only. Not credit.
I think we should use the occupy movement to better our situations, to stop living in a fantasy world of imagined standards of living and exist in a more modest, but manageable way. But it takes more than lip service and camping out. Canada stands to learn a lot from this. I hope we do.
