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News & ArtsSaturday, June 23, 2012
Economy Remembering the American Dream
Posted by Charles Mudede on Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 1:04 PM
From The Great Recession:
The sub-prime market for mortgages, which stood at around $30 billion in the mid 1990s, rose to $130 billion by 2000, and hit an all-time high of $625 billion in 2005.
Speaking of the recession, I finally found a good answer to this old question in my head: What's the movie Children of Men really about? It's not, as I first guessed, this: Neoliberalism as truly the end of history (1989 to 2008).
Instead it is about the end of the end of history, which is the Great Recession (2008 to now). From Capitalist Realism:
"The catastrophe in Children of Men is neither waiting down the road, nor has it already happened. Rather, it is being lived through."
2
Children of Men is about immigration being the life blood of modern western civilization. Without it we die.
@1 Yes.
@1 Yes.
3
@2 Hence the whole no one can have babies thing. One of the big issues in Europe is both their lack of desire to breed and their general discomfort with black and brown people which makes it rather hard for their economies to function as populations age.
5
It's something you see all the time. Once people become too comfortable in their lifestyle, their veneration of civic virtue and responsibility wanes. Before long, merely to support such a top-heavy society, new blood is required. You can see the same thing with the decline of the Western Roman Empire and their dependance upon federated Germans to do all the fighting and manly stuff for them.
Struggle, woe, and misery--all these things serve to invigorate society. War is constructive as destruction is constructive. It is peace and the miserable malaise it tends to, especially with the long peace, that leads society to decadence.
Not saying there shouldn't be peace; society requires moments to catch its breath, after all. But peace for its own sake is worthless.
Struggle, woe, and misery--all these things serve to invigorate society. War is constructive as destruction is constructive. It is peace and the miserable malaise it tends to, especially with the long peace, that leads society to decadence.
Not saying there shouldn't be peace; society requires moments to catch its breath, after all. But peace for its own sake is worthless.
6
Whatever. It's about a single 11-minute take of a running firefight at the climax of the film. Super awesome.
7
Isn't it past time that we acknowledge the one size fits all "American Dream" doesn't fit everyone?
11
You realize this recession hasn't really been that bad for people with marketable skills, right? Engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc? They just had to forego big European vacations for a while, and not buy a new house after only five years in the current one. Hardly the swan song of capitalism.
But given that journalism has basically been destroyed as a marketable skill, I can totally understand why journalists overstate this recession.
But given that journalism has basically been destroyed as a marketable skill, I can totally understand why journalists overstate this recession.
12
@11,
I guess it depends what you consider to be "not that bad". Most Americans, marketable skills or no, have seen their wages decline over the past ten years, and 20 years before that their wages stagnated. And there are still lots of unemployed engineers these days. The overwhelming majority of people with law degrees never practice law.
I guess it depends what you consider to be "not that bad". Most Americans, marketable skills or no, have seen their wages decline over the past ten years, and 20 years before that their wages stagnated. And there are still lots of unemployed engineers these days. The overwhelming majority of people with law degrees never practice law.
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