Friday September 01, 2006

LABOR DAY POST. The MSM are very busy and powerful indeed. To hear the Perfesser and Back Talk tell it, in addition to their tireless labors on behalf of Islamofascist victory, reporters have managed to hyp-mo-tize the American people into disliking their "fabulous economy."

Back Talk has a lot of graphs but, as some of his commenters point out, they are no so good at showing exactly what sliver of the citizenry is sopping up the gravy of our Fabulous Economy, and what sector is obliged to take an old cold tater and wait.

We have seen this sort of thing before, as when Jeff Goldstein suggested that Americans were underestimating our Fabulous Economy because they felt sorry for some imagined underclass that was not doing so well as they ("Americans -- a compassionate people -- are often concerned about this phantom suffering of others in the abstract, and will react less confidently to the current state of the economy based on how they believe others are suffering under it").

Now, as then, I have to marvel at the breathtaking difference between the academic view of working life, and the view normally taken by actual working stiffs. A Back Talk commenter makes an observation that should be pitifully obvious but is, in this context, refreshing:

How do individuals judge "how good the economy is doing?" Answer: If they don't know how to understand the numbers (which they don't, because the numbers are meaningless), they judge by their personal circumstances.

Buy that man a beer. Ask a citizen for his opinion on mayhem in far-off lands like the Sudan or Lebanon, and his response may be influenced by guilt, social pressure, or indoctrination; but poll him on the economy, and all such vapors disperse.

If a man tells you he's worried about money, he's not bullshitting. Why would he? Americans don't try to sound worse off than their neighbors. As I have previously observed -- and tell me if your experience contradicts this -- America is a land of folks who are (thumbs up) doin' great, feelin' fine! Just bought a new car! Listen to that engine! Boy's goin' off to college, and the best of anything is not too good for his little girl!

You don't get such go-getters to allow as how they worry about making ends meet by printing a jaundiced editorial in the New York Times.

For one thing, they don't read the New York Times -- only sissies and fags do. They read red-blooded American papers and watch Fox. But no matter what they read or watch, they probably hear more than a few stories like this:

Getting fired is traumatic enough, but imagine getting fired by email. Radio Shack emailed layoff [notices] Tuesday morning to 400 of its workers at the Forth Worth Texas headquarters.

And when they read such stories, they are reminded, if they are far enough along in their adulthood, not only that their jobs are fragile, but that the people who run this Fabulous Economy don't give a rat's ass about them. They see their credit card interest rates and cable bills jacked up, seemingly arbitrarily; they see gas prices go through the roof; they see pension plans go bankrupt; and they get the message. And if they could be brought in contact with the Ole Perfesser, who laments:

...everyone I know who has a business complains that they can't get enough decent help even when they raise pay, because people are always leaving for better jobs. That may be a local phenomenon or something, but I'd like to see something that accounts for worker mobility, too.

They would know what to think of that, too.

Yet these schoolly conservatives still tell the little man: tut tut, can't you see you're rich? Cafe Hayek:

Given these two options, I’d choose to live today with only 1967’s real median household income. The reason is that the economy today offers so very many more options than did the economy in 1967 – or even the economy of that halcyon year, 1973. Today I can buy cell-phone service; today I can buy cable television with hundreds of channels, including ones that specialize in sports, cooking, history, and science; today even the cheapest automobiles are safer and more reliable than were the finest cars for sale in 1967; today I can buy telephone answering machines (with caller-ID), microwave ovens, CDs, personal computers, Internet service, and MP3 players. Today I can watch movies in my own home – in color – whenever I want without having to wait for one of the three or four available television stations to telecast a movie for viewing on a black-and-white television.

Today I can use GPS....

On the litany goes: "Today’s coffee is indescribably superior to the coffee Americans regularly drank just a few years ago... Today I can buy an inexpensive quartz wristwatch that keeps time with remarkable accuracy...."

All the beautiful junk of empire is yours, little man! Just don't fuck up and become a loser. Keep your skills sharp and relevant -- and don't make the mistake of following a career that will become obsolete. Technology's ever changing, so you'll have to stay very nimble. Re-train yourself constantly. That'll take a heap of money, of course -- maybe you can get the tuition on eBay!

And if, by some ordinary misfortune -- a disease, a failed marriage, an extra child, or a shift in market forces that you just weren't sophisticated enough to anticipate -- you find yourself underqualified, living in a double-wide, working an extra job just to make ends meet with no time or opportunity for advancement, well, shows to go ya: some cats is meant to enjoy indescribably superior coffee, and some cats ain't.

Let that be a lesson to the rest of you! And don't come crying to the government for help: we reformed the shit out of that option long ago.

If the argument above does not convince you, take some comfort in the fact that you are far from alone; but be advised that, given how things are going, how you and any but a precious tenured or think-tanked few feel about it may not mean much of anything at all.