![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/\nbigsale.jpg\")
One
\n of our failings as a pseudo-intellectual is our inability to believe
\n something that we read, no matter how logical it seems, no
\n matter how
\n authoritative the source, until and unless we see it, or better yet
\n feel it, in our own life. It seems as though it has to be reduced
\n to a form and scale that we can comprehend with our limited intellect,
\n in
\n human terms, in our direct experience of the world, before we will buy into something.<\/p>\n
Until then, it’s all just words, and to a certain extent As surprising as it seem to our younger readers, cynicism In this vein, it has been hard And we could feel the rising prices all around us. In We were convinced the Office of Management and Budget was jimmying But last Friday, Black Friday as it has come to be known, The United States has been the richest country on the Generations of Americans fell in love with world travel Finally, after centuries of entrenchment and refinement, Because of the triumph of capitalism and free trade, Americans now have So we should be happy, no? The fruits of capitalism are Of course, we are becoming a nation of debt-ridden idlers, But don’t worry about that stuff, folks. Minor macro-economic details. One of our failings as a pseudo-intellectual is our inability to believe something that we read, no matter how logical it seems, no matter how authoritative the source, until and unless we see it, or better yet feel it, in … Continue reading
\n theoretical in a way that even Darwin’s theory of evolution is not. After
\n all, we can feel in our gut that we are related, not only to the apes<\/a>,
\n but to all sorts of creatures filling the nooks and crannies of the
\n tree of life. Why, one need only look closely at our first wife’s extended
\n family to be immediately convinced of the scientific certainty of evolution.<\/p>\n
\n as to the reliability of sources is nothing new to the internet age. Just look at the Protocols
\n of the
\n Elders of Zion. Admittedly, it is easier than ever to falsify a sources,
\n or create an authoritative lie, but we learned early that books lie, too,
\n and periodicals, due no doubt to their transitory nature, are positively
\n pathological.<\/p>\n
\n for us to accept<\/a>, despite
\n the overwhelming preponderance of evidence, that we are not in the middle
\n of an inflationary
\n economy. With the price of oil more than doubling, we figured sooner or later
\n everything<\/em> had to start going up. Energy is a component in the price
\n of virtually all good and services offered in the marketplace.<\/p>\n
\n our own field, higher education, costs have been rising at double-digit
\n rates for over
\n a decade, and continue to skyrocket. Even besides gasoline, tons of stuff
\n we buy every week, like milk and eggs, seemed to be going up every time
\n we went to the market. Health insurance and drugs were
\n more expensive every time we bought them. Tickets to everything from sporting
\n events to concerts had gone up so much they were out of reach, and even going
\n to the movies had become a major expense.<\/p>\n
\n the stats<\/a>, rigging the numbers to hide the inflation we were sure had to be happening
\n all over the country. It seemed laughable that they kept reporting inflation
\n in the 2-3 % range.<\/p>\n
\n according to a source in the retail industry, for the black ink of the
\n SALES signs,
\n we were in our local Target buying a Toastmaster 12-cup drip coffee machine. Price
\n – $4.14. We also decided to pick up the Toastmaster electric
\n slow cooker for the same price – four dollars and fourteen cents. Later that
\n day we bent to the MicroCenter by MIT and bought a CaseLogic nylon camera
\n bag, for $5.99. All three items, as well as our $400 Nikon Camera,
\n were made in China.<\/p>\n
\n planet for almost a hundred years now, since the days a century ago when
\n we were the number
\n one oil producer AND consumer in the world. But for most of that century
\n the highest standard of living on the planet went hand in hand with the highest
\n cost of living. Things were expensive in the US, especially compared
\n with the less-developed countries.<\/p>\n
\n when they discovered that in the markets of Mexico City or Marrakech, one
\n could purchase a beautiful
\n hand-woven serape for $5. People in the third world may have only
\n earned $4 dollars a day, but you could buy A LOT OF SHIT for four dollars
\n in Sri
\n Lanka. Today, thanks to Globalization, we can all get our $5 serapes at our
\n local WalMart. The
\n Mexican bazaar has come to suburbia.<\/p>\n
\n capitalism has matured into full bloom – a world wide system uniting all
\n the resources and
\n human productive capacity into a single marvelous machine, serving the
\n ends of – guess who? Us! Americans and Europeans, especially white
\n males of a certain age. And why not? After all, it was guys like us who
\n came up with this system in the first place!<\/p>\n
\n direct access to cheap stuff from every country on the planet. Of course,
\n it works both ways, and the Indians living in stilted reed houses over Lake
\n Titicaca could buy iPods and Jeep Cherokees, if they had any money or use
\n for such things.<\/p>\n
\n allowing an entire nation, 5% of the planet’s population, to live like
\n kings, have every gadget
\n and gizmo known to man, more high-tech entertainment than a lifetime of leisure
\n would allow them to enjoy, and access to the entire sum of human knowledge
\n up to this point in the history of the species. What’s not to like?<\/p>\n
\n increasingly living off the labors of others and loans from abroad. We
\n have eliminated the factory worker and hard-scrabble qualities that made
\n him great, from
\n the American panorama. We may not actually produce much of anything anymore,
\n other than ideas and slick schemes for selling them. We are dependent on
\n foreigners for our oil and cash loans to pay our bills. We,
\n in turn,
\n are
\n financing
\n the
\n new
\n little
\n rich kid
\n on the block, the next great empire that is destined to displace us as the
\n economic and military center of gravity in the new millennia, the Chinese.<\/p>\n
\n Years in the future. For now, we’ve got the Xbox 2 and the Superbowl
\n to look forward to. And, thank God and the Chinese, we don’t have inflation
\n to worry about any more.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"