text:
A Tour Through Recession America
The Lost Generation
A new cohort between 21 and 30 is becoming a lost generation — and with good reason. They don't seem to be working full-time or have good jobs with secure futures. Instead, from construction to teaching, there are far fewer sustainable careers for young people. But given family ties, they can live at home, postpone marriage, find part-time work, and rely on essentials like rent and food from the old embryo, while using what little is made for discretionary spending — allowing the veneer of middle class opulence to continue.
That is, for a deep recession, there seems to be a lot of young people out on weekdays at about 10 AM at stores, with good clothes and appurtenances, and apparently no substantial incomes. Is this sustainable, this ability to have discretionary spending, while outsourcing housing and food to one's parents?
There are areas of rural California that are "reverting." By that I mean old statutes no longer apply. On one stretch of road nearby there are suddenly three new "restaurants." By this, I mean so-called mobile hot kitchen vans serving Mexican food have anchored, plopped down roots in driveways, and added awnings, some benches and lights. Presto, the owners seem to have avoided all the once feared California regulations concerning proper restroom facilities, sanitation, building codes, and reported taxes. I infer all that since these permanent establishments suddenly disappear and reappear rooted to new locations, apparently if cited or investigated.
As a rough estimate from this week's travel, I would guess that there are thousands of illegal aliens living in garages in rural California, or in beached inoperative trailers. Almost one of two rural farmhouses has some sort of Winnebago-like vehicle hooked up to electrical service. In Selma and Caruthers, there are lots of garages that seemed to have morphed into rentals. In other words, in one of the most highly regulated, highly taxed regions in America, noncompliance at every level seems the norm.
Reader, help me here: one of two things seems to be going on. The more a state sets down rules, the more they are simply ignored, to such a degree that basic and necessary zoning and health statutes become more laxly enforced than in red-state, small government cultures.
Or is it that the state regulators feel enforcement of myriad of rules would be unfair to, or impossible with, the illegal alien Hispanic community? I rode by one compound, counted five extraneous homesteads of sorts behind the main frame house, a dozen dogs, and all sorts of illegal wiring schemes — a regulator's dream? My hunch is that the bureaucrat regulator would rather spend time in the Sierra hassling a compliant cabin owner I know for putting on a new metal roof that was without the properly approved tint.
Middle-Class Veneer
The combinations of cheap Chinese goods, easy access to credit cards, and generous entitlements — such as Section 8 housing, unemployment insurance, food stamps, Medicaid health care, disability payments — that cover essentials and free up money for discretionary spending, have combined to give the proverbial lower middle class access to consumer purchases undreamed of twenty years ago. As a graduate student in 1975-80, I bought a used 19-inch black and white TV for $40 and saved for weeks to purchase it. Today, 52-inch plasma televisions seem no longer the birthrights of the oligarchy. We have created a new sort of impoverished.
In one way, dozens who shop at Home Depot and Costco and Save Mart are poor in the sense that they cannot go to Europe, or even to the aquarium in Monterey or Disneyland. But in terms of cell phones, DVD players, plasma TVs, or radios, there is no difference from the upper echelons in this recession.
In the old days a poor house in rural Selma would have poor plumbing and no insulation; today's apartment, in terms of hot water heater, oven, cook top, or air conditioner, is not much different than those found in the estates above Stanford.
I can't quite see how imported granite countertops in a 8,000 square foot estate translate into better food preparation than does cheap tile counters in a $500 a month apartment in Selma.
Note well that no politician ever gives the U.S. credit for extending the veneer of American consumer comfort to nearly all its 300 million residents. I say nearly all, since if someone can cross the border from Oaxaca, enter Selma, and have an iPhone that connects to the world wide internet, instant weather reports, and a GPS, then poverty as we knew is not really old-fashioned want — despite the John Edwards' two nations rhetoric.
Where Does it All End?
I confess this week to have listened in on many conversations in Palo Alto and at Stanford, read local newspapers, and simply watched people. So I am as worried about the elite upscale yuppie as the poor illegal alien. The former have lost almost all connection with physical labor, the physical world, or the ordeal that civilization endures to elevate us from the savagery of nature.
While many were fit, and seem to work out, bike, ski, and hike, none understood the mechanics that lie beneath the veneer of the good life — the chain-sawing, hammering, drain-unplugging, tractor-driving, irrigating, and welding that allows a pleasant afternoon Greek salad and cappuccino on University Avenue — the disconnect between those Pennsylvania "clingers" and Obama's arugula-eating crowd.
So much hinges on impressions. I listened to two young attractive women bemoan housing prices in Menlo Park — $1,000,000 for a modest 2 bath-3 bedroom older cottage in a "good" neighborhood. For that amount, each would be royalty in Fresno, perched on the bluffs over the San Joaquin River in a massive 5,000 sq. foot estate, with a half-acre yard.
A strange elite I suppose likes and pays for the ambience — that is, living among people like themselves — of upscale university centered communities. Why? I have a theory. It allows them to be liberal and progressive in the abstract, without having to live the logical consequences of their utopianism, or deal with the underbelly of American life. Take the most sophisticated Palo Alto dweller, and a week outside of Laton on a farm would make her, well, "seasoned" so to speak, and challenge much of her assumptions about wealth and poverty.
As I watch this teeming recession-era energy — thousands leaving squalor in Mexico for the life raft of the U.S., thousands in the middle buying as birthright what a few decades ago would be considered the playthings of the aristocracy, and thousands living in a progressive bubble disconnected from the grime and mess that fuels it — I hope there are still enough around to keep all this going. I say that because a new Microsoft program, a better search engine, another recent arrival from Chiapas, and someone out of work and still at Best Buy simply are not going to get us out of this recession, find the energy to keep the country fueled, and create the money to pay off a soon-to-be $ 20 trillion debt. In short, from this week's observations, I think our so-called poor need to read a bit more, and our assumed elite to read a bit less.
175 Comments, 118 Threads
1. Doug Wright
VDH: 1st, you are in fact writing a current version of "Cato's Letters," so excuse my comment on your previous essay.
2nd, we, our society, is going to hell in a new car and complaining all the way.
Maybe our collapse is yet to be and that's very scary.
Cheers and pray for all of us.
April 11, 2010 - 8:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
2. proreason
Wow. VDH has outdone himself this time. This is really an extremely creative…and valuable…effort by the professor.
I don't quite know what to make of it, but you get the feeling from what he says, and personal observations, that the entire country is living on the fumes of the labor and courage of the greatest generation and the tiny handful of their descendents who appreciate the bounty of the country and are willing to work to keep it alive.
The rest appear willing to either feast on the carcass or slowly descend into the mire rather than lift a finger to prolong it.
April 11, 2010 - 8:15 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
The fools we have elected continuously to bribe us with our own tax payments for the last 40 years have decided to kill the golden goose and have one last good feast on her liver. Soon they will wonder why the eggs stopped coming.
April 12, 2010 - 9:02 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
So where is the draft Victor Davis Hanson for president movement located?
April 12, 2010 - 1:10 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Take a look at how the media shreds anyone with common sense about how to deal with the nations problems…VDH would be moved to the top of the "hit" list…and loudly accused of some indecent something or other with 30 lawyers on their way to California…
oh, right…they're already there. My bad.
April 13, 2010 - 6:52 am Link to this Comment | Reply
The remnant isn't all that tiny. Just as the Baby Boomers are numerically only about 10% of the caricature of their generation, Gen-X/Y and the Milennials are also for the most part working hard and doing the best they can. There are lots of young people in the military upholding the highest traditions of nobility and sacrifice the world has ever known; there are lots of people under 43 who are working in every needful profession. There are also lots who whine and complain about everything while being fabulously wealthy compared to earlier generations. There are also quite a few who are plain old wastes of skin.
The larger point, that there is a growing disconnect between 'classes,' is certainly so; what's happened is that many so-called elites have been educated out of America. They know a lot about a little, and presume they know everything necessary, not unlike Socrates discovering that everybody from boat-builders to goat-herds knew everything, while he at least knew he was ignorant.
Dr. Hanson is remarkable in that regard; he is highly educated but humble enough to know that his great knowledge is a tiny spark against the vast darkness which remains. I'm against evolutionary & big bang theory for this very reason–the conceit that 'we' now understand everything is death on real knowledge. It's way too soon for a universal theory of anything, much less everything. The political equivalent is in the Leftist mindset–no reason to learn more because 'we' already know everything. Obama hasn't learned a thing since college days in that regard.
On the other hand the 'common folks' in America know a lot more than they get credit for. Education is not wisdom. For myself it was Tolkien who broke me of the habit of considering myself smarter than everybody else just because I SEEMED to be exceptional. "…he talks more than he thinks, and faster, but he's wise enough on his own ground." That was Gandalf, Tolkien's Prophet/Christ figure speaking of Barliman Butterbur the publican. "'There's earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both eyes are open,' said Tom." This was Tom Bombadil, Tolkien's version of the Green Man, talking about a local farmer.
You never know what'll get you to thinking, but whatever it is thank heaven for it! I never read Socrates' Apology until much later.
Unlike their 'betters' common folks learn day by day, and knowledge and wisdom accumulate over time. The sad part is that the educated elite have little excuse for goofing up in this particular way, and Dr. Hanson ought not to be exceptional because this is OLD stuff. But of course that's part of the problem. Part of the conceit of universal theories is that they toss out anything old because it might mess up their perfect theory with reality. Can't be having that now.
I'm not looking forward to the day when the elites wake up to the fact that they've been peddling fantasies for generations. Eventually it'll happen however, they can't all die in the midst of their illusions like Stalin or Mao. There are plenty of horrible examples from history of what happens when reality catches up with fantasy, and personally I'd rather not be around for a new chapter. But like most of my generation I'll do the best I can and keep my powder dry till then.
April 12, 2010 - 1:42 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
3. jgreene
We have several levels of class in our population which are out of touch with reality. Excellent article. There are only about 25 percent of the population which actually "gets it" or produces something worth producing.
Our Nation is indeed divided – in more ways than one.
April 11, 2010 - 9:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
I confess this week to have listened in on many conversations in Palo Alto and at Stanford, read local newspapers, and simply watched people. So I am as worried about the elite upscale yuppie as the poor illegal alien. The former have lost almost all connection with physical labor, the physical world, or the ordeal that civilization endures to elevate us from the savagery of nature.
While many were fit, and seem to work out, bike, ski, and hike, none understood the mechanics that lie beneath the veneer of the good life—the chain-sawing, hammering, drain-unplugging, tractor-driving, irrigating, and welding that allows a pleasant afternoon Greek salad and cappuccino on University Avenue—the disconnect between those Pennsylvania "clingers" and Obama's arugula-eating crowd.
This passage reminds me of a book I recently read on the Internet Archive : Mind and hand : manual training, the chief factor in education by Charles Ham. Categorized as a vocational text but it is actually promoting the inclusion of manual training as part of the intellectual development of students. The author does a survey from Egypt to 19th century America discussing how as civilizations became separated from manual labor they have declined. I really recommend chapter 2 on the Majesty of Tools. The guy really raises tools to a higher level. But the curious item is, if you ignore that the author mentions nothing after 1899, it could be discussing today's society.
For if man without tools is nothing, to be unable to use tools is to be destitute of power; and if with tools he is all, to be able to use tools is to be all-powerful. And this power in the concrete, the power to do some useful thing for man—this is the last analysis of educational truth.
April 11, 2010 - 9:17 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
The motto of MIT is "Mens et Manus":
mind and hand. The emblem is a worker
and a scholar.
They took seriously the point VDH makes.April 12, 2010 - 4:21 am Link to this Comment | Reply
5. Random
Why? I have a theory. It allows them to be liberal and progressive in the abstract, without having to live the logical consequences of their utopianism, or deal with the underbelly of American life.
That describes Portland, Oregon to a T. Liberals living in the least-black large city in the United States, celebrating their tolerance, diversity, and all-round wonderfulness. That's why they all voted for Obama – it allowed them to demonstrate how tolerant they were, without any practical consequences (or so they thought).
Nevertheless, change is coming – parts of the outskirts of Portland look more like Middlefield Road in Redwood City (the local barrio near Stanford) than Menlo Park. A lot of the local crimes in the paper are committed by Hispanic-surnamed individuals, and the local paper usually loyally refuses to state their immigration status. (A reporter, challenged on-line about the fact that he hadn't noted the illegal status of two people caught with a pound and half of methamphetamine, snapped back that the immigration status of the arrestees was "irrelevant".)
Meanwhile, Portland proudly claims that the population of the metro area will double over the next thirty years (questionable), while also announcing that Portland metro is going to cut auto usage in half during those thirty years, by forcing people out of their cars. Quite the utopian disconnect.
April 11, 2010 - 9:22 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Joe Toboni
Do they have a plan to have jobs for the 2nd half of the city?
April 16, 2010 - 2:04 am Link to this Comment | Reply
6. Otto Maddox
I agree. Palo Alto is one of the strangest places on the planet.
April 11, 2010 - 9:37 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Alas, Branson will never be the same after the death of The Amazing Frederick, who would play two grand pianos simultaneously in front of the famous Waltzing Waters. Still, you might can still see armless musician who plays the guitar with his feet, and there's always the Baldknobbers. What? What's strange about that???
April 12, 2010 - 8:42 am Link to this Comment | Reply
7. Tom Holsinger
Consider that few Americans know what real suffering and anguish are.
April 11, 2010 - 9:37 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
8. materialist
Who was that East Indian visitor who made the classic observation, "I have come to America, the only place in the history of the earth where the poor are too fat." I gather that is precisely what you found as well,.
April 11, 2010 - 9:39 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
9. jason gray
"But the state seems not to be investing in infrastructure as before, but more in consumption and redistribution."
Hmmm… interesting thought there. There really isn't a big difference between consumption and redistribution is there. For all the moral loftiness the left likes to couch redistribution (of wealth) in, it is simply just more consumerism (and greed).
April 11, 2010 - 9:41 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
11. Maxwell Jump
I see it everyday here in Charlotte, unemployed fathers, citizens, myself included, walking their kids to the bus stops in the morning. As we stand there with our kids we watch the illegals standing on the other side of the road, lunch pails in hand, waiting for their rides to work, or the van loads leaving our apartment complex heading out to work.
One of the guys told us about being laid off because there was supposedly no work, then his ex-foreman calling him up a few weeks later and telling him that they had replaced all the laid off people with illegals. Don't know what ever happened to him because they had to move a few weeks later.
There is a lot of anger out here, anger that is only superficially, and patronizingly, acknowledged by our "leaders" if acknowledged at all. They, our leaders and members of both parties, continue this at their own risk.
This is a strange recession, drive by any local fast food restaurant from McD's to Olive Garden and they are all full, waiting lines at the sit-down restaurants. The stores and malls are full. Dumpsters here in the apartment complex often have big screen tv, computer, Blu-Ray player boxes in them. So apparently people aren't hurting too bad, except when it comes to buying health insurance.
April 11, 2010 - 9:57 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Maximus Jumpicuc
It sounds to me like a man wanting a job should grab a pail and stand where those guys are…
April 12, 2010 - 4:13 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
..and if they're over 6′ 2″ or so, they may have a fighting chance on some jobs!
April 13, 2010 - 8:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply
My Dad use to have a phrase, (adjust for inflation) "If you don't take the $5 an hour job while you are waiting for the $7 an hour job….you'll end up working for $3 an hour"
For me those words were so true. But, now I don't see anybody accepting a lower paying job. All I see is the arrogance of the X, Y, Z generations. They aren't willing to lower their expectations. Too bad, looks like their unemployment (government tit) is gonna run out next month.Steve
April 13, 2010 - 8:35 am Link to this Comment | Reply
12. Tony
I live near Stanford, but spend about a month out of every year in the rural South. Was there a few months ago, and my cousin caught me muttering about how much better the roads were in Alabama than in California. He couldn't believe I had actually said that, but it's true. California is crumbling. Alabama's public schools are atrocious — but so are California's, outside a few pricey enclaves like Palo Alto.
Wonder how many of those spiffy cars and accessories you're seeing were bought with tax dollars recycled through the expanding government class? The folks I know in the private sector are cutting back and hunkering down.
April 11, 2010 - 10:00 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
13. Cowboy
When I was a suburban teenager my dad sent me down to a farm one summer so I could learn what it meant to work. The next year he sent me down to a ranch. At the time I hated him for it because it separated me from all the important things that were going on in my life in that suburban world.
What were those things? I cannot tell you now. The only two summers I fully remember are the one on the farm and the other on the ranch. The rest were spent on nothing much, the usual stuff.
This wise lesson from my cagey old dad revealed to me that so much of life, a huge vibrant slice of life, lies totally unobserved, unregarded, unrecognized and unknown by a softie like I was, caught up in interminable suburban whatevers. I regard it as a signature failing of our culture that we cannot communicate to the majority of our people that civilization is not automatic and does not fall down from the sky like manna. Another failure is the failure to communicate the simple joy and pride of accomplishment you get when the season is over, and the hard worked day is put to bed for an honest and well-deserved return.
Those important lessons are lacking.
April 11, 2010 - 10:04 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Funny how hard work can leave a lasting impression. I too cannot recall many exciting tales from my youthful summers. But, the times I spent on my grandfather's christmas tree farm are now vivid memories. He worked hard, and expected me and my brother from age 10, to do the same. I can remember that I was ill-impressed with the couple of dollars he handed to me for my trouble at the end of a grueling weekend. Looking back, it paid much more in divedends.
April 12, 2010 - 5:17 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
14. Foobarista
As for the "gray market" in California, I'm convinced that regulators – and politicians – are well aware of its existence and don't want to touch it. My wife sells small businesses and pretty much never sees a little, cash-heavy business that doesn't pocket most or all of the cash – even in otherwise regulated areas like restaurants and dry cleaners.
The sad thing is that my wife occasionally runs into American-born blacks or whites who want to buy a business and whose heads explode when they realize that nearly everything is under the table, and that operating a completely legit business would mean you simply wouldn't make enough money to operate because the market prices in the "grayness" of the market players. Immigrants of all sorts are far more comfortable with these arrangements and often prefer it.
And any business involving lots of manual labor? They're completely under the table, not because the owners are paying sub-minimum wages – the workers are often decently paid – but because regulations and taxes make it impossible to operate legally. And since few American-born people are willing to work under the table, illegals are pretty much the only ones hired.
April 11, 2010 - 10:06 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
15. tryingtodorightthing
I work in law in the San Fernando Valley and can tell you from personal experience that the Los Angeles County Building Code Enforcement does not inspect nor enforce laws such as illegal converted garages or the related building codes. The inspectors will act as if they are going to inspect and then just refuse to do so. I have made complaints of very serious conditions such as exposed wires, gas lines illegally re-routed and the such with no action by the city.
Moreover, in the community where I live, there is no prohibition on using illegal labor, whether it is picking up an illegal at Home Depot, going to the car wash (which obviously employs illegals, hiring illegal gardners, etc. I have tried to explain to my neighors and fellow workers that using illegal labor is dangerous and fuels the exploitation of the illegal worker. They also do no understand how this undercuts the wages of the honest working people – they just don't care – it is whatever is cheaper (as in the cheap Chinese goods flooding our market). I personally will not participate in the hiring or using of illegal alien labor, this includes not patronizing any full-service car wash, using a gardner that is not incorporated in the State of California or buying anything off the street.
April 11, 2010 - 10:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
You're my neighbor. (In a general sense – I live also in the SFV) and you're talking about MY neighbors. (In the specific sense! The house to my right has two illegal 'apartments' in the back yard – the one to the left has a 'converted' garage.) I look at houses and they all have unliscensed contruction. No one cares. The law is a joke. No – worse – the law is predatory. You would actually be in legal trouble if you tried to OBEY the written laws.
April 12, 2010 - 1:47 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
16. etaylor
One reason the laws are not being observed in CA is there are so many illegal aliens who don't have a lot to lose by breaking the law, and who have figured out that nobody is going to do anything to them.
Regarding all those people drinking lattes in San Jose and not understanding anything about manual labor: those are the people and that was the culture which invented computers and the internet. Maybe they don't know how to dig ditches but they have my everlasting gratitude anyway.
April 11, 2010 - 10:18 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
17. Jimmy J.
Anecdotal evidence is often better than reams of data distilled into charts and graphs. As an airline pilot I learned quite early to read economic cycles from passenger loads. When the rcession of the early 70s hit, it seemed like they had closed the terminal doors. We were flying with 30% loads. Even flew one trip from LAX to MEM (Memphis) with one passenger (Jane Wyman, yes, that Jane Wyman.) on board. When the loads began to pick up, I knew the recovery was beginning. It was never sudden or V shaped as some like to call recoveries from recessions. They are always uneven and there are always some companies/indusrtries that never quite recover. Retired for 17 years now, I've lost my anecdotal indicator. Like you I observe my surroundings and try to read the tea leaves.
Today we went to a regional mall for an evening meal. 5pm on a Sunday and the mall parking lot was packed. Had to cruise around a bit to find a place to park. Looks a bit like the increase in passenger loads on the airlines. Maybe the recovery is beginning. But then I see the local gas station is selling gas for $3.05 up from $2.75 a week ago. Two things that airlines and retail don't like very well – high gasoline prices. Why are oil and gas going up when there seems to be a lot of oil in stock? Is it speculation, fear of war in the ME, desire by environmentalists for higher prices, higher demand from China, or?? Is it an omen of a double dip?
I know and see quite a few of the people who do the work that keeps us fed, builds things, makes things work and am not as doubting about that aspect as you. However, I agree that too many people (most in government and law) who have little understanding about how necessary they are.
Maybe I'm a cockeyed optimist, but I believe that if we can get some more people in the Congress and (eventually) a president who understand these things, the American worker is ready to go back to work and is as competent as ever if the government will get out of the way,
April 11, 2010 - 10:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
18. DesertRiderX
Mr. Hanson,
You've had quite a prolific output the last few weeks, like a man frantically trying to stave off disaster. And the tone of your articles seems at times almost bleak, at times both despairing and sad. I picture the grim and bitter resolve of a determined defender of what he fears may be a lost cause.
You've told us what you're seeing in our country and our culture and warnings of where those trends might lead. But you've not told us where *you* think we're headed, where we will bump ashore.
Where are we headed? What will be our course? Will the American ship of state finally founder on Obama's Socialist Shoals, or will we awaken in time to turn away from that fate? Will we return to what was long the charmed path of American piety, freedom, and innovation? We've had a good run of 200-some years, is this the end, just rocky shallows from now on?
As has been famously said, predictions are difficult, particularly about the future. But now that you've told us what you see and what could happen, I'd appreciate hearing what you think *will* happen and why. We'll accept whatever disclaimers you need to feel absolved of error, but I'm sure many of your readers would love to hear what your crystal ball tells you.
April 11, 2010 - 10:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
19. Thrasymachus
One of the feartures of liberalism is that as much as it is obsessed with establishing and enforcing laws against its opponents by legislation and decision, the laws it doesn't like it simply ignores. This is not only a right but an actual moral duty, as established by Thoreau.
April 11, 2010 - 10:33 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
20. Les Hardie
Dr. Hansen: I and my upscale neighbors are all scofflaws. We live in a village in the Santa Monica mountains just west of Topanga. Most of us are professionals,others academics, scientists, businessmen, some cops and firemen. RE prices are high, but the area is semi-rural—a lot of horses, atvs, trucks, chainsaws. People here are well educated but pride then=mselves on being tougher than city people. Most are still Democrats. But everybody tries to avoid any gov't permitting. The view is that between the county and coastal, nobody can build a dog house, much less a room addition, so f***them and do it anyway. Judges and lawyers do major remodels without permits; pools and spas, sheds and barns, these projects are regularly done subrosa. More than a complete lack of trust that the government will be fair and reasonable, is a belief that govt has no right to tell us what we can and cant do on our property (at least on a small scale). It seems to be a version of "don't tread on me!" It may be the salvation of Ca when those who espouse the regulatory state realize how bad it is in practice, and take real steps to get it off our backs.
April 11, 2010 - 10:39 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
The problem is that those who espouse the regulatory state will never realize how bad it is in practice. When liberal social theories don't work its always because they weren't executed correctly or because of some outside influence. It's never because the theories were wrong-headed or flawed from the outset.
April 12, 2010 - 10:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Mil-tech Bard
The consent of the governed is the cornerstone of American governance. All the legitimacy of American Federal, State and Local government is based upon that compact between the People and the government.
This concept is DNA hard coded into the institutions of American government to include the voluntary compliance system built into the American tax code.
The end result is the price of an unreasonable American government law, regulation or rule "no" is a mass non-compliance "yes".
Both American history and my personal experience has been that American government entities perceived as being unreasonable are the ones which create the most defiance.
Woe to any American government entity that abuses the public's belief in the legitimacy of the laws, regulations and rules passed to govern them, because the voluntary nature of enforcing most US laws means that "The State" lacks the means to face down mass non-compliance.
April 13, 2010 - 7:40 am Link to this Comment | Reply
21. Roga
You may have missed the part of America that I inhabit, along with most of my 20-something friends who worked hard enough in good times, and yes, are fortunate enough, to have jobs. We weren't at the mall on Tuesday. We are working somewhere between 40 and 70 hours a week to help keep our companies afloat, with nothing but the promise of survival and maybe what it means for our equity holdings if we have any to look forward to. We are working to build new industries, putting off having families, cutting back on the finer things despite (for now) steady paychecks. We are paying down our debts as fast as we can.
It is a difficult time, but we are not bitter at that. We are bitter at our parents' generation who squandered the greatest gift ever handed a group of children. We are angry that they have saddled us with the burden of supporting public employee leaches, and bloated entitlement and political classes. We try to start businesses only to have startup funds eaten by lawyers and bureaucrats. We work hard to turn a profit only to watch the government subsidize our competition. We are Hank Reardens for now, but some day we will be John Galts.
April 11, 2010 - 10:47 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Can I get an amen?
I'm still grinding through school, but I live on only half of my total income, the rest gets saved and invested.
For those wondering what I do. I can't work for my father plumbing and still have the time for school, even though he is still teaching me the trade, so I'm a grunt working the 3rd shift at a drug store. Employee by night, student by day.
April 12, 2010 - 8:14 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Larry J
You're following a path to success that many others have used, myself included. It sounds like your parents raised you well. Keep working hard, avoid debt to the degree possible, keep learning marketable skills, and by all means keep your work ethic and you'll do fine.
April 12, 2010 - 2:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
THANK YOU!!!!!!! I'm a 30 something and we just recently had a child. It pains me to see what sort of government he will be forced to deal with. I pray that we are able to raise him right so that he does not become one of those leeches at the mall on Tuesday afternoon when he should be working. And I, like you, am working hard to EARN a living and refusing to take the temporary easy road. I try not to be pessimistic but it is hard when around me are so many leeches and slackers. I can only pray that people like you outnumber those who complain about how poor they are on their cell phone while drinking a latte.
April 12, 2010 - 9:23 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Victor Erimita
An eloquent post. Well said. Unfortunately, if the polls are to be believed, the great majority of the demographic you describe also vote on the "progressive" side. That means you are voting for the redistribution of the fruits of your hard labor, the unsustainable growth of government and government power over every aspect of life, under the happy face slogans of hope and change.
You can blame the Boomers for many sins, but laziness is not one of them. The problem is that those of us who spent our careers working the same hours you describe allowed the statists and extremists to take over the major institutions of the nation, which they now largely control. The Boomers will not take their graying heads out of their nether regions politically, so your generation had better wake up and reclaim the nation.
April 12, 2010 - 11:38 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Adobe Walls
While there is considerable justification for your anger at our generation most of us didn't just decide "the hell with it let's put the left in charge" we were working 50 to 70 hours too. Unfortunately we slept well at night and enjoyed the fruits of our labor secure in the knowledge that we had elected competent statesmen to manage our government. For our lack of attentiveness we and all younger than us are now and will continue to pay the price. That you seem to understand how bad things are indicates an understanding of how much worse things may yet become. If it is not too late to put things right, one hopes enough of your generation will learn from our mistakes.
April 12, 2010 - 5:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
22. Greifer
Yes, the assumed elite has lost all connection with the hardships that keep us out of the jungle.
When do children even see their parents working? Their main jobs are away from home. The laundry is done at the cleaners; the cooking is done by restaurants; the cleaning is done by hired help; the lawn care is done by hired help; the plumbing and electrical work by hired help; the childcare is done by hired help; the car maintenance done by hired help.
All that the elites have is centered on leisure, and all their children understand is the desire for leisure. Their parents have outsourced all of the work of home, even as their employers outsource the work they do away from home.
But now, it is not just the elite who desire only leisure. All classes have this mentality, though the lower classes have not the structure to survive it, and increasingly, neither do the elite.
So the children, even if adults, expect to work only for additional leisure, rather than sustenance. It will be difficult to come back from this brink. I think we've gone too far. Who will rally to fight for a culture where one must endure hardship in order to live?
April 11, 2010 - 10:59 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Most of the children of professionals (considered elite in our rural southern area) are hard workers, even though their parents outsource car repair, yard work, etc. These children are becoming doctors, teachers, medical missionaries, well-drillers, farmers, accountants, medical researchers, mining engineers, owner/manager/waiter/cook of a restaurant, truss manufacturers, bankers, and more. No slackers in the bunch! So perhaps the problem is not that children of the fairly well off rarely see physical labor. Rather, they feel entitled if their parents require very little of them.
Of course, it is also true that most of the folks who do the car repair, housework, and other jobs have children who are friends and classmates of the children of the so-called elite. I guess there is something to be said about real diversity—as opposed to the diversity practiced in Portland.
April 12, 2010 - 6:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply
23. Sonar
"and our assumed elite to read a bit less."
Or read better.April 11, 2010 - 11:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Re: California's highways – I first began traveling to Los Angeles in 1990. Sometimes for a day, or a week, or two months. One of the things that made an impression on me was the highway system in and around L.A. The roadways seemed so pristine and the medians were landscaped with flowering plants. It was about as attractive as you could make a highway.
Recent trips have left an impression as well – one of decay. The roadways themselves are still safe for the time being, but everything around them is in decline. The signs have grime all over them. Weeds grow up between cracks on the side of the road. There is graffiti. And garbage, everywhere garbage. Look to the side of any random road, and someone will have dumped their trash there. It is as if Angelinos no longer give a damn how their city looks.
If not the Third World, it reminded me of trips to Eastern Europe, with once modern infrastructure decaying due to neglect. Of course, at least until the recession Eastern Europe was on the way back up, but it looks like California is passing them headed in the other direction.
April 11, 2010 - 11:04 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
25. genghis khan
all teh government regulation allows teh bureaucrats to discriminate, gives them more power to go after "enemies" and not their "friends"
April 11, 2010 - 11:06 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
26. Dave
There are corrective forces at work. Here in Las Vagas,
81% of mortgages are upside down. Therefore there is no more incessant borrowing against equity and the new concern is how to reduce debt, not expand it.Quoted statistics show credit card debt on the decline with debit card purchases exceeding credit card purchases
at least from time to time.Discretionary miles driven are headed south. New car sales
have plummetted while those shops who keep old ones
running are doing right well.It is only government employees who even think that statism can save them and some of them are even wakening to reality.
The indulgences have the higher profile. However, I daresay the tempering is more potent.
"If the Good Lord Is Willing And The Crick Don't Rise".
April 11, 2010 - 11:10 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
27. Rick Rezabek
Well said as usual Doc.
Same impressions down here in Los Angeles. The citizens seem oblivious to the debt and the refusal of our political class to even recognize the roots of the problem. Plus what will soon be the major impacts on their lives.
I won't shed a tear when I finally leave California.
We obviously aren't in a depression yet, because all of the kids still have their cell phones.
April 11, 2010 - 11:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
28. Robert
A lot of this rings true for me, and it's always a pleasure to read Works and Days.
I'm smack dab in the center of the lost generation — if we can call it that — in my mid-twenties, stuck in a situation that not one person I know in my age group has managed to escape: the absolute paucity of options regarding what to do with our lives and the creeping fear that everything we do, and everything our friends do, is utterly pointless.
We're unemployed, going back or staying in school, working in bars and call centers or squeaking out some discretionary spending with "communications" degrees. Even the ones with the most to show for their few years of adulthood by acquiring master's degrees in reasonable and advanced subjects are treading water.
Some are carrying out crazy schemes, as twenty somethings are prone to do, by moving to places like West Texas to live the authentic life. But I don't suspect political instability or any kind of youth power uprising, yet. It's more a sense of denial that our standard of living is going to be less than our parents. And it isn't discussed, but the fear pervades everywhere and the potential for some kind of radical adjustment is creeping in. I just don't know what form it will take or if it will move anywhere at all.
The radical Marxist left has shown itself to be utterly incapable of making a convincing argument for political action, unlike the 1960s, for a host of reasons I'm sure you're familiar. On the other hand, the most compelling critique of the ruling class for young Americans is coming from the Ron Paul libertarian wing, which I should be happy to see in a Henry David Thoreau or anarchist sort of way but I think is really contemptible in other ways. It has an awful Lindberghian smell to it.
I particularly liked this bit from your blog:
"That is, for a deep recession, there seems to be a lot of young people out on weekdays at about 10 AM at stores, with good clothes and appurtenances, and apparently no substantial incomes. Is this sustainable, this ability to have discretionary spending, while outsourcing housing and food to one's parents?"
Good question! And it is something, isn't it? I could use some new clothes, come to think of it, and it's worth keeping in mind that costs for such items are much less than they used to be, at least from what I've read. Clothing, food and household electronics are cheap. Housing and education debt are not so much. It's worth asking when the education bubble will burst, considering these degrees have been more or less a swindle, while we're expected to pay more without any increase in the quality of what we (our are parents) are buying. Interesting times.
April 11, 2010 - 11:23 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
29. ManekiNeko
Many years ago I was doing job interviews all over the country and noticed that it was possible to get a sense of the local character from overheard conversations.
For example, at a restaurant in Tyson's Corner, VA, near the CIA and Pentagon, a couple of people at the next table were talking about having to pull up sharply at the end of the runway at Edwards AFB in order not to annoy the base commander's wife.
In a restaurant in Montclair (near Berkeley), a woman was arguing with a man about whether he had a soul (or not).
In the Brentwood Mart at the corner of Brentwood and Santa Monica, people were talking about scripts and parts and (movie) deals.
In Silicon Valley, the talk was (and still is) always about computers or other high tech and startups.
I am not entirely sure that one can draw a general conclusion from conversations in Palo Alto and Stanford, which are both not only affluent and part of Silicon Valley, but also islands of elitism for a long time.
April 11, 2010 - 11:33 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
30. David Graham
Yes, thanks, says exactly what I am seeing in WA.
On your note on, if I recall accurately, NRO, asking what accounts for the national "administration"'s (my quotes) "foreign policy" (my quotes), I see it as the second of your four options: racism.
The "greatness of America" we are supposed to "restore" is its Afro-Mohammedan foundation/origin. Paraphrasing Ken Kesey: "Mohammedan African" (NOT Christian or Jewish African) and "Mohammedan" good, everyone else bad. All the countries you name that appear on the new "favored" list are ruled (not governed) by personalities of African or Mohammedan descent, or both.
It's that simple. The central animus of this "administration," its spring of action, is Afro-Mohammedan racism.
Now, Islam is not racist. However, anybody ever found an adherent of Islam? For years I have searched for one, unsuccessfully.
Well, Mohammedanism is racism, and it is the throat of Mohammedanism, not Islam, from which we see eructing the repulsive sounds, sights, affects, stenches and tastes of Mohammedanism. Mohammedanism has stood in for Islam for 1200 years, enslaving humanity through blandishments and murder.
Van Jones and his ilk are SOP in this "administration." One starting with that premise is never surprised or confused by what is happening. Van Jones reflects his master. Racism (black and Arab/Asian brown good, white and Indian brown bad) is the sole motivator of the WH occupiers.
April 11, 2010 - 11:48 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
31. Menlo Bob
As someone who lives in Menlo Park and who participates in those Palo Alto coffee shop discussions Mr. Hansen writes about, I find VDHs analysis interesting to evaluate. Maybe because my formative years were spent in the industrial midwest, and on trips back to that now de-industrialized zone, I can see the two worlds VDH sees. On the one hand everyone is accustomed to visible wealth on the San Francisco Peninsula, on the other those with good jobs find that their pay buys less than the the middle class midwesterner takes for granted. Everyone, it seems, has accomodated themselves to more and settled for less. Each is living in a different America–strangers to one another.
April 12, 2010 - 12:14 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
32. Bridget
As usual, very interesting essay from VDH. His premise that the elite are dis-associated with the practical realities regarding the natural and man-made processes necessary to support their lifestyle and lifeview are spot-on. His observation that the 'recession' is an odd one with regard to true personal deprivation is also interesting. It seems as if some parents and/or their children are wont to allow reality to impede on their fantasies, hence the continuing economic support allowing frivolous consumption to continue unabated. He is right, this is not sustainable over the long haul. And I don't see the government's actions (of which I believe they should cease and desist and allow the market to take care of itself) helping – I see it encouraging this type of behavior. I'm not a history major (engineering is my trade), so Professor Hanson, what happened in history with a situation like this? Is there a solution that's been tried and works?
April 12, 2010 - 12:47 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
33. Pedro
#30- Could you please explain again the difference between Mohammedism and islam? It use to be considered the same religion,or are you saying blacks adopt it for racist reasons?
April 12, 2010 - 12:56 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Pedro it would have to be for RACIST reasons that and uneducated ignorance why else would a Black convert to a religion whose members were the SLAVE MASTERS who sold his forefathers in to slavery in the first place. The White man did not take slavery to Africa nor did he venture in to the interior to take slaves he came to and found it flourishing there. In the African Ports white men bought slaves from the ARAB and BLACK Slave Traders doing as they had done for centuries before the white man arrived arrived. ARABS both prior to and subsequent to Mohammad were the major SLAVE TRADERS in Africa just like they are TODAY selling Black Slaves prior to the white men arriving to the Eastern Asian countries and supplied by the huge BLACK on BLACK slave taking and trading. This went on then just as it STILL does today with both BLACKS and ARABS fully involved just as they ALWAYS were.
But be careful Blacks and left wing PC Islamophile moonbats dont like you telling the TRUTH.
April 12, 2010 - 11:23 am Link to this Comment | Reply
34. Steve MacDonald
As you have written in the past, tax and
regulation avoidance is the norm in Europe. As
California has been in the European mode for
quite some time, what you describe is a logical
California has often lead the country in both
good and bad ways. It appears as though the
state and cities like Los Angeles are going to
implode financially sooner rather than later.
It will be an interesting case study for the
rest of the country – whether it reverts back
to the things that drove the state to greatness,
or evolves into something terrible to
As your Hispanic neighbors would say, vamos a
ver.April 12, 2010 - 1:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
35. KarenT
We live in one of those poorer communities not too far from you. I have visited some of those "compounds" where health and safety regulations seem not to be enforced at all. Many are inhabited by illegal aliens and a few "legal" relatives. Some are inhabited by people at the edges of society for a variety of reasons – the rural equivalent of skid row in the big city.
One answer to your question about whether noncompliance with regulations resulted from too many regulations, or from officials who feel that enforcement of myriad rules would be unfair to, or impossible with, the illegal alien Hispanic community:
Lawrence M. Miller suggested in "Barbarians to Bureaucrats" that organizations and civilizations tend to become less productive, flexible and responsive to change as the members of the organization or civilization feel more secure. This is due largely to the growth of bureaucracy, which leads to an attitude of "aristocracy" with an attendant disregard for reality. The stage is set for that organization or civilization to be taken over by simpler, more robust "barbarians". He does not use the word "barbarian" in a pejorative way. I think that both of your proposed reasons for non-compliance are applicable.
There was a fire at one of those "compounds" with multiple trailers not too long ago, caused by an illegal immigrant who was cooking on his bed, in a tiny trailer, with an electric skillet. The main house was inherited from more industrious ancestors by a black alcoholic who rented rooms to others with similar conditions, as well as to illegal aliens. "Renting a room" did not mean that renters had access to bathroom facilities, running water or heat.
In speaking with police after the fire, I got the feeling that they considered this compound to exist outside the bounds of their jurisdiction, in a way, except in the case of serious incidents such as murder, etc. There were just too many non-compliance issues, and if enforcement became a priority, the government would be saddled with a bunch of new problems: where and how to house the people who were living there, cluttering the jail up with indigent homeowners (who could not pay fines for failing to follow regulations), local Berkeley-educated activists railing about racist persecution of the poor, etc.
So, a different set of standards was informally set up for the residents of this compound: Renters would no longer be allowed by the landlord to cook indoors. This meant frequent cooking fires in a little shack at the street edge of the property. The fire department ignored the stringent rules for fires "in town", but did warn residents not to burn treated wood or non-natural wood products.
Of course, the residents of this particular compound are not the type of "barbarians" who take over entire civilizations. But they are "robust" in the sense that they survive in conditions which many of us would consider unthinkable. And they have successfully lowered the regulatory standards for "civilization" at the edges.
April 12, 2010 - 1:13 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Thank you. Fascinating. You've revealed facts that I am completely sheltered from in my suburban Ohio life.
April 14, 2010 - 11:31 am Link to this Comment | Reply
36. Jonathan Adams
"basic and necessary zoning and health statutes"
This is where you lost me. Because the things you described are SOP in many developed countries that, unbeknownst to most Americans and contrary to their publicized reputation, have been and remain examples of Capitalistic ethic at most levels of life. Taipei has not burned down because of the legal fireworks exploding daily, people aren't dying on a daily basis because someone built an additional apartment on their roof that collapsed, and they have not dropped dead from food-borne illnesses from roadside restaurants, much like you describe, that have been in business for generations.
You assume these things … zoning, restaurant health inspections … are necessary. In so doing, you grant that government intervention and restriction in our lives is proper and appropriate. You abandon that fight, and commit yourself and all the following generations to debating "how much".
Generations fighting the tide, having granted the necessity of the ocean, and now drowning. Is it any surprise that people are choosing to just get out of the water?
April 12, 2010 - 1:50 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
37. Douglas Cohen
People often don't realize that failing to enforce non-essential laws and regulations is the real way government saves for a rainy day. As we have seen all too often over the past decades, it's very difficult for local governments to build up savings accounts the way ordinary people can. It is, however, all too easy for local government to stop enforcing some of its rules, allowing residents to get used to certain types of popular misbehavior. Then, when bad times hit and the government cannot get funds any other way, it will "draw from its bank account" and start enforcing all those rules that its residents routinely violate, collecting massive fines along the way. People will of course respond by starting to obey the rules they used to ignore, so the upsurge in income tends to be a one-time thing (just like you as an individual can withdraw saved money from the bank only once). So, all you Californians, if you want to know which of your many laws and regulations to obey, consider which of them would bring in lots of revenue if suddenly enforced. As a corollary to this observation, note that rules and regulations which cannot be used to bring in money will tend to stop being enforced as a way to control state expenses. In fact, if you think about it, enforcing the criminal law tends to be a net drain on state income because it's expensive to keep convicts in prison — unless of course the authorities decide to hire out their prisoners at a profit. Then the criminal law ends up being enforced with great severity …
April 12, 2010 - 2:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
38. egoist
Interesting field report. Three thoughts:
I like to say, they will control everything until they can control nothing. When the masses ignore the micro-controlling / control-freaks, it sounds like the up side of the down side.
For all of the phony prosperity we see, Ayn Rand's quip: 'it's earlier than you thing' comes to mind. I can't believe we've coasted along this far.
Why are poor Africans [getting] fat too?
April 12, 2010 - 3:21 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Your comment about controlling everything until they control nothing brings to mind the way Sartre's notion of our being responsible for virtually everything our society does (regardless of whether we have any say in it or not) essentially makes the concept of responsibility meaningless.
April 12, 2010 - 5:33 am Link to this Comment | Reply
39. egoist
Rats! 'it's earlier than you think'
April 12, 2010 - 3:22 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
40. Libertyship46
Interesting that you mentioned "The Lost Generation." During the Obamacare railroad, er, I mean "debate," one of the big selling points among the Democrats was that parents could actually keep their kids on their insurance policies until they were 26. Until they're 26??? How is that a benefit? Does the government now expect me to support my kids until THEY have kids? I expect my two kids to not only be employed by 26, but to be well on their way to having their own solid careers and even (dare I say it) living in their own apartments or homes.
When I got out of college in the dark days of 1982, we were also in the midst of a deep recession. All I got from my parents was a slap on the back and a "Good Luck" thumbs-up sign. I was on my own now and had to make my way as best I could. I was actually excited about being on my own because it made me feel independent. Although jobs were very scarce, I eventually found one and made a career for myself. Nobody helped me and nobody was expected to help me. I was an adult now and was expected to fend for myself.
So what happened to today's youth? Are we now expected to raise them, house them, feed them, clothe them, and INSURE them until their 30s? Maybe, just maybe, instead of majoring in "Marketing," "Anthropology," or (God Forbid) pre-law in college, they should find a trade and get a real paying job (like I did). What a bunch of wimps are growing up in this country.
April 12, 2010 - 4:09 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
myth buster
Exactly, when your 26 and able bodied, the only thing acceptable to depend on your parents for is child care. If mom and dad both have to work, the grandparents watch the kids during the day- that's how I was raised until I was 5, which was when my mom was laid off, after which she never held another full time job. The loss of income just wasn't a big enough deal to warrant her finding a new full time job, though she did freelance for a while.
April 12, 2010 - 11:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply
41. Mike Gordon
I'm in Bergen county, New Jersey, a fairly wealthy suburb of NYC and my friends and I have noticed similar trends. Local building inspectors are vicious in their enforcement of small things like fences and sheds when it comes to middle class native born homeowners, but always seems to overlook the single family homes illegally converted into multi-unit apartments. We joke that one way to make an inspector disappear is to inform him that you're illegally renting out you garage to a family of illegals.
Likewise just about all of the local crime seems to be the work of illegals.
April 12, 2010 - 4:11 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
42. Supreme Allied Commander
VDH …you know where it ends. this is the classic case of an unsustainable way of life.
the system will collapse.
it is just a ponzi scheme administered by the government.
since everyone has abdicated their responsibility (and honesty) there will be the Darwinian rules to follow. It always ends up that way, the only question is what will constitute the strongest may differ.
good luck and great writing.
April 12, 2010 - 4:13 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
43. Mike
The problem began in the 70′s with the voluntary de-industrialization of America. The business leaders decided to export jobs for the cheap labor. After a few decades, this constant job loss in industry has gradually reduced the gainfully employed to the point where not enough people can purchase these cheap, foreign goods to keep the economy going. The industrialists have finally put enough people out of work so that there can and will be no recovery. Conditions have been manipulated out of the historical American norm. All Americans do now is flip hamburgers and sue each other.
April 12, 2010 - 4:15 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
And why do you think businesses began exporting jobs? Because it's cheaper than hiring Americans. Why are American workers so expensive? Start looking at the expenses an employer must incur by hiring an American citizen or legal resident. Social Security, Medicare, health insurance, in addition to the higher wages. All government mandates.
This is how the government shields itself from blame. Impose additional costs on businesses, who in turn pass the costs onto the consumers. The consumers only see their prices go up and jobs go overseas, and many do not make the connection that government interference in the market is the culprit.
April 12, 2010 - 10:16 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Larry J
You're right. Don't forget to add in the high corporate taxes (among the highest in the world) and the costs of regulatory compliance from the EPA, OSHA, and a veritable alphabet soup of agencies that impose costs on doing business in America. None of that is cheap or easy and the costs must be passed on to the consumers, further driving up prices. These are "stealth taxes" and by some economists' estimates amount to 40+% of the price of everything we buy.
We then hear complaints about "greedy corporations" but none about the "greedy politicians" that are behind the reduction in America's industrial base.
April 12, 2010 - 11:56 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I'm going to guess that you actually believe this nonsense.
April 12, 2010 - 10:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
myth buster
Of course we believe it, because it's true! Americans are the most productive workers on the planet, but taxes and regulations consume half of our income. Despite this, our manufacturing output peaked not in the 70′s, but in 2007, and it's down today only because of the overall economy.
April 12, 2010 - 11:33 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
I was refering to the:
There are no good jobs left – all Americans do is flip burgers;
April 12, 2010 - 12:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
I was refering to his claims that there are no good jobs left/all that's left is burger flipping nonsense
April 12, 2010 - 12:29 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
You have made an assertion. A snarky one, but an assertion nonetheless. Now let's see you back it up. Or not.
April 12, 2010 - 1:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
44. eon
I have only two comments on Dr. Hansen's (as usual) excellent piece.
1. The primary reason that California's infrastructure is decaying may simply be the ideology of those in charge of it. The three-bong-hit "ecologists" of the trendy left view our civilization as a pox on Holy Mother Gaia, so I'm sure they are perfectly happy to sit back and watch it sink into the dust of history. No roads= no cars= no commerce= no people oppressing the natural world. It's that simple- in their minds.
Yes, they are the ones standing on the railroad track and ignoring the oncoming train called Reality. But remember, they're making us stand there with them.
2. As for the rampant violations of housing and other laws referred to by Dr. Hansen and others, the best observation on that dates back almost four centuries;
Never pass a law that you can not enforce.
-Gustav II Adolph Vasa, King of Sweden (aka Gustavus Adolphus)
clear ether
April 12, 2010 - 4:27 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
45. Akatsukami
I suspect that the non-compliance in "Reversion" is largely due to a "BBSS" (blackmail, bribe, scare, seduce) strategy in dealing with petty bureaucrats. The inspectors of what-all and whichever are largely scared (enforcing codes against the elite threatens their livelihood, against illegals their lives) and occasionally bribed (by "gray market" entrepreneurs). There's also likely an element of modern monarchism in it; like today's constitutional monarch, the inspector is content to wave from the balcony and then retire to a glass of properly-chilled chardonnay, and let someone else deal with the grimy business of actually governing.
April 12, 2010 - 4:32 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Reader, help me here: one of two things seems to be going on. The more a state sets down rules, the more they are simply ignored, to such a degree that basic and necessary zoning and health statutes become more laxly enforced than in red-state, small government cultures.
Or is it that the state regulators feel enforcement of myriad of rules would be unfair to, or impossible with, the illegal alien Hispanic community? I rode by one compound, counted five extraneous homesteads of sorts behind the main frame house, a dozen dogs, and all sorts of illegal wiring schemes — a regulator's dream? My hunch is that the bureaucrat regulator would rather spend time in the Sierra hassling a compliant cabin owner I know for putting on a new metal roof that was without the properly approved tint.
This is the normal progression-of-events on both ends. First, the State's enforcement power is always limited; it simply cannot enforce more than a certain number of rules simultaneously. Second, because of the sociodynamics of that sort of employment, government employees tend to shy away from more difficult chores in favor of less demanding ones, and get away with it; their superiors don't much mind, as it bolsters their case for hiring more subordinates and expanding their budgets: the goal of every ambitions bureaucrat.
Always remember your Cyril Northcote Parkinson:
1. Officials make work for one another;
2. An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals.April 12, 2010 - 4:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Your reference to C. Northcote Parkinson recalls to mind something I read in one of his subsequent books. I'll have to dig it out of storage and find the reference, but, in essence, in a discussion of modern tax rates, Parkinson expressed some astonishment that they were tolerated, and asserted that in the ancient world, when taxes hit something like 10% it tended to spark revolts and revolutions.
April 12, 2010 - 5:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply
47. CatoRenasci
In short, from this week's observations, I think our so-called poor need to read a bit more, and our assumed elite to read a bit less.
The italicized portion of your last sentence is about the only part of your excellent essay I'll quibble with: it's not so much that the elite needs to read less, rather that they need to read different things. The need to read less MoDo, Krugman, and Rich, and more VDH. My experience in academic circles has been that very few typical ivy and public-ivy educated liberals have ever been exposed in a serious way, let alone have ever read, the classics of what is now called 'classical' liberalism (e.g. Montesquieu, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Gibbon, Smith, Mill, the Federalist and anti-Federalist), the classical authors whose works bear on notions of what we now call political philosophy (e.g Aristotle and Thucydides through Cato and Cicero) or Renaissance writers such as the Machiavelli of the Discourses. Even if they're considered well-read, they know only Plato, Rousseau, a little Hegel (but not very much, he's hard) and Marx and, if they know any non-Marxist economics, it's Keynes, who was a statist.
Your point about the elite's disconnection from labor generally and agriculture in particular, reminds me of a point made by a friend who grew up on an almond ranch in Contra Costa county: she'd read a some survey results that showed something like only 1 out of 5 Americans under the age of 25 (?) either knew someone who had lived on a farm or ranch or had ever been on a farm or ranch. The contrast to our youth is striking: while I didn't grow up on a ranch, many of my school friends did, most of my relatives either ranched in Oregon or were involved in vineyards and wineries in California. I spent parts of almost every summer on a ranch or vineyard. I can't say I always really worked, but I sure knew what was involved, starting with the time I was sent out at about 6 with a slightly older cousin to pick the chicken for dinner and wring its neck!
April 12, 2010 - 5:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
48. Byron Dickens
In a country where even the "poor" have things that in most parts of the worls only the wealthiest of the wealthy have, (cars, TVs, running water, etc. )there is no such thing as poverty.
April 12, 2010 - 5:11 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Larry J
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Back in the Great Depression, the humorist Will Rogers stated, "We are the first nation in the history of the world to go to the poor house in an automobile."
Any student of history can see the similarities between then and now, such as during the "Roaring Twenties", there was a tremendous stock market bubble with a lot of people speculating on stocks. The high-tech stocks of the day were "radio stocks", roughly the equivalent of the Internet dot-bomb stocks of the 1990s.
April 12, 2010 - 8:12 am Link to this Comment | Reply
49. Raymond in DC
Jimmy J writes, "I know and see quite a few of the people who do the work that keeps us fed, builds things, makes things work and am not as doubting about that aspect as you. However, I agree that too many people (most in government and law) who have little understanding about how necessary they are."
Indeed, if one focuses on the current Administration, there's hardly a major player that's built a business or run a company. It's mostly politicians and NGO staffers who were trained as lawyers (like the President himself), those well connected to politicos (Jarret, Axelrod, et.al.), and a few linked to Wall Street handling economic matters. None with even small business experience, so they don't know what it means to make a payroll, meet a budget, or deal with regulations.
April 12, 2010 - 5:11 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
50. aloysiusmiller
I spent some time in the Bay area recently. It seemed to me to fit the biblical description of Babylon and not just because of the "lifestyle" issues. I noticed most of all the hostility to the poor. There is no longer any industry of note in northern California. I am told that energy costs and environmentalism make that impossible. So the only jobs for the poor are service sector jobs with no real hierarchy for advancement. San Francisco welcomes in its waiters and busboys daily via BART and sends them back to the Oakland slums at night. The yuppies and liberals of San Francisco grind their boots into the faces of the poor and salve the consciences by voting for Nancy Pelosi.
April 12, 2010 - 5:18 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
51. Ron Kean
The reason we have affluence is competition. Sprint battles with AT&T. GM, Toyota, and used car dealers lower prices to sell. Retail stores run sales. On and on.
Things disappear when the system disallows competition.
April 12, 2010 - 5:22 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
52. America Rising
"Reader, help me here: … The more a state sets down rules, the more they are simply ignored…"
What you described crudely resembles what I observed during the five years I lived in the Philippines as a consultant. In the Philippines there are many, many rules and laws. Taken in total, they are dysfunctional because it is impossible to function, say, as a businessman, and comply with all of the laws. So they are routinely broken and small bribes are paid–as necessary–to purchase an exception from those who are supposed to be enforcing these laws.
To be clear, there are a number of other factors unique to the Philippines that contribute to this state of affairs. And in defense of those state regulators who harass decent citizens: I do not think that they are routinely bribed.
What I do suspect is that the illegals are America's version of France's Islamic "no go zones"; that state regulators are not comfortable enforcing the law against illegals because that kind of enforcement threatens their own career. Or maybe they are afraid that the illegals will retaliate with violence against themselves or their family and they know Americans will not.
Put another way, perhaps enforcing laws only against Americans is physically less threatening to the state regulator.
April 12, 2010 - 5:40 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
53. renminbi
Right on,as usual.One pedantic point:last paragraph-twenty trillion debt-not deficit.
April 12, 2010 - 5:53 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
54. Rhy0lite
Echoing Roga's comment, the Greatest Generation produced a Baby Boom of people who feel entitled to life where everyone is a member of the aristocracy. The generation has lived the good life using the equity of their past, present and future generations: infrastructure built by the past generation, cashflow from their generation and borrowing from future generations. Where did the $20T in debt go? Into Uggs boots and smartphones and HDTVs and BMWs — into conspicuous consumption — even donations to food pantries. Borrowing for current cashflow trickled down into everyone's paycheck instead of investing in the future.
A cynical view would say the U.S. political class knows exactly what they are doing. Companies have become so efficient and automated that they only need a few, extremely bright, well-compensated employees to design the business model and execute the plan. They can hire the educated, white collar laborers anywhere in the world that it is cost effective: India, China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe. The dream of a society where everyone is upper middle class is fading. The U.S. political class is pandering to the largest population group in the U.S., the middle class, to avoid (some would say postpone) social unrest.
April 12, 2010 - 5:55 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
55. ~Paules
What you are describing, dear professor, is a type of decadence not unlike 5th century Rome. You have the same established oligarchy living off the wealth of previous generations. You see a coddled native class content with idleness as long as the state provides bread and circuses. And you have a government willing to allow an alien people (Mexicans instead of Goths) to live within the borders as long as they provide a useful service.
Furthermore, the conditions you describe exist coast to coast. It's as true for Fresno as it is for Santa Fe, New Mexico, or Rockville, Maryland. My mother lives in a retirement community back east where the staff of many hundreds is almost entirely foreign born. Meanwhile, the natives live largely off government subsidy of one form or another. The situation has become an existential condition.
It would appear that the US is no better equipped to defend our borders than Rome was able to maintain her Rhine-Danube frontier. When millions choose to migrate, there is naught a free society can do about it. I guess we're stuck with it unless we can somehow replace our professional political class with bold and imaginative new leaders. I won't hold my breath. The fabric of our republic is being tested. We will know the results soon enough.
April 12, 2010 - 6:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
56. Andrea
The only thing I disagree with is the bit about the tile counters. The grout can get very grungy and unsanitary and is time consuming to clean. Some grouts never come clean. And it's easier to work with dough on a smooth surface than a tiled surface. Not saying granite's the only alternative, of course. I've had tile counters and liked them. They're attractive, stain and heat resistant. But a smooth surface counter is better for food prep.
April 12, 2010 - 6:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
57. pelaut
You only left out two things.
(1) apprentiship legislated away by minimum wage laws that idled teenagers, and now "healthcare" that keeps them that way until they're 26.
(2) John Dewey teachers who've indoctrinated 4 generations with PC/MC and Hegelian cum Marxist relativism.
Having worked since the age of nine, full time since 13 and paying Federal and state taxes, I say let them all bloody starve as they're bringing us down to Mad Max Land.
April 12, 2010 - 6:29 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
58. BogusBob
VDH seems to have described an atmosphere of pure laziness.
April 12, 2010 - 6:51 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
59. Brian
Puts on little Nostradamus hat…
How many have noticed that plants and animals make one last valiant push for survival when ultimately stressed?
This farm of ours is no different.
Not every plant or animal will survive the failure of the farmer who neglects his land. Weeds and scavengers take advantage of neglect but most all families and species save the hardiest die in drought.Lack of proper governance is akin to the farmer turning attention away from the essentials through the assumption of more responsibility than is manageable and/or simple neglect.
We have not yet experienced the real stress of a figurative drought. When – not if – that occurs, those who've prepared may survive but those who've neglected responsibilities in good times surely will not.
There is only one solution:
Tend your immediate local garden and do so in defiance of others who while removed pull you away to address meaningless assignment that confirms their authority elsewhere at the expense of the welfare of you and yours.Do this or collectively we will see the appearance of one last bright bloom before a drought takes us all.
April 12, 2010 - 6:53 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
60. Eugene in Colorado
Boy, nothing like anecdotal stories to soothe the troubled soul when elitist "data" and "facts" can't be manipulated to tell a story obviously written to push an ideological point of view. I see multiple instances of the term "government class", with ensuing assertions as to some sort of "privileged" status – are we putting the cops, firefighters, mailmen, highway workers and all the low-level front desk clerks in this group you're aiming your sneers at as well?
@David Graham – I like your term "Afro-Mohammedan racism" from a purely syntactical point of view. It's a nice way to dress up your obvious resentment at having a person of color in the White House. Perhaps it will become as ubiquitous as the other dehumanizing term used so frequently in this comment thread: "illegals".
There's many complaints about the decline of Californian infrastructure with nary a mention of what most sane people cite as the obvious reasons for the budget crisis: namely, Prop 13. It probably doesn't help that the most powerful union in California, the Prison Guard's Union, has the taxpayer paying to lock up people for life for stealing golf balls.
@Jimmy J: "Anecdotal evidence is often better than reams of data distilled into charts and graphs." Especially when those reams of data overwhelmingly point in the opposite direction as your ideology-driven anecdotal "evidence". You see what you want to see, I suppose.
Here's an idea — maybe we're in decline because the idea that, and I quote, "nothing is more important than cutting taxes in a time of war" combined with two un-budgeted wars and the worst engineering disaster in American history (Katrina), among many, many other boondoggles committed during the first 8 years of the 21st century might have had a *wee* bit to do with the reason the economy stinks.
I guess it's easier to just think that things were just peachy before Obama got elected.
April 12, 2010 - 7:21 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
"I guess it's easier to just think that things were just peachy before Obama got elected."
Around here the Democrats like to blame Jeb Bush for Florida's education problems. And, similar to your observation, it's easier to think that things were just peachy before Jeb! got elected.
April 12, 2010 - 10:02 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
The standard can't of the clueless liberal.
Those who disagree with you are lying, racist, or stupid, if not all of the above.Do you really beleive that the deficit is being caused by the war?
If so, then the stupid one here, is you.
April 12, 2010 - 10:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Typical Boulder attitude,ever been to Canon City?, Penrose? White Enclaves all.California is rife with Unions robbing the working class at the behest of the Gov whom needs the union cash to get reelected,rinse and repeat.What part of Illegal don't you get?It is Illegal to enter the U.S. without permission,Inspectors? ever heard of EarthQuakes? Didn't think so,Tool,
BobApril 12, 2010 - 10:52 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
What's dehumanizing to the word "illegals?"
It is factually accurate.
What words would you propose be used? The misleading term "undocumented immigrants?"
"Undocumented immigrants" implies or gives the false notion that these people are in the United States but just didn't fill out the correct paperwork before they got here.
April 12, 2010 - 11:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Okay, I've got a term: invading hordes
Sounds rather harsh, but so is having a nation overrun by people who use political correctness (rather than guns) to force submission to their demands.
Now hand over your wallet and be quick about it. My new boyfriend (and father of my third out of wedlock child) wants a beer.
April 13, 2010 - 7:27 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Are you trying to claim that things have gotten better since Obama was elected?
April 12, 2010 - 12:30 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Here's a challenging bit of history for you: no nation has ever taxed itself into prosperity. Or liberty, for that matter.
April 12, 2010 - 1:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
61. Carleton
Well said Victor.
The bubbles of ignorance have reached levels where in a depression or even deep recession are mere abstracts. I think though that some of the bobos et al are starting to get a wake up call, I reside here ion San Jose and am in the Hi tech feild, things have been getting are are dicey, their wake up cal will continue, we are in the eye of the economic storm imho. And what comes next when the back end of the hurricane hits well carry flotsam and jetsam ala the Joads and will be worse than what we have seen so far and will reach farther, even into the somnambulistic halls of academia where the wizards of empathy are protected form their latest failure, in short we aint seen nothing yet. And they will take a hit too.
We'll soon test the depth liberalism as to their real propensity to 'give' and partake in the suffering we all deserve, they more so than most. The public dole cannot last forever, they will eat their young before this is all over, bet on it.April 12, 2010 - 7:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
62. Anne
While our friends were going on cruises, buying cars etc…we were paying our house off. We drove the same car for 20 years. Now…we have savings, our home is "ours" not the banks, and we finally got a new used car. Our friends and neighbors? some houses are up for sale, kids are in public schools, one got a geo for $500. One recently moved into a "HUD" house..
The new status symbol??? having your house paid off and no bills…. And yes!!, we do live in a decadent society that can't last..it is imploding daily.
Funny, we got our bills paid off, have what we consider a very good life yet we never read Hobbs, Marx etc… We own a truck shop..nothing fancy..but paid for…good thing we never read all those books I guess. Just hard honest work..
April 12, 2010 - 7:32 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
63. Chester White
You mention Disneyland. I have just returned from Disneyworld for spring break and if Democrats want to claim that people are suffering and doing without, you couldn't demonstrate it there.
The place was jammed. Hotels and nice restaurants full. Someone told me the the Magic Kingdom reached capacity a couple days (I think it's 98000 or so).
Disneyworld is not cheap, and with the dollar stronger, I heard many fewer foreign accents than on previous trips, so it's Americans doing the spending.
April 12, 2010 - 7:35 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
64. Andrew B
Thank you for your article.
Regarding the Lost Generation:
I think one of the issues present is the relative disconnect between training and employment. My friends and relatives who learned a trade (either in or outside of college) seem to be doing okay for employment. Those who pursued the liberal arts or basic sciences have consistently struggled to find work. Although many who have gone to college may benefit personally, colleges and universities have done an abysmal job at preparing their students for actual adulthood. I think what we see are large swaths of people in their 20′s who have no clear idea of what To Do, as in, what sort of work is out there and how to acquire it, since none of their education covers these areas.
April 12, 2010 - 7:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
65. john b
What jumps out at me as I observe society at large is that there is no shame anymore. The non-starving beggars are just one example. The president looks into the camera and lies to America, Congress doesn't even know there is a line, much less when they've crossed it. People twitter, facebook and go on tv to air all their dirty laundry, the dirtier the better. It may get them a reality show if it's really beyond the pale. Shame is a foreign concept to the post WWII generations and that's a shame.
April 12, 2010 - 7:46 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
66. Paul
With regard to you point on the inequality of regulations enforcement…
The people who are easy to find, easy to contact, and have the means to pay are the choicest targets.
That was my experience with ICE, the IRS and the FDA. The ones who play by almost all of the rules and even in good faith on the others are the preferable targets for scrutiny.
Bombarding roadside stands with citations will win no bureaucrat points in the community, and the proprietor will probably ignore the fines anyway. The bureaucrat does not have an incentive unless something bad happens, then has the excuse that these people are transient and hard to locate, even though they've been plopped on that spot for months or years.
But the affluent couple's roof is a problem that requires a nice day out from the office and results in that little bit of masked joy from making someone squirm.
April 12, 2010 - 8:04 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
67. crk
We have bad roads, crumbling infrastructure, and inferior education because we have bad congressmen,and inferior presidents because we have lazy , uninformed, spoiled voters who elect people like themselves. How then can you expect anything different ? In a sense isn't the majority of America standing on street corners with plackards "give me other peoples stuff" for which the politicians accomodate to get votes ? Who will finally be left to pay the politicians to pay for the "entitled" to pay for the votes ?
Immediate answer is to vote out any and all incumbents. Good luck .April 12, 2010 - 8:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
68. Tina Trent
Yesterday, I stood in the grocery store fuming as the woman in front of me wasted my time and my money because she couldn't even be bothered to figure out the three-pronged purchase, you know, W.I.C. for the name-brand juices (why bother with store brands, like I do?) and baby formula; food stamp card for the pile of steaks and individually-wrapped snacks; cash for beer and other extras. Since she couldn't even be bothered to sort out all the largesse being handed to her, she thrust the card and vouchers at the cashier, who had to separate the groceries for her.
Of course, she was extremely obese. Her mother, beside her, was obese. Her baby was obese. We'll be paying for that, too.
The cashier, like many of them, was an elderly woman who surely raised her family and paid her own bills by picking up such physically difficult work throughout her life (it's hard enough standing on your feet at a cash register for hours when you're 18: try it at 60). The cashiers have been strictly warned not to comment on such spectacles of waste, even when other customers mention them — I heard one whispering so to a vocally aggrieved, elderly man. It happens all the time, so it's a constant pressure, a constant tension. A constant betrayal, one might say.
In this town, it's the non-government-subsidized working classes that are really hurting — there isn't much work; there are too many immigrants taking jobs and driving down wages while also living off public assistance. People who are too proud to take government assistance — people like my hairdresser, the guy who mows my lawn — are barely holding on, living with really unbearable uncertainties, though they work hard.
Meanwhile, there are entire neighborhoods enjoying much higher standards of living while doing occasional or no work, availing themselves of free healthcare, free housing, free child care for every child over three (every third business downtown is an "approved pre-K" or government funded universal baby sitting) — the recent immigrants among them earning some cash above or below the table from seasonal work, money that goes back to Mexico or to buy cars and electronics but never for rent once the Section 8/food stamps/child care status is achieved; the non-immigrants doing nothing but partying in the Section 8 enclaves springing up in new-build subdivisions that went belly-up in the housing collapse.
There are very hard workers who are also getting assistance, of course, and many single men getting no help at all. But an aid system designed to address real needs (a system fully endorsed by the growers, who profit directly from it) is increasingly exploited. Why work hard while getting your rent paid? Why not work less, and let the taxpayers cover more and more of your bills? And then even newer arrivals will take up the work in your place. It's a system that requires a continual flow of new immigration, something nobody every talks about — a nobody that definitely includes Florida Republicans, even the highly-touted "reformist" ones.
Lots of hands getting washed at this trough.
Meanwhile, for the savvy, the new "safety net" is a brand new 4/3 with a two-car garage occupied by rotating young moms and their relatives and boyfriends. They'll be trashed beyond repair in a couple of years, and then we'll have to do something about that. Whereas one month of the free rent, or food, or healthcare given every month to the non-productive would literally be life-changing for many of the non-subsidized workers trying to hang on.
Of course, in the grocery store parking lot, the obese woman who couldn't be bothered to figure out how to use her food stamp debit card climbed up into a gleaming Ford Explorer with gold trim. I wonder how much those trim packages cost, let alone the entire, massive SUV. I have no idea. I've never bought a new car.
April 12, 2010 - 8:16 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Supreme Allied Commander
it is called mob rule.
…when politicians mistakenly believe (or in the case of all the branches of this present government who don't care whether they are allowed to or not) they can trample the rights of some to redistribute the wealth of others.
even 50% plus one doesn't allow them to do what they are doing or have done. Supreme court is also at fault for not protecting the constitution.
April 12, 2010 - 10:49 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
You always hope that these sorts of stories aren't true, but sadly they are. I have lived in the "inner-city" since the early 90′s. I have been asked for money by people stepping out of Acuras and using Independence Cards; I always have people offering to sell me their food stamps,the neighbor's television or power tools; I watch people party day and night in Section 8 housing- I watch their kids go unfeed- because no one has time to feed the kids when life is a constant party. It's only going to get worse over the next few years.
April 12, 2010 - 12:10 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
69. James F C
Brilliant, as usual.
Your grassroots, truly and literally down-to-earth, observations are in sync with mine, from close to seventy years of life.
About obesity—the thing to understand is that all you fat people out there (and, as we can all see, you are the mjority, grossly!) are in truth starving.
Eating is basically supposed to be about using combinations of elements for fuel and to rebuild the body–in short, for NUTRITION.
However, just like advertising worked to con most people to smoke cigarettes, and cause ugly and painful cancer in so many, in my parents generation, nowadays the junk food (including most packaged "foods") industry has made obesity the new normal.
The local YMCA that I go to most days is filled with young AND old fat and prematurely aged folks, most distressingly including most of the staff!
It is a sad and depressing state of affairs to regularly see the youngish leaders who are charged with raising the pre-schoolers, especially.
Finally, as is obvious–at least to me—with the election of such a naive fool as Obama, the majority of Americans are as lacking in the healthy "nutrition" in the food for thought dimension.
Talk about psychically undernourished!
How about telling the truth—too many are unwittingly conned to digest the suicide "pill" that the Democratic Party has become, and is shoving down our mental throats!
April 12, 2010 - 8:28 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
70. kmbr
Ironically, amnesty will end it all. The liberal elites believe they will import a permanent voting bloc. Perhaps, that is true. But, as Hanson notes in a round about way, they are also importing in 20 million people who will largely never, ever abide by the European Welfare State way of life. They will go black market, they will set up their own businesses ignoring the nanny state and in some weird twist of fate they may be what helps save us by bring us to Greece a whole lot sooner for the sooner it all collapses the sooner it ends.
April 12, 2010 - 8:41 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Yes…Goths, after pilfering the rotting carcass of the Roman empire, also did a hell of a job defending western europe against Islam. Eventually they took to book learning, trade, and eventually settling a whole other hemisphere.
VDH, though I generally think highly of him and read his weekly offering on PJM, I feel does a disservice contrary to his own central CA upbringing. He needs to balance out his illegal this/that with vignettes of multi-generational middle class Mexican-Americans – they are not much different perhaps less so away from LA county proper.
April 12, 2010 - 11:44 am Link to this Comment | Reply
71. Gylippus
Off topic (but not unrelated…) intriguing VDH article over at The Corner re. The One's approach to foreign policy:
For my part I think it's a combination of B and C only worse. Obama admires and is drawn to authoritarian rulers and regimes because he sees himself as one of them.
April 12, 2010 - 9:01 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
72. M. Report
Wonderful piece of work, and the Essay is not bad :)
Critics might dismiss your observations as anecdotal;
I say they are statistical analysis, done with the
world's most sophisticated computer, on a sample
of sufficient size.Heinlein claimed that one could judge the health
of a society by the cleanliness of public restrooms,
by politeness, and by the fraction of smiling faces.Pournelle predicted/defined/named Abandoned Areas,
free from State bureaucracy, infrastructure support…
and Rule of Law. He had cities in mind, but the concept
applies generally; See contemporary descriptions of
life in Argentina.TPTB seem to have decided that the US has passed the
Point of No Return, and must continue toward whatever
dystopian future awaits; Hopefully, enough Americans
will take exception to this course of action to reverse
that decision.April 12, 2010 - 9:28 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
73. The Fact Folks.
Great Article.
1. There are different kind of men and women these days. I'm only 50 and I recall picking berries and bean. bucking bales, weeding and every imaginable job in my youth.
FOLKS DON'T KNOW SACRAFICE, THRIFT OR MANNERS like they used to. Many men don't know hard physical work (the average age of a video game player is 35).2. Face facts, we are getting closer to not being the white judeo/christian/western society that America was for so long. My wife comes from Indonesia, and there is not a single immigrant from that country I know that thinks America has a poverty problem. They grew up seeing millions of poor on the street and hardly noticed it. The new immigrants to this country have different values, and can-not and will-not adopt the values of a DYING MAJORITY.
3. Folks, get used to it. AMIERIC IS IN decline for you, but not for the NEW AMERICANS. THEY DO NOT KNOW OR DO NOT CARE WHAT AMERICA WAS LIKE IN THE PAST WHEN VDH OR I WAS GROWING UP.
April 12, 2010 - 9:28 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Outstanding point! The 2 to 3 billion in the "developing" world will happily take the worst American job that the welfare class turns its nose up at.
April 12, 2010 - 1:38 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Go back to DU where you belong
"1. There are different kind of men and women these days. I'm only 50 and I recall picking berries and bean. bucking bales, weeding and every imaginable job in my youth.
FOLKS DON'T KNOW SACRAFICE, THRIFT OR MANNERS like they used to. Many men don't know hard physical work (the average age of a video game player is 35)."Since playing video games obviously equates to not knowing what hard labor is. Real fancy logic you've got there. Obviously, it could never be that some people who work hard labor in construction might choose an off-duty hobby that involves getting off of their feet, that wouldn't make any sense at all.
I've heard that illogical stereotyping does wonders for the mind, could you perhaps comment on that?
My apologies for the angry rant, I just get a little sick of this idiotic notion that one of my favorite hobbies somehow means that I'm a lazy fat slob living in my parents basement. Sometimes PJM is absolutely Kos-like in its readership.
April 12, 2010 - 6:14 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
74. Ernst Blofeld
So in what ways has the geography of California changed in the last 30 years?
* Big box stores and shopping centers. Huge shopping centers are near even small towns now. They're pretty polished, but built entirely with private money. The governments love these because of the sales tax revenue generated for the jurisdictions in whose boundaries they fall.
* Huge suburban developments. When you drive up I-5 south of Sacramento now it's just one housing development after another. Much of the roads and infrastructure within the developments themselves was directly funded by developers.
The water and freeway systems are mostly the same. I-5 is still two lanes; I was driving it north of LA this weekend and it's not in very good shape. Originally concrete, it's now heavily patched with asphalt.
I don't see much development of industry. In fact Silicon Valley has lost most of its manufacturing and assembly plants. For a while there was an intermediate step of R&D in the valley and manufacturing out by Sacramento, but that has quickly migrated to other states or eventually China.
April 12, 2010 - 9:38 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
75. George B
The disconnect between people with at least the appearance of being middle-class and real physical work was illustrated by the "Cash for Clunkers" program where many light truck SUVs and pickup trucks were destroyed and replaced with fuel efficient cars. Relatively well off people accepted government money to destroy functional work vehicles instead of selling them to the working class. Paying money to destroy trucks is just wrong on so many levels.
Recession signs are relatively subtle here in North Texas. I see some empty parking lots as I drive around, a tell-tail sign that commercial real estate is sitting unused. The woman who cuts my hair says business is down as people stretch out the time between haircuts. My neighbor's son has moved into a room converted from half of the garage. New home construction is way down and I see fewer Mexicans on a day-to-day basis. Asking a stranger "What do you do?" can be an awkward way to start a conversation. Unemployed friends have been busy doing long overdue home repairs.
One bright spot in this part of the country has been work to extract natural gas from shale. Frustrating to see an energy crunch comming in the next few years as China's economy grows. Other parts of the US could replicate this energy sector activity if government and enviromental lawyer red tape was reduced.
April 12, 2010 - 9:42 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
76. Cornhead
1. Why did the US allow all these illegal immigrants into the United States?
2. Why can't we deport them?
Essay in last Saturday's WSJ noted over 200,000 arrests in the Douglas, AZ region over a very short period of time. This is the area where the rancher was murdered.
3. I don't get this at all: why don't we *DO* something about this?
April 12, 2010 - 9:44 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
If we got radical about the illegals…then the dems could not depend on their votes..seriously..
April 12, 2010 - 6:04 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
77. Anonymous
"and saving gasoline by shifting to neutral and gliding to stops or on the downhill"
Doesn't everyone do that?
April 12, 2010 - 10:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
78. J.E. Dyer
Incisive observations, as always, Professor. There are other parts of California worth mentioning, though, and in mine there seems to be what I can only call a real soul-searching going on.
Much of the "Inland Empire," between LA and Palm Springs, is inhabited by the hardest-working middle class of California. You can live here and not feel like it's a whole other planet. This area has been one of the hardest hit by the housing crash, principally because there was so much new construction in the last 10 years. Thousands of people in the area bought at the market's peak and are now struggling, with lost jobs and failed businesses, to make mortgage payments on houses they can't sell.
But things do change here. People who lived here 20 years ago wouldn't even recognize my town: it has changed so much in the last 10. New roads laid, new stores and shopping centers built, freeways widened, limited-access thruways built that didn't even exist before. Now, the change continues. Major chain stores close. Local businesses close. People aren't shopping! Even my local Wal-Mart is retrenching. The shelves are less stocked, and the displays in the center aisles have all been removed over the last month. You can actually push a cart through them now without running into fellow shoppers. That's also partly because there are fewer fellow shoppers.
I have noticed a change in my neighborhood, a middle class enclave that has mainly done OK during the housing bust. Some of my neighbors have had tense times trying to hang onto their homes. None that I know of has turned to the government for assistance. They work multiple jobs, sell things off, work out tide-over loans with family members. I've noticed fewer people out puttering around in the front yard, stopping to wave and talk. The neighborhood is very quiet, in a way it didn't use to be. Evenings used to be a time when everyone would be out watching the kids play, chatting, planting, playing the radio, working on cars. Now the lights are on inside and, by a seeming tacit consent, WE are all inside, families being with each other, looking hunkered down — at least, those who are at home, and not off working their second or third jobs.
The day before Easter this year I was out for errands. I was discouraged to have to be so, because the day before Easter is usually a madhouse on the roads of exurban southern California. But this year I was stunned to a marveling silence by how quiet the roads were. It was a beautiful sunny day, but few people were out. It was almost like Christmas Day. Where I did see people was at the Catholic churches that have Saturday mass. As on Easter morning itself, that's where the people were. I did notice that the auto repair shops looked very busy. (This reminded me that the dealer where I had been having my Xterra serviced had gone out of business.)
Down here, it looks to me like a whole lot of people realize things have changed and they need to make changes themselves. This makes them, for now, less likely to shop, go to movies, buy tickets to sports events. They are shopping for the kids and for small appliances at Salvation Army now; and a new Goodwill store opened here just a few weeks ago. Buying new cars has virtually stopped. The last big locally-owned electronics store went out of business months ago.
This all gives me hope, because the evidence is of people using judgment and a responsible attitude about their lives. There are parts of America — of California — where it's like too many people (and their governments) are marching toward the cliff because they don't even seem to realize they need to make a change. LA proper would be one of those areas, along with much of the Bay area. But get outside of LA in Orange, Ventura, Riverside counties, and you find the middle class people of California who are probably the most like the rest of America of anyone in the state. They have an ingrained sense of the necessity of paying their own freight, as citizens and human beings. They have a sense for the scope of that effort; they KNOW what level of hard work, sacrifice, cooperation, and goodwill makes their lives possible.
These are the people who know what civilization takes and how to maintain it. These are the ones: the ones who don't end up living in beached house trailers with cords running to pilfered electrical outlets, but who also don't sit on University Avenue eating $20 Greek salad, blithely unaware that a whole army of others in the "real world" is propping them up. They exist. They are here in California. And believe me, Professor, they aren't at the mall at 10:00 AM. They aren't shopping.
April 12, 2010 - 10:23 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
Lovely piece. Sobering, but leavened with optimism. Thank you.
April 14, 2010 - 4:10 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
79. Habu
What we can expect in terms of dollar purchasing power going forward? Much of the answer centers on the continuing argument over the direction of money: deflation /inflation. One thing is certain. A collapse of the financial system is already baked into the cake, that train has left the station, and a dozen more trite but true metaphors. What the inflation/deflation debate seems to boil down to is what Congress, the Fed and the administration will do going forward and that's not looking good. Greenspan already said he pooh poohed in his pants in dreaming up his calculations and oops, there went all our money.
It is clear that we are currently in a broader deflationary trend. This is evidenced by what happened with the stock market crash, including commodity prices like oil, copper and even gold, in late 2008 through early 2009. Because of that gold is now THE place to be. Credit collapsed during this time period – across the board. Essentially, bad debts were being cleared out of the system, just as they should have been. In March of 2009, the Fed and Congress began pumping trillions of dollar into the system in the form of bailouts, stimulus packages, and buyer incentives. This put a floor on the deflationary impact across all asset classes and led to a manufactured (read false) rise in those asset classes (inflationary) from March 2009 through today.
If the powers that be were to pull all stimulus and monetary expansion right now, it is evident what would happen to all asset classes, save precious metals; a re-collapse in values. Thus, the future is going to be dependent on what Congress and the Fed do going forward which is to continue printing fiat money with absolutely NO escape from the eventual hyperinflation that will follow and the Mother of all Depressions.
When the SHTF people get very irrational and they are no longer driven by logic, but rather, fear. When the system was on "the brink", as suggested by then Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson, Congress acted out of fear of the potential for "martial law" across America if the system collapsed, and thus the trillions in spending was justified, which turned out to be exactly the WRONG thing to do …bankruptcy laws could have handled the situation much more efficiently from a legal and monetary standpoint, saving the taxpayer his life savings. Now they want your 401K money. If we were to see a relapse in the housing meltdown and a crash in stock markets, those in charge may very well respond irrationally and do what they did in 2008. Keynesians believe, after all, that the reason the Great Depression of the 1930's wasn't prevented is because we failed to spend enough money. This time around obama will print.print,print….visualize chaos.
The long-term position in terms of money? In the short and long term the cake is baked. Expect inflation, hyperinflation from now on: expect a significant rise in your cost of living, especially related to commodity driven prices like gas, food and electricity. And do not expect wages to keep up with rising prices, meaning that as prices in essential goods go up, your wages will not keep up, meaning that over time, you will get poorer and societal breakdown will occur.
We've seen the best days. Prepare to eat your neighbor or be eaten.Can't afford gold or silver..but nickels. the melt value is 122% of the face value….http://www.coinflation.com/….not a bad return.
April 12, 2010 - 10:38 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
80. Mike Sheard
I spent four hours yesterday mowing, roto-tilling and getting a mower un-stuck on our land… came in to the house and told my wife "this is why farmers don't need treadmills and Totalgyms!"
Ultimately, our problems are moral. The C.S. Lewis quote "we laugh at honor and are suprised to find barbarians in our midst" comes to mind. I noticed in the last few months more traffic on our way to church. I hope it is more people going to church and seeking guidance to live the kinds of lives that are honorable.
April 12, 2010 - 10:51 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
81. Charlie Martin
It would be unwise to question Dr Hanson's observations, but some of the inferences he draws are, I think, mistaken. As an example, he makes the point that it cost him $40 to buy a used black and white 19 inch TV in graduate school, and compares that with modern TVs. However, that $40 in 1975 (picked as the middle of the mid-70′s) is, inflated to today's prices, about $160 (see the convenient inflation calculator here) and a quick look on Craiglist reveals a new-in-box 19 inch LCD color TV for $169.
Going the other way, it wasn't uncommon at all for working-class families to buy a $500 "console" TV in 1975 — thank goodness, as that's how my family made a living. Inflation-adjusted, that's roughly $2000 in today's dollars, and that will indeed buy a new 52 inch flat-screen TV from Amazon. Of course, a $500 console TV in 1975 was a color 27 inch screen.
The point is that for those of us reaching the "get off my lawn" stage of our lives, it's sometimes useful to really look carefully at whether things really were that much different in our youth.
April 12, 2010 - 10:59 am Link to this Comment | Reply-
George Best
This is so true. A top of the line available TV 35 years ago might cost 500…now the equivalent is a 60 inch flat screen with a better picture for 2000. In inflation terms, not much change in cost. Technology just makes the level of enjoyment better.
Just like with cars or other modern appliances. Saying someone is not having a hard time because they have a cell phone is like saying someone who had running water 100 years ago was rich. It is all relevant to the time you are in and life always improves even if you are poor when compared to the poor of prior generations.
We need to fix our way of life when it comes to following morals and the rule of law. We let people get away with too much and it is snowballing to where we cant fix it and ultimately there will be no law when it comes to business and living day to day.
April 13, 2010 - 11:17 am Link to this Comment | Reply
82. 438miler
It's the dystopian vision of Wells…..Eloi and Morlocks – turns out Wells was right after all…..
April 12, 2010 - 11:27 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
83. Ron Robinson
VDH – Help from the reader: It's both over(impossible)regulation and true the fact that the guy in the Sierra can afford compliance. Combined with the fact that the guy in the Sierra is less inclined to pick up a ball bat or a 2×4. He has more to lose. The folks in the extraneous households (alas) probably are not unfamiliar with a short stay in the slammer.
The real bite these days is coming from the middle. One little story from my own business is illustrative: we operate an ecommerce system that folks can hook up to their web site easily with a copy/paste operation. Lately, we have seen more merchants decide they do not want to continue our service after the free trial period. In several instances, I went to look at their web site and learned that they were already hooked up admirably to our shopping cart and had their online ordering system working perfectly. Yet they cancelled the service and disabled their ordering system.
I asked some questions. Many feel highly discouraged by the compliance environment combined with the uphill battle for sales and profit. The 'politically correct' solar project that can't get built here in CA because of compliance. As VDH would know well, the proposed EPA restriction on farming operations raising dust. Cap and trade. Involuntary 'unionization' of home care givers and day care center operators. Tax increases expected in a time of recession. The water situation in the central valley. Quite simply, in many states, business is seen by the state as a cow to be milked (or BBQ'd) rather than a resource to be treasured. CA would rather see tax revenue depart than threaten a fish. Par.
I was recently in a compliance conversation with two different CA agencies. The sound of their disappointment was palpable over the phone when I told them that we could keep the conversation pretty short because our firm had departed to domicile in another state. I didn't need to say any more – they both volunteered that they had been hearing that a lot.
Who can comply? Some just give up. Or depart.
April 12, 2010 - 12:00 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
84. Tina Trent
70 KMBR: "amnesty will end it all . . . importing in 20 million people who will largely never, ever abide by the European Welfare State way of life."
I'm sorry, KMBR, but have you ever worked as a grocery cashier processing food stamps? Have you ever walked into a public health office? Ever look at your county's expenditures on "free day care" or your congressional district's expenditures on Head Start? Ever check out the annual state distribution budget for Section 8, or any of the FDA or USDA housing subsidy expenditures? Ever check out a social security office, or any of the (often quite posh) public-private community outreach facilities dedicated to funneling government benefits to certain populations with no pesky waiting in lines with the rest of the community? Ever even see a welfare/W.I.C. office waiting room?
Never, ever abide by the "European Welfare State" way of life? You're kidding, right?
April 12, 2010 - 12:05 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I believe that KMBR was identifying the European welfare state model with welfare recipients who accept their checks with servile grins, as distinct from accepting their checks and then beating to death the Anglo who went into the barrio to distribute them.
April 13, 2010 - 3:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply
85. Douglas
The poor fat people kind of reminded me of what happened yesterday to me. As my wife and I were leaving church, and morbidly obese black lady asked it I would give her a ride to another church. Now, my wife is very disabled, but despite this, I decided to try and put my wife in the back seat of my truck and let the woman stuff herself into my passenger seat. The first thing she did when we got in was ask me if I would take her to the nearest store and buy her 3 ice cream sandwiches. I did so and dropped her off at the next church. Sucker!!! is all I could think. Next week, I will drive my little truck and no rides.
April 12, 2010 - 12:46 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
86. BNote
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
And we will be more likely to actually enjoy what we truly have gained by setting our priorities rightly.April 12, 2010 - 1:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
87. Ivanhoe
What we are witnessing is the slow decline and likely implosion of the Republic in the next decade; maybe sooner. A society that takes a simple document like the Constitution and adds tens of thousands of regulations at the Federal level, and thousands more at the state and local levels are asking for widespread non-compliance and explosive growth of the parasite class of non-productive entities like lawyers, lobbyists and government employees; exactly what we have seen in the last half-century. The growth industry of tax avoidance is predictable and confirmation that citizens, at least the shrinking group that still pays taxes, feel that their taxes are too high and very likely misspent.
What is unfolding is a slow-motion rebellion against both parties which, with a couple notable exceptions, are represented by committed Statists who do little but increase the power, reach and confiscatory practices of the Parasite on the Potomac. The Republicans are little better than the Democrats, as witnessed by both parties dismal poll results, and much of the public is in an angry mood because it is slowly dawning on them that the spendathon is over and they, or their grandchildren, are being stuck with the bill. While much of this anger could rightly be directed at the person in the mirror, it will be turned on the state and how that anger manifests itself is yet to be seen. If we are lucky, a boisterous and contentious series of elections will return true fiscal conservatives to power who have the backing of a sobered public for balanced budgets, and a pay-as-you go creed that will hopefully result in a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. If we are not so lucky and the welfare class, which includes many soon-to-be furloughed "public servants" starts burning cities down, and keep in mind we live in a nation where blocks are burned when a sport team loses, or wins for that matter, then something truly ugly this way comes.April 12, 2010 - 1:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
88. Poor Citizen
It appears that california is doing ok. My midwest hometown was hit with a real punch, hence, many people already left, or are leaving for other parts of the country as they do every twenty years or so when its bust time. As I said previously, it appears the economic recession appears to have been stabilized but many believe we are not yet out of the woods. Like everyone else, I continue to hope that things get better. Great article, thanks.
April 12, 2010 - 1:14 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
89. Cybergeezer
Mr. Hanson, I do like your perspectives.
These conditions have been cultivating for decades. I have witnessed them in Hialeah, Florida. Other parts of Miami, and South Florida, have been transformed in the same manner.
If, like in California and other border states, this non-sustainable symbiosis continues, the U.S. could look like Israel, where you have modern development covering many square miles; Then you have cardboard huts, with no electric, water, or sanitation facilities, surrounding a minaret, that have a new Nissan Maxima in every parking spot; With the inhabitants all having the latest cell phone technology.
Seems like good material for a novel about the next holocaust.
And, by the way; There are web cams for places like South Beach and Key West where you can witness the patrons and their pot bellies. No knowledge of any in Hialeah, or Little Havana, but I will let you know if I discover any.April 12, 2010 - 1:40 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
I thought pot bellies were Verboten in Key West and South Beach. At least the black beans and arroz blanco in FL are not the death trap that corn tortillas, arrachera (skirt steak) and refried beans are in the SW and the Mexo diaspora.
Has no one raised the alarms you raised because the Hispanos in Florida are nominal Republicans (i dindnt see a single Rubio sign or bumper sticker, weird)? While I feel a thousand times more safe in Dade County than in CA, I do feel there is a "chinga" business ethos at play, based on the dread I have renting cars out of MIA and whatever BS charges, fees, or upgrades I'll need. Orlando is a paradise compared to Miami.
April 12, 2010 - 6:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
90. Ellendra
"(yes, I know the liberal critique that they have capital and education to shop for expensive healthier fruits and vegetables while the poor and neglected must turn to fast food, coke, and pop tarts)"
That assumption is one of my pet peeves. For the price of a 2 piece chicken dinner at KFC, I could get a hot rotisserie chicken at the grocery store, plus a loaf of fresh-baked italian bread and a couple cans of green beans. A healthy meal for 4. Or, I could get enough canned soups, the hearty kind with meat and veggies, to have one each for lunch and dinner for several days. A week if they're on sale.
It's not money or education. It's about making choices.
April 12, 2010 - 1:56 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
91. The Ould Sportsman
It seems obvious to me.
We need a Constitutional Amendment limiting ALL government spending to not more than 10% GDP previous year.
As well, taxes must be limited in the same way-not more than 10% PREVIOUS' YEARS' GDP.
Also, we must have Term Limits for ALL Government Employees.
And, rules preventing cronyism and nepotism which runs rampant across all layers of Federal, State, and Municipal government.
Government work should follow the model of Jury Duty. Low pay, no benefits, and everyone trying to get out of it.
Compulsory service-two years- upon completion of high school-either in military, or as orderlies and nurses' aids in nursing homes or hospitals.
Then, we need to round up all the bums and welfare porch monkeys and build large industrial grade treadmills upon which they will march all day in return for a baloney sandwich and a glass of milk.
Last, de-regulate health care and enact tort reformApril 12, 2010 - 2:29 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
92. Sulla
Dear VDH, when I read ". . . basic and necessary zoning and health statutes . . ." you revealed a Scandinavian heritage for orderliness and an old liberal devotion to affluent middle class values. Have you not realized that permit fees have become sources of revenue for local government? If you would please consult with the Fresno County public works office to find out how many fees you would have to pay in order to rebuild your farm from scratch, you would realize that your ancestors succeeded only because they built their farm before the fee schedule was instituted. Moreover, by county ordinance for the poor the fees may be deferred until the sale of the property — which is one reason why poor housing is allowed to slide: there is no immediate revenue in it.
If you think of the State or nation as a passenger ship, what you experienced is as if you were checking out the different decks. First and second class passengers still have it pretty good compared to those in steerage who are standing in deeper and deeper water.
April 12, 2010 - 2:44 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
93. Dr. T
"… Is this sustainable, this ability to have discretionary spending, while outsourcing housing and food to one's parents?…"
For now. It partly explains this important statistic from George Will's recent column: 48% of US residents who are over 55 but not yet retired have savings and investments (including pension plans and IRAs) of less than $50,000. These millions of people are going to be in for a shock when they discover that Social Security payments won't come close to meeting their expenses. They've invested in their children, but not in their retirements. Few adult children will tighten their belts enough to give their parents $10,000 or more a year so they can maintain their pre-retirement lifestyles. Therefore, we soon will have millions of middle class retirees who will have to endure a lower class lifestyle for the rest of their lives. Their screaming for bigger benefits will be deafening, and this will occur while the Social Security Ponzi scheme is having to draw funds from general tax revenues (because FICA withholdings will not suffice unless the withholding rates skyrocket).
April 12, 2010 - 3:41 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
94. Matt the Engineer
I think the disconect came when we went from "earning money" to "making money". I'm not sure when that happened, but it is almost certain to correct itself.
I understand the notion of wealth creation as an American Ideal, and I agree with the philosophy that all gains are rooted in production…I just don't see much.
April 12, 2010 - 4:17 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
95. Dwight
I'm all for chain saws, roto-tillers, cutting your own firewood and lawn, burning the former and saving the clippings of the latter for the compost pile, but Americans of all classes and all political persuasions have garbage disposalls and send their table scraps off to the local sewage treatment plant along with all the sewage and heavy metals. Of course, given what has been said about obesity, maybe they and not the garbage disposall are eating it all. Most people have someone haul their lawn clippings away or dispose them off-property. This general wastefulness in the name of saving time, using our 21st century benefits blah, blah is just as much a righty thing as a lefty thing. It does not prove that the Republic will fall tomorrow, but just that people have lost touch with the land, conserving stuff, hunting, gardening etc.
I admire Palin's sense of using the land to support one's diet and way of life, but not her way of talking like a hick. Can't one know how to skin a caribou and still be able to speak BBC English? Are the two mutually exclusive?
April 12, 2010 - 4:31 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Matt the Engineer
As an Alaskan that took 4 caribou last year…I assure you that we can speak appropriate English…although perhaps not the BBC variety…
April 13, 2010 - 9:42 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
Ferenc D.
People who are bothered by speech patterns and can't concentrate on the message, the substance, deserve Obama as their ruler. If form ("Hope and Change" on the one hand; talking like a hick on the other) can beguile you to ignore the truth (the hammer and sickle on the one hand; one of the greatest since Reagan on the other), then enjoy the fruits of it. But then don't go complaining you got a choice between RINOs and full-fledged Marxists in Beltway.
April 13, 2010 - 1:46 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
96. Alana
I think you are looking at the wrong group/s, Dr. Hanson, or at least leaving one out.
There is the hard-working middle class group which receives no aid from anyone for anything. And can't afford wide-screen TV's, GPS's, or anything else.
We're hoping to hold on to the lives we've managed to build up, before they are totally redistributed from us, and before the taxes hit us, and before we lose our medical care.
April 12, 2010 - 4:34 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
97. Banned by Huffpo
I'm a "boomer", and in our office we have two early-twenties women. They work as hard as anyone and are going to school at night to finish their degrees.
They both come from two-parent homes; their parent's are employed. Draw your own conclusions.
But you know, those two hard-working young women are the ones that I look at and feel a tremendous sense of sadness.
This used to be a great country. I'm afraid it's too late. Too late.
April 12, 2010 - 4:52 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
98. glenn
My dad used to say that when people were off the farm or out of the factory for 3 generations they lost all their common sense. California is proof Dad was right. Nothing like having to water the beans to make you understand reality. Or maybe better not watering the beans and losing the crop. Then you will REALLY understand.
April 12, 2010 - 4:56 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
99. skeeziks
Yeh, thigns ARE changing . . .
'A new Military Times survey finds that fewer American troops identify as Republicans. According to the survey of 1,800 troops released on Monday, the number of active service members self-identifying as Republican has fallen by one-third since 2004, with 9 percent of that drop-off occurring in the last year."
April 12, 2010 - 5:59 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Just Passing Through
Here, let me finsih that up for you. I'll use the article from the Navy Times that gives more information than what HuffPo thinks skeeziks should know:
"An exclusive survey of some 1,800 active-duty troops shows the percentage of self-identified Republicans has decreased by one-third since 2004, from 60 percent to 41 percent, while the percentage of self-identified independents has nearly doubled to 32 percent during the same period."
Let's see what this means. Prior to 2004, 60 percent of those responding would have self-identified as republicans, and approx 16 percent as independents.
It's now 41 percent republican, and 32 percent independent. That leaves 25 percent split between democrat and didn't answer. An increase of 2-3 percent.
Guess who went up skeeziks? Self identified democrat or didn't answer? have to subscribe to Navy Times to find out. HuffPo ain't gonna tell you. (Hint: Wasn't democrat).
Not so good for the dems, but hey, just pick and choose what you release to the skeeziks types and launch them. It's not like they have reputations to lose.
Now, is this good for republicans? Not on the surface considering straight party affiliation. But independents place their votes based on whether they identify as conservative or liberal.
A bit more from the Navy Times article:
"These career-oriented officers and mid-grade and senior enlisted members are still far more conservative than liberal, but they are less likely today to identify with the GOP, the survey shows."
So…skeeziks. Would you have us believe that these folks are going to support liberal policies with their civil vote?
Moving on:
"Much of the shift appears to have occurred only very recently, with the percentage of troops identifying themselves as Republican dropping nine percentage points from 2008 to 2009 and the percentage of those calling themselves independents increasing 10 points over the same period."
To address skeeziks' claim, the shift of 9 percent occurred in the 2008/2009 timeframe. Not quite 'in the last year', but I suppose it's just a small error in framing. After all, it's HuffPo manipulating their typical HuffPo audience, of which skeeziks is a card carrying member, that we're talking about here. There's no need for accuracy with that audience.
And the implications? The majority of the shift from republican to independent occurred between 2004 and 2008. The majority of the increase in independent occurred after that time period.
Do you ever expend even momentary cogitation on the implications of what you post, skeeziks?
April 13, 2010 - 10:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply
100. Voyager
When I was filling out my first tax return after moving to LA, I was flabbergasted to find out that can returns were counted as income. I mentioned it to one of the people I worked with at the time, and their response was, "Wait, you actually filled that out?" It have never even occurred to me not to.
When regulations become sufficiently onerous, people stop following them.
Me, I stopped recycling can's and bottles. The hassle of keeping receipts and the fun of audits just isn't worth the occasional $5.
April 12, 2010 - 7:13 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
101. G.L. Alston
VDH — read your article then the commentary. Seems to me that most of the observations are somewhat incorrect.
When I first moved to the central valley in the 70′s many of the residents of the outlying towns worked union cannery jobs during the season and collected unemployment teh rest of the year. Stanislaus county was called "santa claus" county because of the ease of collecting welfare. Lots of welfar there. Unemployment even then was always high when canning season was over, at least 12% and typically up to 20%.
A false boom hit that part of the central valley in the 80′s when people figured out they could commute to the bay area for jobs that paid enough to live on. The population boomed from 80k to 200k in 15 years, most of the increase coming from bay area refugees (e.g. everything from silicon valley people to east bay truck drivers) looking for an affordable place to live. This is who owns the fancy cars, the people spending 60-70 hrs a week commuting to the bay (75 miles each way, every day.) Typically they have the commuter beater and the fancy car.
There's nothing new in your report; it's the same as it has been but with fewer big paying jobs and more people trying to get by on central valley wages after they lose their bay area job.
April 12, 2010 - 7:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
April 12, 2010 - 7:38 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Do you think when The Won goes back to Kenya, he'll take his supporters along…you remember, the 'messiah' who headed down to green Guyana to live among the flowers and pretty birds…?
Makes sense to me.
April 13, 2010 - 7:10 am Link to this Comment | Reply
103. Jerry
As some posters have noted, non-compliance with thousands of regulations will become the norm in America.
1) If 60 cents of every dollar goes to the government, then any dollar earned in the underground economy will be worth 2.5 times as much. That is, if you earn forty cents on the dollar, then a "free dollar" is worth forty cents times 2.5.
2) In order to earn a full dollar under full taxation (60 percent is full taxation), then a person must earn $2.40.
3) To bring home $1400 per month, one would have to earn $3500. That is how much my mother-in-law at age 91 gets from the government (Social Security) for free – $1400. So, to earn $16,800 a year, one would need a job paying $42,000 per year.
4) But to earn a real, post-tax $3500 per month, one would have to have a job that paid $8,750 per month or $105,000 per year.
Now someone could say that only the richest people will be taxed at 60%. However, taxes to the federal government are only part of the tax burden. Please include sales tax, state and local taxes, real estate taxes, and inflation. Sales and sin taxes are regressive, so the poorest people pay more of their disposable income.
Yes, 60% seems to be about right – rich or poor – for the poor who earn enough to pay taxes, 15% federal tax, 5% state tax and 40% of remaining income for regressive taxes.
Now, the American people are smarter than we think. For every rise in taxes, more methods of earning untaxed dollar will be devised – barter, cash, and criminal activity will look more juicy than simply working for a living. Mr. Obama, by outlawing profits, will create the same situation in America when alcohol was banned by the Constitution. Instead of bootlegged moonshine there will be bootlegged money. Thus, Mr. Obama will singlehandedly save capitalism, since no matter how hard he tries, he will not be able to put 10-30 percent of the country in jail.
April 12, 2010 - 7:53 pm Link to this Comment | Reply-
Government action in America is going to create a burgeoning black market.
In other countries, the U.S. dollar was the currency of trade; In America it might be the Euro.
There has been an underground economy in America for longer than I can estimate. And it continues to flourished on the immigrant network.April 13, 2010 - 6:06 am Link to this Comment | Reply
104. Charles Gordon
Patience! It took 70 years of Soviet collectivism to collapse its peasant society forever enduring a punishing climate. Even Saint Petersburg overcame Leningrad.
In our dynamic connected society near the culmination of union-engineered deindustrialization, our own collectivist rulers will only take a few more years to push a majority of states to re-assert their 10th Amendment prerogative to govern in accordance with their original Constitutional authority that has been usurped by the federal bureaucracy.
We too shall prevail over our historic first Islamic apostate president's attempt to change our capital into Obamabad.
April 12, 2010 - 9:40 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
105. Holdfast
For what it is worth, the womens' husbands probably work 16 hours a day in Silicon Valley and understandably don't want to add excess time to the commute.
April 13, 2010 - 5:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
106. Cybergeezer
After a work life spanning 46 years, I retired. Combining government service with public sector employment gives me a comfortable retirement income.
I tell people that want to retire, that for practice, try living on half your income for at least six months. That's what it will be like in retirement for most.
Health care could be an IED for people retiring from here on out.
For me, I would get out of America and retire in a foreign country. Your chances of a peaceful retirement and pleasant living is better in other countries; And your retirement income will be welcome there. And actually, this has been true for decades.April 13, 2010 - 5:59 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
107. George Best
Any society that does not require all people to abide by the same rules is doomed to failure. Our problems will only get worse until the illegal immigration problem is solved and our welfare handouts are drastically reduced.
You cannot have people coming to this country illegally and working. They work cheaper because they dont have to follow the rules of the country. Whether its working under the table, building without permits, or whatever, they drive down wages and those that follow the rules cannot compete and their will to work turns them into 10am mall rats.
On the other side is the citizenry that lives in public housing getting checks for numerous reasons while those that work are taxed more and more. That has to be fixed.
The end result of this problem is the same as it was 20-30 years ago we just see it more now days because information and communication is much more available. The problem gets worse because the population of these illegals and welfare recipients is increasing and the majority does not want to to say anything for fear of being labled and eliteist.
Once the problems are solved, capitalism will thrive.
April 13, 2010 - 8:41 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
108. Nick B
Guilty as charged. Can I get that latte to go? I'm late for yoga class and my girlfriend's bookclub needs me to pick up some Spanish wine.
April 13, 2010 - 10:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
109. Robert Winkler Burke
Great article, Dr. Hanson.
I pose this question to you and your readers: How can progressive socialists learn to accept and love and defend the Western Enlightenment "tragic view" of life and liberty, as known by we who subscribe to your thoughts?
Your thoughts appear to us to be our thoughts, and we believe them to be Our Founding Father's thoughts, and the advanced thoughts of our heros of Greek/Jewish/Gothic-Christian books, history and uplift against ancient mystic tyranny.
We believe students can know and learn this, even at colleges at Hillsdale. Yes?
But we believe a progressive/liberal candidate for US Supreme Court Justice, will forever stay socialist and forever will vote on the bench of the Supreme Court as a change-agent for socialist/Marxist/communist rule of their beloved mystic tyranny.
My question is this: How in the hell do people learn to overtly love and defend freedom and not covertly love and defend demagogic hidden slavery of socialism/Marxism/communism?
Yes, we who were exposed to classic education believe in limited government and maximum personal liberty, and its requisite mutual dedication to self-restraint. We believe in Natural Rights of man, that these rights are inalienable. And that man grants a limited government over himself to protect those rights.
But good God Almighty! How do we believe others can disavow their firmly-held mindset that the USA must become the greatest, biggest, most powerful socialist/Marxist/Communist country the universe has ever seen?
How, can these minds, which we believe to be wrong, be changed? How can New York ever become un-socialist/Marxist/Communist? How can Illinois ever become un-socialist/Marxist/Communist? How can California ever become anything but a socialist/Marxist/Communist hell hole?
For one hundred years the elitists have desired unquestioned power over our Founding Documents, Precepts and Defenses against mystic tyranny. The mystic tyrants have what they want. How can their minds ever be changed?
April 13, 2010 - 11:38 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
110. Number Six
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship." ~ attribution in dispute (Tytler, Gibbon or de Tocqueville)
April 13, 2010 - 1:23 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
Your article reminds me of this quote I love:
"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." — John W. Gardner, Saturday Evening Post, December 1, 1962
In other words not every man has equal intelligence. All have equal dignity if they comport themselves in a dignified manner. We owe the maintenance of our civilization (and it takes a lot of maintaining) to our plumbers and garbage men. We owe the advances to our scientists and engineers. What we must never forget is that we are all in this together. The man/woman who is respectful and contributes deserves our respect without qualification. The financial trader or the clerk at the grocery store.April 13, 2010 - 1:54 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
112. Anonymous
"Reader, help me here: one of two things seems to be going on. The more a state sets down rules, the more they are simply ignored, to such a degree that basic and necessary zoning and health statutes become more laxly enforced than in red-state, small government cultures."
That's the dirty little secret. If we chased the illegals out who would be left to do the stuff we won't do? Haven't been into a Whole Foods lately but I'm guessing it isn't staffed by high school kids trying to earn a little extra money. Not that we can blame the illegals for being happy to come here and do the work.
40 years ago the good life in Palo alto was a 1500 sq ft Eichler, a dad working for Philco, Varian or…, a mom that was home tending to her kids, 1 car, a simple supermarket with modest but healthy food. Mom and Dad still put up fruit because their depression era sense of thrift wouldn't allow them to let the apricots on the back yard tree go to waste. A teenager who wanted spending money worked at the gas station, ice cream parlor, Emporium, etc. There were plenty of decent jobs after high school that would allow you to earn a decent living even if you had to move to Sunnyvale, Cupertino or worse yet Milpitas. As much as Palo Alto likes to celebrate it's roots as ground zero for the counterculture, there were still many Palo Alto sons who answered Uncle Sam's call to arms in Viet Nam. Indeed, places like Fresno and Bakersfield suffered disproportionately more than Palo Alto and Berkeley. Would should not forget their sacrifice.
So lets legalize dope so we are all too stoned to worry about? The illegals will still be there at McDonald's when you get the munchies…
April 13, 2010 - 3:14 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
113. WinSol
Very much enjoyed your article VDH as I always do!
Having been born in 1960, I now realize I'm forever in the shadow of the older liberal BB'ers, who've never been able to sit down & shut up since their radical days. They're now in all levels of government and education. It's no wonder they have deaf ears, why start listening now?
Isn't there a country song "They got the mine. We got the shaft?"
My city has grown like mad in the past 15 yrs, Now I see lots of vacant real estate, major malls going bankrupt, closing strip-center stores, 'devolving' if you will. This was all built by way-too-cheap-money, on entirely too-rosy forecasts,as was entire areas of the economy. Few saw the signs that the music had stopped and there was a shortage of chairs. Now that those sources have dried up, it's shrinking (and cracking) quickly.
A few years ago I saw this picture in my minds eye where things were beginning to retract, malls close, restaurants close, small businesses close, etc. and yet from the manufactured world of TV/media, it was as if nothing had changed! They were still promoting cars at 0%, no money down, the latest cell phone service, the latest real estate development, the latest gadget you HAD to have to still be cool, the latest e-tainment news, ever increasing portions/deals/promotions at some fast-food place, etc. The media-machine was still mindlessly running, full blast.
In other words, there'd been a Great Divorce from reality. Those who had drunk deeply from the cup of consumerism, easy credit and entitlement and very poor education regarding how-things-work have been left trying to make sense of a foreign tongue they've never heard before.
What a narcissistic age we live in.
April 13, 2010 - 3:24 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
114. Cal Patriot
In the same way that the fat, slovenly, mindless "poor," "middle" and "rich" waddle thru Wal-mart looking for a new piece of Chinese junk to throw away next week; the fat, slovenly, mindless politicians eyeball us for new and "improved" ways to bring about taxation without representation. This can't end well for America.
April 13, 2010 - 10:09 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
115. Jake-the-Rake
The Mexicans are making the kids, believing in God and doing the dirty work. Demography is destiny. America has choked on her own abortico-calvino-enlightenment consumerism. Extremely efficient, wonderfully propserous… but a severe case of poverty in riches.
VIVA the low-no-entry barriers of those restaurants with real people cooking and A MUERTE all those crappy American "You're-luvin'-it / Have-it-your-way" franchises.
In the former you can walk in and sing and maybe even sneak a smoke and you can flirt. In the latter you'd be promptly escorted to the door and charged with harassment.
The former is Distributive Capitalism, the latter is plutocracy with coast-to-coast commercials done up in jungly-bingly have-a-nice-day voices… while their workers are paid so low they need foodstamps to feed their children.
In the former makeshift kitchens the workers will learn about grub, in the latter one can work a lifetime and only learn how to dish out flash-frozen "stuff" designed and marketed from distant skyscrapers faster.
America is a mess. She needs what she now pretends to loathe. The gringos will put their elderly into homes, but those poor buggers from the south will have grandfathers and grandmothers passing on love and stories to grandchildren. They still sing and dance and have big fiestas crowded with family members. They still have life and not system. They are a mess, illiterate and illegal and no doubt big hypocrites, but they're alive, deeply immersed in the passion of life… and because of this, they will prevail.
April 14, 2010 - 1:33 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
116. Ron Kean
I had a friend from China. He came over many years ago. His family started poor $1.00=100Yen.
He went to OU in Norman and when he saw students angry that they had no place to park their 442 Oldsmobiles he was amazed. In China, a 30 year old was proud to afford a bicycle.
After that he convinced me that we have no conception of other people's money.
April 14, 2010 - 12:06 pm Link to this Comment | Reply -
117. Ron Kean
Thank you for saying what you did in rebuttal to Roger Cohen's piece in the NYT.
April 15, 2010 - 8:59 am Link to this Comment | Reply -
118. Marino
Easy answer to your Q doc. Mark Steyn nailed it today re; the Brits. The statists (in this case code enforcement officials) pick the low fruit. Much easier to enforce a code on people who won't fire a gun at you, will likely show up in court or city hall, and will likely pay the fine and comply.
Why risk being shot at by people who will like take your citation, hrow it on the fire and move up the road for new digs.
In short, they have given up.
April 15, 2010 - 6:32 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
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