To:Bobby Yellin who wrote (108) From: Pete Young Saturday, Jun 21, 1997 2:03 AM Respond to of 79910
I just think we are killing the middle class...I see so many stores closing,streets getting dirtier,homeless people sleeping out at night, restaurants that are not upscale empty,clothes stores that are not bargain basement or upscale..empty and closing..doesn't look like we are in boom times..a lot of stressed faces... Bobby, I have to agree, if these are boom times, then I hate to see what recessionary, or God forbid, depressionary times look like. The way I see it, we are entering a time much like that at the turn of the century, when mass production was supplanting craftsmanship, and flooding the markets with cheap goods. Wages were low, and worker rights (the future consumers) were nonexistent. Today, we have an absolute flood of desperate Third world workers willing to apply themselves to any kind of job for any kind of wage. Intel's little chips are supplanting people at all levels, from the blue collar worker replaced by the microcontroller on the factory floor to the engineer taken out by Cadence's fine EDA software. These two factors are contributing to our greatest danger: deflation (not inflation!). (The PPI has just declined for 5 straight months, first time since 1952.) An overabundance of goods and services chasing too few dollars is what caused the deflation of the 1920's. I don't see any easing of these factors, technology will keep increasing productivity, and capital will continue to chase the lowest labor costs around the globe ...or at least until the political situation in the industrial democracies turns strongly negative against free trade (it's already happening---consider the Religious right's first-ever opposition of China's MFN status; economic arguments of the constituency being cloaked in religious persecution rhetoric, and look at the historically high, and unsustainable levels of unemployment in Europe.) Remember that it was the Congressional move to restrict trade that was faulted with starting the avalanche we call the Great Depression.
The news (corporate controlled) is full of "happy face" stories, but isn't covering the tremors in the Western societies that warn of the coming earthquake. People are throwing their retirement money at the great ponzi game on Wall Street, because they know what the news isn't reporting: better make it now, because the music is stopping on the great Occidental high standard of living. When the S hits the F, there's going to be alot of former cheerleaders turn quite bitter and negative. Currently, the vast majority of American's who aren't on the Wall Street bandwagon, who are in fact in debt up to their eyeballs, are being completely ignored--but they will be soon joined by their "smarter" brothers and sisters who are fully invested. No, depression, or just market decline ain't going to be particularly fun, late 20th century style.
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