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Belle Époque
One's a recovering alcoholic who still drinks wine "responsibly" and dreams of starting her own late-night breakfast joint to capitalize on college students' midnight munchies. The other's a Cleveland transplant who "just wanted to move" and now dreams of nothing because the cost of living, and particularly the cost of housing, is considerably more onerous here than it is in the rust belt.
Those are real bios gleaned from four hours of downtown restaurant-hopping on a perfectly delightful weeke
I recall that uncomfortable feeling visiting poorer nations in the 1980s. Embarrassed by my good fortune to have been born in the USA in good enough circumstances.
Your piece suggests that I can expect to experience that once again here in the USA.
Sadly, in our country that will fuel resentment against immigrants and foreigners (read China) rather than the US companies which denuded large areas of the country of decently well-paying jobs on the altar of the sacrosanct “shareholder returns”.
Great piece. I live in a college town, though this lord wouldn’t mind schlepping food to college kids for a little spice in his life. Software has lost its cerebral luster.
Is it possible that lowering interest rates reduces the spending of the people in the upper part of our K-shaped economy (because excess cash/savings earns less) and, even though lower interest rates would help the people in the lower part of our K-shaped economy; when we combine the impact of lower rates on both parts of the K-shaped economy, it is a net reduction to economic spending?
H-Man, the rise and fall of a civilization can be especially depressing when you are talking about your civilization rather than the Greeks, Egyptians or the Romans.
If the masses could ever get organized with the proverbial pitchforks and torches, there would be one hell of a reckoning.
Years ago, in the late 80s, I was just starting out in college. Reagan was President (obviously) and he had a schtick about welfare queens. I was working the bar in a restaurant not dissimilar to the two that H visited. At the time, 18-year olds could serve liquor. I got into a discussion with a single male, middle-aged patron with some means. H in the late ‘80s if you well. We were discussing the wealth gap and bifurcation of the haves and have-nots back then. I was somewhat precocious politically for my age.
I was buying the Reagan line about people living off the government and how they were a drag on the “producers”. The patron laughed. He said, “Son, welfare isn’t for the people that are on it. It’s for the rich so the poor don’t rebel against the system.” For some reason, it really stuck with me. Genuinely my first experience as to things are not always as they seem.
Is there a real leader for this group? Perhaps Bernie was. I view him as dangerous, but he seems genuine. Hillary, the DMC, and Biden screwed him. It’s not Ms. Harris. She will not take up the cause with any seriousness. Trump is a fake populist (as discussed regularly here). Perhaps Senator Warren, but her time is passed and it’s hard to take anyone seriously who “earned” $350,000 for one class.
One way or the other, it’s coming. Either politically with a strong leader (as yet unknown) or violently. Timing is unclear, but it’s coming.