The Owl of Minerva

The US "won" WW2, then the cold war which gave the government and corporations several decades to grow without challenge, which is demonstrated by the level of debt in the country--the debt to GDP ratio was about 30% in 1980, but it's over 130% today. This indebtedness is reflected in every level of society from individual households to corporations and institutions like colleges and universities.

At the same time, the US shifted jobs and production overseas, and individuals outsourced more and more basic life skills. These strategies, by the way, are very similar to going into debt. It's essentially extracting as much wealth as possible in the present. When credit is "free" it makes sense to live like that. There's no point in saving at 0%, really. In fact the "crisis after crisis" scenario is inevitable when credit is "free". It allows for more and more spending and elaborate schemes where the "elite" mafiosi can extract as much wealth as possible in the present.

The problem with this scenario is there are limited resources. It's not possible to live like kings, and undertake every possible plan, like building "green energy" infrastructure, plus put 35% of kids through school to get PhDs in every field, plus have welfare programs, a giant military, etc...

I think what's happening right now is the top of the pyramid is trying to prioritize resources, but within the framework of unlimited credit and endless money. The woman I wrote about in prior posts with $250k in student loan debt is the poster child of this moment. She is currently in a PhD program, by the way, which is hilarious. She'll be able to dig her hole deeper and get more worthless credentials, but she'll never be able to buy a house or own a car. There will be unlimited credits for buying corporate produced bug paste, or for more vaccines, but hardly anyone will be able to buy a car.

The "elites" will keep partying as hard as ever, own mansions, yachts and helicopters and will throw truckloads of money at artwork and whores, and will push their pet projects forward. It's just the USSR over again. They imagine they can keep extracting wealth from a pyramid of slave serfs with no middle class. Good luck with that, scumbags!

This scheme will not "work" for long, if at all. I wrote about this in several posts. The elites are under the delusion that they are the innovators--like Al Gore "invented the Internet"--they are parasites and con men. I am not sure why anyone believes any of those people or their lackeys on any subject anymore. It's infantile. When the system kills the incentive to work, the system will die. There won't be robots to take over or third world slaves to do the work anymore.

I think the people who make it through the next 20 years or so will be in a completely different world than today, and it will be more 19th century than sci-fi new Atlantis.