Some scary statistics for you, regarding the subprime auto lending "bubble."the average loan-to-value ratio of a used car loan had reached 137 percent – and was even higher for subprime borrowers – meaning that many used car buyers were likely “underwater” on their loans from day one. In the first three quarters of 2016, nearly one-third of all vehicles traded in were worth less than the outstanding value of the loan, a new record.
ORLY. Our "economy" right now is Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. the Nifty Fifty was bad enough. We've got the Jive Five. The US has 1.2 trillion in car loans, compared to fourteen trillion in mortgage debt. Only about two percent of mortgages went into foreclosure in 2008, but it caused 1.5 trillion dollars worth of writedowns. The disgusting thing is that the business model is predicated on getting blood out of a stone. The retail apocalypse is upon us. Housing is insane (and the only way you can participate is to live the fuck and gone away from where you work, and for that you need a car). Healthcare keeps getting more expensive, the opioid epidemic now kills more people than AIDS did at its peak, college has never been more expensive, protections against predatory diploma mills have been rolled back and tone deaf shit like this washes over my transom: The beach. The BEACH. You mutherfucker. They aren't going to the beach, they're going to Thug's Island.Third, we should keep in mind that the current situation of rising delinquencies, record incentives for new car purchases, and falling used car prices is emerging at a time when the economy is otherwise doing well.
“Technological Unemployment,” in the extreme, is the scenario in which we humans are relegated to the beach while machines do all the work for us. The distribution of wealth across society could well become even more uneven given rising polarization between the “capital owners” and everyone else. This is a grim scenario for Main Street, and it would pose significant challenges – not only economic but also political and social.
Your comment on technological unemployment reminds me of the first scenes of The Grapes Of Wrath (I've only seen the movie) where a former sharecropper is operating the farm equipment that made sharecroppers unnecessary, homeless and without means to earn an income.
The better off, AKA we have 2K in cash so we can afford to move and hope to get welfare and a $300/month shitty apartment, are moving to the midwest and getting roped into heroin and meth. How fucked are we that living in a homeless camp in the Los Angeles river is a step up for a good chunk of the country? And how fucking tone deaf and out of touch are these idiots? I mean I live in Banjostan so I know my world view is skewed hell to sideways, but geez.The beach. The BEACH. You mutherfucker. They aren't going to the beach, they're going to Thug's Island.
I've got a friend in his 50s whose lifestyle is dependent on regular cash infusions from his parents. I've got neighbors that are living 6 adults and 1 kid in 1300 square feet. We've got friends who bought a house a little bigger than ours, a little nicer, and we don't talk about the "uncle" (roommate) who lives in the basement. I think if you know someone somewhere you can lean on for a while, you make that jump. You move back in with the parents. You rely on someone more stable. But if you don't know anyone in Banjostan, far better to be dependent on the social safety net in blue country than in red. "The future is already here - it's just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson Thug's Island is at least 22 years old. I've seen it burn twice. It's hard to imagine it once had a population of "a dozen" - that section of the river probably has 40 people in it.
I had a neat talk with someone today. They life in a multi-generational household. This used to be the norm in the world until the industrial revolution. Grandparents, parents and kids all under the same roof. The way we are set up now with the zoning laws et. al. I don't think you could go back to this mode of living. And maybe we lost something when we moved off this model. (Says the guy who moved 2000 miles from his parents)I've got neighbors that are living 6 adults and 1 kid in 1300 square feet.
I am legitimately looking at houses that have space for my mother-in-law. And father-in-law, when he's in town... but I think she's going to need more work. For the record, the mortality rate of children in European cities prior to the French Revolution was on the order of 60%.
You know what they call live-in grandparents now a days? Free Day Care. Then you add in the SSI they get and you have a full time live in caretaker who helps out around the house while mom and dad work. The infant mortality rate in the USA in the 1930's was 50% or so. In 1930 alone there were 140,000 or so registered deaths of infants under 1 year of age. Vaccinations, hospital births, and better nutrition ended that nightmare.For the record, the mortality rate of children in European cities prior to the French Revolution was on the order of 60%.