It’s not that they’re strip mining it because the value proposition isn’t there. Generations past, towards the end of the guilded age, we saw that the wealthy could meaningfully invest in and elevate society and still be fabulously wealthy. We see as much in the modern day with McKenzie Scott. It’s more that ripping out the plumbing and wiring is quick and easy, and that’s all anybody cares to do anymore. Why make $100 in ten years when I could make $3 right now? This is the natural and probable outcome of the way we’ve allowed our economic system to run, especially but not exclusively since Reagan embraced supply side economics and rejected the Great Society view of America. It’s a race to the bottom, and always has been. That’s what’s always been lurking under the “bring manufacturing back from China” narratives, since Chinese factories have such fabulous features as unknown chemicals that make you just drop dead sometimes (electronics manufacturing), on-site bunk houses, and suicide nets.
The empire’s been slowly eroding since the Vietnam war, and especially since the end of the cold war was apparent. It finally ran out of other places to fuck up for cheap gains, and it’s turned in on itself to try and keep those cheap gains coming. We all know you can’t survive, let alone thrive, by eating your own flesh, but the wealthy are all so goddamn short sighted that they’re quite happy to try feudalism part 2: surveillance state boogaloo.
The thing that kills me is that we were the wealthiest nation on earth, we had it all, we could have had an absolutely outrageous standard of living for everyone in terms of healthcare, education, scientific advancement for the benefit of all mankind, etc. and we literally blew all of it out of our ass blowing up brown people and giving it away to like ten of the wealthiest people. It’s such a disappointment to think of what could have been.
It’s not that they’re strip mining it because the value proposition isn’t there. Generations past, towards the end of the guilded age, we saw that the wealthy could meaningfully invest in and elevate society and still be fabulously wealthy. We see as much in the modern day with McKenzie Scott. It’s more that ripping out the plumbing and wiring is quick and easy, and that’s all anybody cares to do anymore. Why make $100 in ten years when I could make $3 right now? This is the natural and probable outcome of the way we’ve allowed our economic system to run, especially but not exclusively since Reagan embraced supply side economics and rejected the Great Society view of America. It’s a race to the bottom, and always has been. That’s what’s always been lurking under the “bring manufacturing back from China” narratives, since Chinese factories have such fabulous features as unknown chemicals that make you just drop dead sometimes (electronics manufacturing), on-site bunk houses, and suicide nets.
The empire’s been slowly eroding since the Vietnam war, and especially since the end of the cold war was apparent. It finally ran out of other places to fuck up for cheap gains, and it’s turned in on itself to try and keep those cheap gains coming. We all know you can’t survive, let alone thrive, by eating your own flesh, but the wealthy are all so goddamn short sighted that they’re quite happy to try feudalism part 2: surveillance state boogaloo.
The thing that kills me is that we were the wealthiest nation on earth, we had it all, we could have had an absolutely outrageous standard of living for everyone in terms of healthcare, education, scientific advancement for the benefit of all mankind, etc. and we literally blew all of it out of our ass blowing up brown people and giving it away to like ten of the wealthiest people. It’s such a disappointment to think of what could have been.