I thought I was done with this subject after writing about how voluntary transactions (cooperation) build our wealth and allow us to fulfill our needs, and then about how government overriding these voluntary transactions and replacing them with politically motivated edicts eventually erodes society as government ignores its ‘core’ functions and focuses instead on graft-rich opportunities.
But my brain won’t be quiet about the topic, and I know that writing it down is the only way to finally shut it up, so today let’s talk about how the house of cards comes crumbling down (typically crushing the little people in the process).
For a quick refresher, let’s look at our hierarchy of needs pyramid:
It’s pretty simple: Basic needs come first, and as we move up the pyramid, we get to more intangible desires and benefits.
A society’s wealth (or economy, or market) works sort of the same way. On the bottom we have essential industries (not as defined by government), and as we “move up” the wealth pyramid we see businesses that cater to providing treats (Starbucks) or completely UN-essential (luxury) services (doggie massage).
Historically, market-based economies are the only ones that progress to this “luxury” level of wealth — because centrally planned economies are too busy trying to figure out how to plan building the base of their pyramid. Indeed, I might even argue that “The American Dream” involves simply being able to do whatever you CHOOSE to do instead of what government (or natural conditions) demand of you. Our society has amassed so much wealth through our voluntary cooperation that people spend $10 per cupcake for a baby shower. We built a mighty economic pyramid.
But then government went and printed trillions of dollars (mostly handed out to their buddies, as usual), told people that it was illegal to go to work, shut down the schools, and assumed the authority to demand we all walk around in masks. (That — surprise!! — don’t actually work again)
Then instead of dealing with the problems arising from those missteps, the Biden administration focused on “diversity” and created an incompetent mish-mash of “experts” who don’t even know how to do their jobs!
Joe Rogan describes the situation perfectly:
Now our strong economic pyramid looks more like a Jenga tower, and it starts to wobble. Prices rise and people re-work their budgets. Logically, they do this by removing the “top” parts of their personal budget pyramid first. (Perhaps by eliminating Fluffy’s massages or by unsubscribing to a Substack writer who offers all his content for free.) When enough customers forgo luxury products in order to concentrate on the “base” of their pyramid, these luxury businesses disappear.
Of course, these “luxury” businesses are essential to the people who work at them. When their place of work closes, they have less disposable income and maybe have to sacrifice expenses in the middle of their pyramid (occasional treats such as Starbucks), causing these types of businesses to close and furthering the downward spiral as more people try to fill fewer available jobs.
This crumbling of our economic pyramid is exacerbated when government ignores its core function (protecting our rights) and focuses on feel-good terms such as “equity” while allowing criminals to run rampant through a city.
When your residents aren’t safe to shop or work, you become a low-trust society and it’s impossible to build upon your pyramid — in fact your pyramid will contract (down to nothing if you allow it).
This type of stuff is happening up and down the west coast (and in Chicago), but instead of dealing with the serious problems facing Portland, Clown World governments fund Clown World “solutions”.
Or my favorite example:
My guess is that nobody’s done a study on the effects of second-hand fentanyl smoke on public transit because YOU’D HAVE TO BE INSANE TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO SMOKE FENTANYL ON PUBLIC TRANSIT. This is the problem to fix, before the city looks like this (we’re already halfway there):
And while the collapse is going to be bad enough, it’s likely necessary in the long-term that it happen and we contract back to our “real” economy. The bigger issue will come when government attempts to “fix” the collapse — likely by doubling down on the very policies that caused the problem in the first place. Cheap money fresh from the printer caused banks to lend to never-profitable endeavors and now they’re broke? No problem! Government will simply bypass the laws and take over First Republic Bank and sell the assets to JPMorgan Chase (while splitting the banks liabilities) — and we can already see the effect on the market:
The silver lining (if there is one) is that the wobbling Jenga tower is going to topple over on the big (blue) cities first — after all, they’re barely hanging on as it is — and when the cities fall apart, government will be forced to seriously reverse course before everything is burned to the ground by the people who have proven they’re willing to burn shit to the ground.
If even Oregon can learn, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us.
Bonus Bonnie! She was so close to coming inside!
I don't think Oregon "learned", it just got its hand slapped for once. I'll believe they've learned when they actually arrest people and keep them in prison after the next riots.
Well I survived the MLK shoot. One of the few white families in a predominate black neighborhood. To be fair I was 7 maybe 8 years old. I survived the 1970s when we started changing from a diverse economy (manufacturing, agricultural, blue collar, white collar) survived the 1980s, music and I suppose the drugs were great then the recession hit, followed by a couple of banks collapsing, and housing taking a dive. The 1990s how fast can you go, burn out, change to computers, said computers will rule the world, got married, banks collapse, the financial markets get really shaky. Greece anyone? Years 2000-2010 move from the Baltimore city to Baltimore county. Eventually move to central Texas, small no name town, deal with corrupt police,find grocery store, drive 45 minutes to an hour to get to a better grocery store. Hullablue about the library. No one wants it shut down, but due to the cost of the lawsuit itself we may have to close the library. Still surviving, and wishing I could pull the plug on the massive amount of stupidity, no such luck. Just asking when does this stop, I really am tired of all this crap.