Rosy Outlook of 1% Delusion

This county economic forecast article is a nice view from the parallel universe of 1% spin: “the economy is doing just fine”, “the future is looking bright”, crazy high Sonoma County COL is OK because it is less than SF. “Time to get some new hotels, folks”; yeah right, that’s all we need is more tourists to bunger up our towns and drive up prices even more. What do more hotels do but make those with the most $ win the Monopoly game? One house on Connecticut Ave; you lose.

Anyone heard of GHG tipping point? Anyone really care? No, the future is looking so bright! Yes tourism is booming, and with still no one daring to say anything honest about true costs or Triple Bottom Line sustainability downsides. We’re enveloped in a rosy haze.

“…the county is in the 95th percentile of counties in the nation in terms of wage growth”, that out of a pitiful national stagnation of wages. What good does a stat like this do the many people run out of town and into garages for high rents and low wages? No, that wealth will trickle down one of these days, even as the modern-day serfs, refugees and immigrants trickle out somewhere else to find a hoped-for healthy landing spot in our benign world order.

Oh, and there’s no bubble forming? Anyone can see inflated pressure trends everywhere. Don’t we ever learn from last bubble popping? I guess not, the allure and intoxication of wine and money drives the relapse of delusional thinking as common sense. Just one more shot of heroin and then I’ll quit…. Real planning ahead that includes interests of the 99%?, living within our collective means?, carrying capacity?, the sharing that we learned in kindergarten? sorry that would be too much to ask, too much.

Folks, we are seeing a near complete sell out with no meaningful cautions or reckoning of risks. Talk like mine is dismissed into a black hole as sour grapes “vilification”. There’s nothing legit in challenging all the rosy talk. C’mon Fred, drink the Kool Aid, get you a Stepford Wife.

This whole rosy outlook counter-intuitive spiel asserts everything is great, so those at the levers of power can convince themselves that news from ivory tower 1% justifers stands as an accurate forecast for the rest of us 99% of citizens. News for our reps: wake up; this is not the world of your rank and file. This article recaps nicely how the far right simply lives in a bubble of its own news regardless of facts, and then our “left” reps gobble it up as truth? Is this a Halloween horror hoax?  Are we not in one of the bluest most liberal regions of the country? What happened?

But don’t worry if we are seeing the greatest inequity ever, and that college debt is obscene; four year college for $150,000 is “the best investment you will ever make,” to graduate from a for-profit school with $30,000 in debt to never get a decent job. This is totally worth it folks. This great job driving system will be paying our Baby Boom Social Security checks. Rosy Delusion all the way I’ll say!

It is Silicon Valley that is driving our insane regional gentrification, and now we want to get more of them up here to complete the process of driving all the locals and modern slaves to Lake County and American Canyon? The message to the county: take care of business fat cats better, (“the critical challenge”) so they will want to stay, even while you can’t do jack sh_t about affordable housing, living wage, honest sustainability or anything else that really matters to the 99% for who this article stands as entire PR spin BS.

Get Silicon Valley up here; give the bleeding treatment to the serfs another time, maybe they’ll finally get better. Can’t figure out why the bleeding doesn’t work….

The rosy econ narrative is Bass Akwards from how the 99% see the world. Moral is to do right, right up front. An emergent property of invisible hand-guided public good somehow comes out of aggregate selfishness? That’s off to see the Wizard kind of thinking. I’ll hang my hat with the Pope and the Dalai Lama for what is moral and right in today’ economy.

This perfumed-up rosy story is impossible for our reps to justify to the base, which is why none of us little folks ever get invited to the Chamber, pay-to-enter, invitation-only State of the County or State of the City. There is a whole parallel universe narrative of how great it is, for the 1% and their captive government allies. This is a fantasy tale of fat cat profit justifying and putative public good that honestly appears to have no rhyme, reason, ethics or morals that the bulk of people can recognize.

If this rosy picture is all a justifiable and reasonable public good for the 99% to get in line with, some one please clearly articulate why. Is the Pope totally off base? No.

The upshot: it is impossible for politicians and economists to reconcile that good news for the controlling minority is bad news for the powerless majority, and really bad news for the environment. The 99% can’t buy it, hasn’t drank the how great it all is Kool Aid, won’t buy the rosy forecast because that dog don’t hunt.

It’s really shocking to read something like this article, similar to reading how Romney really thought he won. What?! I guess it’s true; the bubble of fantasy hasn’t popped yet. Keep on that Yellow Brick Road we’re told, and forget anything about our own silver slippers to see our way outside this craftily spun rosy tale.