Most people, including this writer, have no idea what a depression is like. We treat recent financial events like an intellectual exercise or political game. Normality will be restored soon, we think. Life will carry on as always, we hope. But nothing could be further from the truth. A depression is the end of affluence, vanity, upward mobility, mass education, luxury Christmas presents, good teeth, vibrant health and reasonable life expectancy.
Scattered through this issue of MensaMag are photographs from the last time around.
I’m waiting for someone to make an Emperor’s New Clothes statement. Not that it would necessarily help our economic plight; we’re too near the cliff to stop running.
What’s an Emperor’s New Clothes statement? It’s a bromide like "Unregulated markets are a recipe for disaster" or "If America elects McCain, run and sell dollars". Take Lewitt’s excellent piece from the NYTimes (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16lewitt.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) as an example. It purports to be a concise explanation of the importance of AIG’s survival in the current turmoil. But the unvoiced topic is more strident. Most paragraphs beg the question whether focused and determined regulation would have prevented or significantly defused the crisis. At a higher level of abstraction, financial markets and global warming run parallel (pace Jim Szpajcher). Activities in the sectors are ideologically buttressed, the ideologies at present are infected with the couch potato’s disease of laisser-aller, and beliefs are held with adamantine firmness. The question whether, at some point, we lose control and undergo ‘extinction events’ is similar to whether, at some point, we become too insane to withdraw from the supporting ideology.
On the other hand, it’s curious that no bankers and fund managers are jumping from windows.
Today, foolishness has no limits and intelligent souls must struggle to learn their surroundings. What does this mean? Well, for a start, published data about house values can be trashed. They equate Vancouver and Peachland, urban cores and suburbia. All these are thrown into a pot and we’re given the average cost of a Canadian home. There’s no advance in this beyond incantation and alchemy. We know the information is nonsense, yet we tolerate it. On the plus side, there’s virtue in politeness. On the negative, the mental rot created by advertising and politicians and the debunking of education has sunk deep roots. As a community, we may have entered a dreamlike state like Snow White without the Prince. Returning to our example, rising fuel costs will make suburban living a costly nightmare. Buy a house in the suburbs? Can I sell you shares in an American bank? Downtown in a small city or town is the only sane living environment. Or, more generally, we’ll soon apply a multiplier to real estate values based on proximity to jobs. Meanwhile the insane dream of single-family home plus two cars in a sweet suburb, weekly shopping trip to the box stores, two incomes and lots of leisure to spend with the adorable kiddies, lives on. Would you believe it? Of course there are exceptions, for example gold-rush towns and the service sectors they support. Calgary is typical. But even here the shoe hasn’t dropped as to the gap between suburb and downtown property values. Watch for it.
