Joe Bageant

Young Mexican considers his choices

Joe,

I've been reading your website for months, and disagree on some points, but maybe that's just my conditioning talking. I am 20 years old, precariously upper middle class, and I live in Mexico City. I've read Marx recently and it's surprising how right he is, that every worker is servant to the owner of the things he need to work, be it an educational anointment, a machine, or simple money.

Our American reality is a televised sham

Dear Joe,

I recently read your essay "The Simulacran Republic" and I want to let you know that it is not just the old hold-overs and consciousness experimenters of the 60's who realize that our American reality is a televised sham. Many young people my age are awakening to the fact that we live in a hyperreal world. I'm twenty years old, and as such I grew up watching hours and hours of television and playing mind-numbing video games, much like most people in my generation, but over the past few years I've awakened to the fact that I live in a simulated, media-based reality.

Smell of tar and feathers in the morning

Well, what the fock? Why is it that a guy has to go clear the hell to Taipei to find anyone who agrees that the Democratic Pussy Mafia running the national party out of the Westhampton Country Club -- election results or not -- is still a bunch of idiots? See: http://www.pekingduck.org/archives/004326.php

As my newfound friends in Taipei probably already know, right now the Democrats over here are dancing around the head of Donald Rumsfeld like a scene from Lord of the Flies. And every other Yankee liberal north of  Virginia seems to think they are shitting in the tall cotton now, and all they gotta do from here on out is foist Hillary Clinton on the rest of us poor miserabe bastards unfortunate enough to be called Democrats because we don't have the balls to become heavily armed libertarians.

Geezer government in exile in Belize

Joe,

Thank Jay Zeus that I own my little (emphasize little) townhouse. 900 square feet of a man's own castle, low real estate taxes at the moment, and there's just me, no educations to pay for, no alimony and an ambulance company literally one block away. And even I wind up thinking I still have time to sell out and reestablish an outpost in Belize.

Confirmation of late-stage capitalism

Joe -

I read an arcane detail the other day. It seems that now the SEC (the Securities and Exchange Commission) is proposing a change in margin requirements for the purchase of stocks. At present, you can borrow up to half the cost of a stock. Now they propose to lower the margin requirement to 15% -- so now large stock-buying institutions will be able to borrow 85% of the value of stocks that they purchase.

Signs that real estate bubble has popped

Joe,

I just read your article ("There is Always Treasure in Rome") on the housing prices and the delusions people harbor and I find it very accurate describing my old neighborhood. I sold my house in the far outer reaches of Los Angeles County a few months ago and moved to the Mid-West, paid cash for the new house and with any luck or barring an extreme case of stupidity on my part, I won't ever have to worry about losing my house. When I sold the house in California, sales had just started to slow down in a dramatic way, homeowners were listing there houses for what people sold for last year and the buyers weren't showing up in droves like they did. Instead of selling within a few weeks, houses were sitting on the market for months with no or low-ball offers. The sellers were not getting the hint.

There is Always Treasure in Rome

By Joe Bageant

A friend in the mortgage business tells me he gets calls every day from people who want their house repossessed -- people want to walk away from those monster-bellums in which they have zero equity, thanks to the interest only and zero down loans the industry pushed in an effort to blow up the housing balloon for all it's worth. "Hell, I tell 'em to sit tight, stay there, because we are six months behind in repos and besides, we may be able to sell them on a negative amortization loan. Let 'em pay what they can and we refi the difference. In other words, their debt just gets bigger as they pay, but they stay in their houses and their kids stay in the same schools."

Education system destroys independence

Joe,

You wrote about the "approved" paths to knowledge: "The problem comes with the way we are made slaves to accredited and state sanctioned forms of gaining knowledge." Jeazus!!! Glory -- slap me silly -- I have found a brother!

Ya know, Joe, I was gettin' a little drifty on you with the political stuff. I'm not a great fan of unrestrained anarcho-capitalism, but the 180 degree swing that you frequently espouse doesn't appeal a great deal to me either. From my point of view, I like private property. I like the notion that a person who works hard gets rewarded beyond the slothful wretch who just gets through the day. I just think the cult of individual reward has gone through the ole buffet line a few too many times here in present-day 'merica. All that fell away when I read your email concerning education.