Masters of the universe, indeed.
The current paradigm of cosmic creation and destruction posits that the universe has been forever expanding since the Big Bang, some billions — 5,000 to True Believers — of years ago. It will continue to expand until, well, it starts to shrink, at which point no one is really sure what happens but everyone agrees whatever it is will definitely not be good for our health.
The end of the universe for the masters of the universe — those frothy, greed-is-good Wall Street acolytes of Gordon Gecko — has come a tad earlier than its cosmic doppelganger… and it is demonstrably not good for their health. Masters of the universe is the name Tom Wolfe gave to the moneyboys of Wall Street in his Bonfire of the Vanities , where he so aptly painted a picture of lives ruled by infinite greed, deep pools of hubris and so much personal wealth that money ceased to have any real meaning, it just became a surrogate of success, a marker to keep score with.
After the total meltdown and, in some cases, disappearing act of venerable Wall Street firms, and the concomitant implosion of the rest of the U.S. financial system, working on the Street is going to have about the same cachet as going to work in your father’s insurance brokerage. If there’s a bright side to this maybe it’s that some of those “best and brightest” minds will decide there’s more future in science than finance and start pursuing more tangible goals than fat, personal portfolios.
These are exciting times, boys and girls. If you’ve ever felt as though your life was not your own to control, if you’ve felt a bit like one of those spiders floating on their own gossamer thread wherever the wind takes them, now’s the time to say, “See, I told you so.” Whether you live south of the border or in the Great White North or in Timbuktu, the sad and predictable denouement taking place from sea to shining sea in the U.S. is carrying you, like that floating spider, to… wherever. No one knows for certain; we’re traveling in terra incognita .
With eyes firmly fixed on the light blanket of snow atop Whistler and Blackcomb and the interminable anticipation of another ski season rapidly approaching, we can be forgiven for not paying much attention to what’s happening in the U.S. After all, the last decade has played out like a cheesy Greek tragedy down there with inept bunglers stumbling from one mismanaged crisis to the next. Why should this one be any different or merit any more attention than we’ve paid to the last dozen? As long as we keep our heads down, work hard, live within our means, why shouldn’t whatever’s hit the fan just travel right over our heads?
There is no foxhole deep enough to protect you in a shitstorm of this magnitude, dude.
The doom and gloomers have been crying, Cassandra-like, for years now that the U.S. economic house of cards was going to come tumbling down. They were, of course, roundly criticized for not having faith in the greatest engine of economic wealth the world has ever seen. They were dismissed by the de-regulators, the free marketers and the trickle down economists, virtually all of whom are running shamelessly, tails between their legs, to the Cause of All Problems — government — for a lifeline and bailout, lest they and theirs be swept away in the sea of debt come due.
Perhaps the most gratifying thing about this credit crisis/economic Armageddon is the realization, in all but the most stubbornly dogmatic circles of Conservative Republican holdouts and Chicago school of economics sycophants, that sometimes government isn’t necessarily the problem. Sometimes, government is the solution. It had better be because if it isn’t, we’re about to enter an era of economic hardship most of us have only ever read about.
And the sad fact is, no matter how prudently you’ve conducted your personal economic affairs, no matter how much you’ve delayed your gratification and lived within your means, no matter how diligently you’ve blocked out the Sirens beckoning you to spend, spend, spend and chosen to save instead, and no matter where you live, you will, for all your efforts, be touched — quite possibly pummelled — by the new economic landscape to come. No one gets out untouched.
The most foreboding thing about this crisis is that what’s happening at the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department and Congress right now is a crapshoot. No one agrees on exactly what to do and no one knows whether it’ll work. And the elephant in the parlour hasn’t even been mentioned by anyone. The elephant is the incredible irony, the enormous leap of faith that spending up to one trillion of borrowed money is the best way to solve a credit crisis. Kind of smacks of paying off your Visa bill with your MasterCard.
It gets even richer witnessing the hubris of politicians, business leaders, moneymen and others, crying about protecting the taxpayers after years of raping taxpayers to get into this mess to begin with.
And while the U.S. national debt, currently at around $9.7 trillion, is about to go up another trillion, both men running for president have the utter stupidity to pander to voters with talk about cutting taxes. The Bush tax cuts, the McCain tax cuts, the Obama tax cuts aren’t tax cuts. They’re just tax deferral. They’re the buy now, pay later nonsense that’s gotten the world into this predicament.
So why should you care? You should care because you live in a town that pretty much lives and dies on discretionary income. Food and shelter are not the first things people cut back on in tough times. Holidays are. And expensive holidays especially are.
Admittedly, skiing and boarding are reasonably severe addictions and some people will find a way to keep sliding as long as they can. But scared people don’t holiday and right now there are around 300 million scared people living in our largest target market at a time when the people who run this town are spending money like drunken members of the Olympic family.
We’re spending unprecedented amounts of capital. We’re borrowing unprecedented amounts of that money. We’re spending hotel tax dollars we haven’t earned yet compliments of a financial tools deal with Victoria that’ll sunset shortly after the Olympics and only be renewed if Victoria’s feeling benevolent. And we’ve got a mayor and three councillors seeking re-election who believe they’ve been doing a hellofa job, Brownie.
If you can’t get worked up about local politics this time around, you’d better check for a pulse.
