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RE: Technology Breaks, Housing Costs, Aging Populations and Falling Incomes
I turned the keys to our house over to the bank on Christmas Eve of 2012.
My wife and I were both highly skilled professionals with a strong work ethic. It wasn't anything like the American dream we had been sold all of our lives.
I wrote a post yesterday about the Reality Behind the "Economic Recovery" (I won't link it here, you can find it easily enough).
My post was inspired by our experience and an article I had read about the "working homeless" just like you're talking about. We must have just been on the leading edge of this tidal wave of "economic recovery."
Good post-- I enjoyed your explorations of alternative housing.
The "reality" behind the Economic Recovery is that the stock market is up and corporate profits are doing really well. That, however, doesn't tangibly measure how the individual economies of people are doing... we spend more "effort hours" than ever to obtain one "unit" of the accepted lifestyle of the current moment... and it's a losing proposition.
Just here in our local town, we're suffering from eternal "creeping elegance." The local electric utility decides to raise its "base fee" for having service from $20 to $50 which allows them to claim that the price per KWH hasn't risen. We no longer have a "vacation" option for garbage service... in fact garbage service recently became mandatory... you HAVE to pay for weekly garbage pickup, whether you use it or not. Meanwhile, the county decided that all homeowners with a septic system now must have an annual "soundness certificate" (Cost $175/year) which can only be done by a "qualified technician" (at $125 per inspection). And so on, and so forth...
It all feels more and more like we are moving towards some version of the world depicted in The Hunger Games or Elysium.
I'm picturing a different movie:
Ah yes, Idiocracy. That does seem to be part of the picture, too.