I don’t spend too much time reading political blogs and forums. I think it’s a waste of time, personally. Those cats are going to behave the way they do because that’s what they do. Yes, their decisions affect me, but I’m not interesting in spending my short time on this rock fucking with all of that.

Occasionally though, someone writes a piece that gets to the heart of our shifting culture so well, that I have to sit and think about it for a second. Lew Rockwell has been cited multiple times by people I do respect. This was the article from his site that caught my attention:

Health Care and Detroit: Killed by Government

He brings up several points that are worth talking about.

1. In 1994, the median sales price of a house in Detroit was about $41,000. The housing bubble pushed it up to about $98,000 in 2003. In March 2009, the price was $13,600. Today, the price is $7,000. Check the price chart. There has never been a collapse of residential real estate values of this magnitude in peacetime history, anywhere. Detroit is dying. We are unfamiliar with anything like this. The media are silent. The Powers That Be are not interested in reporting on this, because readers might ask the obvious question: “How did this happen?” Obvious questions tend to lead to obvious answers.

2.  The city planners, the Federal government’s subsidy defenders, and the welfare state aficionados are all discreetly silent about Detroit.

4. The city funds its schools with property taxes. Property taxes have collapsed as sources of revenue. An honest property tax system will generate less than ten cents on the 2003 dollar. Last week, the school board announced the closing of one-quarter of Detroit’s schools. The city is out of money.

5. The lesson of Detroit is this: the experts do not see a collapse coming. They assume that next year will be like today, give or take 3%. They do not believe that anything as complex as a city can collapse.

He goes on to make some dire predictions about Obamacare and what that means for various folks of various socio-economic strata. It doesn’t look good for most folks in this country.

At one point in the article, he talks about the fact that shrewd business cats are already using internet advertising to draw people to cheaper, offshore surgery.

Do a Google search on “offshore medicine.” It doesn’t reveal much, but if you drill down to what the customer would search, like “lap band surgery in Mexico”

Boom.

Dr. Migeul Zapata, M.D.

And I guarantee that there will be legions of these guys popping up in the next few years. There’s a business idea for you. Team up with a Spanish speaking dude and go sell website/advertising packages to those cats in South America or some other country.

I was at a SEM meeting recently where a guy was actively attempting to SEO his medical outsourcing company. He looked like he was probably 45 or so. The footer of his website had around 30 links to various medical procedures you could get done in Mexico.

I believe that the John Galt situation happened a long time ago. I read that Jim Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum Fund moved his entire family to China. Most of the interesting people I know live in countries where their money goes farther and they aren’t broken down by the idiocy of uncreative, selfish idiots. In fact, I see a lot of practical, intelligent people who follow the Austrian school of Economics. The gist of this system could be summarized in this quote from Wikipedia: “the complexity of human behavior makes mathematical modeling of the evolving market extremely difficult”

What does this all mean? Are people that predictable? I guess it depends on what people you are talking about. I’m sure there are segments of the population that are extremely difficult to profile. Others, maybe not so much.

Are you a patriot? Do you identify with what’s going on in this country?

According to what I’ve read, during times of recession, the division between the  working class and the bourgeisie becomes more and more apparent. You can host great gladitorial games and toss coins and bread into the street, but when things get lean, the working class want jobs. Kids from my generation who went to school don’t want working class jobs. Most want petite bourgeisie jobs. Most want careers. But nobody trusts employers in the United States. It’s quite the slippery slope.