Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

I read earlier how it's possible that GM might go bankrupt.  It's pretty amazing considering that at one time they were the largest employer in America and still is the number one automotive seller in the US.  Back when I had the opportunity to visit Las Vegas back in May, I met an old woman from Detroit who told me the horror stories of how troubled the Motor City is.  The big quote she gave me was, "Some people say that if Detroit goes, the rest of the US goes."

Taking these two elements together that made me think hard.  Let's examine just how messed up America is right now:

• Subprime loan problem
• Credit Crunch crisis
• Financial sector completely decimated
• Bear stock market
• Dying housing sector
• The auto sector is almost completely wiped out with manufacturers ONLY NOW starting to wake up to the reality that their cars are economically not feasible even with employee level discounts
• The gas crunch
• The energy crunch
• The decimated airline industry
• The food industry
• Worsening education system
• Massive job losses and layoffs
• Continuing funds being siphoned off to the wars on fictitious terror
• Continued outsourcing

Of course, this situation is percolating globally, but America is feeling the brunt of the damage.  Some call this a recession, but I call it a depression.  America is just getting annihilated by everything they setup in the 90's.

A short while back, I was interested in researching land prices in Vegas.  In doing so, I uncovered some interesting bits like how much of the land is being bought off via foreign sources.  A good example is the new City Center project.  Apparently, Dubai is funding that one.  The Wynn hotel is another where a Japanese guy named Okada owns a 10% stake in the hotel.

Then you look back to the financial sector with Citigroup.  At one point, Citigroup was the largest and most powerful financial company in the world.  This past year as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis and windfall credit crunch, Citigroup was forced to write down over $500 billion of assets.  That's half of what they had at one point.  On top of that, they made a bargain with a powerful investor in India who agreed to help bail them out for a huge stake in the company.

I'm not certain if these are the only cases where foreign investment is arriving in America to bail the country out.  In some way, it reminds me of the 80's back in Japan's economic bubble heyday.  At that time, it simply was that Japan had all the money and was buying up property in America.  But all that investment turned bad when the loans went belly up.  However, in the current situation, we're looking at something entirely different.  Now, we're seeing a scenario where many major sectors in America's economy is weakening so much that America and American companies are looking for foreign sources to help prop them up.

So one major scenario to think about is whether or not America, as we know it, will be "owned" by Americans anymore.

Certainly, land and companies are starting to look like bargain prices.  I mean, I was examining Omaha, Nebraska the other day since my coworker had studied there.  I found that a regular house (many built around 1900-1910) would go for about $10000.  That's amazing!  What was more amazing was that the average cost for a home in LA in my area, which would be between $400k-$600k, would get you something like a mansion from the show the Rich and Famous!

Of course, most people wouldn't want to live in some place like Nebraska, but you have to think that economically that's what's affordable.  I've read about how many people are moving away from places like LA on the basis that it's simply too expensive and going to cheaper areas like Arizona.  If that happens, then you'll see numerous foreclosures and real estate being driven down even further.  Obviously, the people who left won't be able to buy back that real estate because they were the same people who couldn't afford it in the first place.  But someone will naturally have that kind of money to turn that type of property around.  And LA, being a hot zone for anything, is naturally a spot some other outsider might want to pick up.

If you examine logistically/geographically how this might look over time, it would appear that lower to middle class America might slowly be forced "inward".  Some interesting stories on the net even talk about scenarios like this or weirder ones.  I recall reading about a story where some families are moving away from cities to something like co-ops or isolated regions in the country where people can live off the land.  Some people are buying homes and stock piling food in case of riots or a major food scare.  One of my friends in Tokyo had a deep discussion with me about how he has a house on a hill top in Marin County near San Francisco.  He picked that location because of the fact that it's isolated, near a body of water (a ravine in his backyard) with deer and other animals; in short, if something happened, he would be able to protect his family.  He didn't say specifically about carrying firearms, but I wouldn't doubt that he'd have a pistol or rifle somewhere in his place.

With the Katrina incident back in New Orleans a few years back, we saw a different side of America, a hypothetical scenario that actually came to life.  That scenario was if somehow the government lost complete control in a huge natural disaster.  With Bush in power, the government responded far too slow and the city became a cesspool of violence.  The situation devolved so badly that people would go to Walmart to steal weapons just to protect themselves, even carrying weapons above their homes.

That incident was far different from 9-11, since at that time America was able to focus the blame on a perceived common enemy of Bin Laden (who in my opinion is a theoretical human just like Saddam Hussein).  9-11 bonded people to some degree as politicians were able to manipulate people's natural hostile attitudes into rallying for a cause.  Katrina, on the other hand, was an act of nature and left people desperate with the fear of their lives.

So we come to the final possibility of the future of America: a completely torn America.  America's current hope for economic survival lies in technology and green energy as well as its abundance of creativity.  So areas like California, Washington, NYC, etc. might still do well.  However, middle America (really meaning most of "middle class" America) is in for a lot of trouble.  The points I made at the top of this blog are a sheer indicator that America on a whole will suffer greatly in the coming years because of the major downturn in the economy.  Before, during the dot com burst, the only real industry that was affected in a negative way was most technology companies.  This time, we're seeing not one sector, but multiple sectors that support middle class America slowly being devoured from the trickle down economic failures of capitalism.  Since the middle class is what composes the US, what happens when that how structure falls apart?

We've seen the worst come out of America in recent years with Katrina.  That was a hint at the possibility of the animalistic nature of humans.  But now, we're seeing the government fail the US and doing little except passing rounds of champaign between all the elite class.  The government has recently failed in protecting the citizens against the ruling class.  For instance, there was no bail out for the US citizens by taxing the oil companies.  There's been no limiting of job losses from American soil.  There's been nothing done to prevent the constant gouging by the airlines industries to save their precious shareholders and executives' compensation packages.  Oh, but there was laws passed for the credit card companies to make it harder for people to declare bankruptcy and receive protection. Oh and Hollywood and the music industry constantly receives favoritism by the government to penalize electronics manufacturers and the internet industry (since Hollywood and the music industry are traditional financial supporters of the democrats, which is kinda ironic in some ways considering that the Democrats are supposedly for the common man).

With the upcoming election, as I have mentioned, it really doesn't matter who wins.  Actually, if Obama loses, it's actually great for him because he doesn't have all the pressure of immediately fixing up the mess that Bush and his cronies have created.   But if he does win and people are dissatisfied, I'm guaranteeing that the world and the American people will lose complete faith in American politics.

So in this scenario, outside of more foreign sources buying up the remnants of the political and economic fiasco in America, we might even see America as a country actually split.  The government has not guaranteed nor provided universal health care.  There's no pension plans and social security is a joke.  The FDA cannot guarantee that food is safe.  The damn justice system's copyright and intellectual property mess screws up virtually everything because only a few groups (namely large corporations rather than the artists and creators within the corporations) actually gain any benefit from this system.  Medicine likewise is held up because of the patent system within America and religion completely fucks up everything by basing things on an archaic and unfounded principle!  And I seriously doubt that when someone walks up to you with a shotgun, that you're going to be pleading with God.  The God will be the shotgun that you're begging mercy from.

In this scenario, people will finally see in America and the world how impotent the American government is.  Perhaps, the government might attempt to implement national martial law, but I can't imagine them holding their own country hostage.  It'd be like a government coup, except this time from a hypocritical America!

The only thing as I had mentioned before that promises any hope for America are the mega corporations.  The mega corporations are the only things left that provide anything for people.  It'll be mini fiefdoms.  I mean, it's already like that minus the actual soldiers with physical weapons shooting each other.  The soldiers are simply corporate lobbyists.  But with this scenario, I see the corporations becoming their own states.  Most already are.  Google?  Check.  Walmart?  Check.  Microsoft?  Check.  etc.

I honestly don't see why we have a government these days.  There's little that it provides people.  Education?  Not really.  Why send your kids to public education?  The court process makes no sense because it's all purchased by companies.  Military?  Heck, i don't want people with guns around my neighborhood!  I don't feel safer!  The fucking country can't even decree that guns are illegal because of special interest groups (NRA) even though common sense dictates that no guns means less violence by default.  Didn't anyone learn anything from the Cold War era?  We can't trust it for food.  We don't money from the government; they simply take it away in giving nothing back to us.  They barely can maintain the roads.  They don't provide us decent public transportation (at least in most areas that aren't major cities).  We can't get health care except when we pay for it.  So what good is the government when they're not even interested in helping the average citizen out?

Despite saying this, I personally don't hate America nor the citizens.  It's the same with Japan.  I do blame many problems on the elite ruling class though.  I think every country faces this.  It all boils down to resources in the end.  If we had infinite food, land, and hot women, etc.,  you wouldn't see any problems in this world.  So as Marx mentioned (and was unbelievably correct), it's the ruling elite who control the means of production.  They own these networks to keep themselves in control.  We're just puppets for their amusement.  We have no meaning to them except to function for some dictated purpose.  We have no control

Now, if middle class America ever wakes up to this fact, then they'll hopefully realize that all their material wealth is a transient illusion created to deceive them in believing that their reality is a glorified and meaningful one.  But if say, like the victims in Katrina, suddenly faced a similar situation like a major fire decimating their homes, then the majority of them would suddenly become aware of the fact that materialism is indeed meaningless and that the government never had any intentions of doing anything for them, except perpetrating the belief that their lives had some value.

All I can offer to big businesses like the Viacoms, the recording industry, the banks, oil companies, fast food as well as the government is this advice: don't fuck with people's lives.  Just look at Katrina and look where you're heading.  You can continue building up your ivory tower and hiding within, but eventually either you can't find anymore materials, the people building your ivory tower stop supporting you, or that everyone catches up to you and takes you back down.