Having read a recent review in the New York Times, of a book* that painted an exciting picture of the despair we can all look forward to in the promised land, one of my pals asked a tough question.
There are a number of books and articles and opinion pieces pointing the finger of fate and bad management in all sorts of directions…but the gist of the story is that the former carburetor of capitalism…Saudi Arabia and its pals seem unwilling to turn down the taps on the oil wells…while the U.S.A. through the judicious use of fracking and other hideous tactics have reached a kind of energy independence. Well…that served to drive the global price of oil down. Good for the driving public but not so good for the oil aristocracy and the economic oligarchs. You would think there would be rejoicing in the streets…Uh—No. Then China with its great surge and huge population caught a serious case of consumer flu…The stock markets climbed the stairs like drunken bankers until Beijing said …”Slow down dudes and dudettes”. Beijing apparently, can say those things and mean it. The stock markets took up sky diving.
So those are the essentials of the story but there are details that are frighteningly consistent. It looks like the western world of good and plenty is still pretty good but there’s a lot less “plenty” on the horizon. That usually means that the one percent filthy rich will have to make do with the old yacht for a couple of years longer than expected…alas like all privileged classes…these people are generally unable to suffer alone. Naturally the un-monied classes will be making do with no yachts at all and the prospects of a rowboat or two are fading into the future.
So my friend was asking if this means that the “party is over”.
And that is a question riddled with shades and nuances. For millions and millions of people this last century hasn’t seen much singing and dancing. For them the party isn’t so much “over” as maybe “over there” somewhere…elsewhere. For those of us with spare change…we’ve seen it shrink a bit…seen jobs disappear…seen friends and relatives fall through the system…seen things get worse. ..seen whole cities go to hell…but we keep going. So the answer I guess…is that the party is still going on. Some of us just are no longer invited.
If I had to reach over my shoulder for another analogy…I’d say it’s not about the party…it’s about running out of paved road…
*The Rise and Fall of American Growth :by Robert J. Gordon
Reviewed by Paul Krugman
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