[continued from previous message]   
      
   >> justice systems, militias, and taxes. Today, corporations and asset-   
   >> holders function like mini-sovereigns. Hedge funds and private equity   
   >> control housing and employment structures. The list goes on.   
   >>   
   >> However, this is not the feudalism of the Arthurian legends that can   
   >> exist in a state of bucolic stasis for centuries. This version is   
   >> perched precariously on a highly financialized economy that itself is   
   >> kept afloat by unsustainable debt levels. It is a system that is both   
   >> highly unstable and quite rigid at the same time, however paradoxical   
   >> that sounds.  And Generation Z senses both sides of that equation.   
   >> This is where feudalism meets Weimar Germany.   
   >>   
   >> The US is nowhere near hyperinflation. But DoorDash culture points to   
   >> the psychological pre-conditions of a world that can quickly turn very   
   >> inflationary. Spending money because saving it is pointless is a self-   
   >> fulfilling prophecy. But Weimar was more than wheelbarrows of devalued   
   >> money: it was an era drenched in a deep cynicism and foreboding, and   
   >> nihilism (financial or otherwise) was rampant.   
   >>   
   >> This brings us to the sudden strangeness of the moment. Underneath the   
   >> glittering digital panacea of food delivery apps and instant friction-   
   >> less tap-to-pay everything, and despite the familiar signposts of   
   >> American life, lies an economic system now operating under very   
   >> different premises.   
   >>   
   >> ANALYSIS   
   >   
   > Thank you for posting that.   
   > A real significant hunk of ideas. Some of it hurts.   
   > I have many opinions, maybe later will expand.   
   >>   
   >   
      
   You're welcome.  I remember as a child back in the '50s and '60s meeting   
   immigrants from Europe who had no trust in banks or paper money.  They'd   
   keep silver and gold coins and jewelry stuffed in bed mattresses.  I   
   considered it strange and paranoid at the time, but now, realizing the   
   times and places they had grown up in in Europe, it makes perfect sense.   
      
   --   
   "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of   
   doubt, while the stupid people are full of confidence.” —Charles Bukowski   
      
   "When guns are outlawed, only foreign invaders and the government   
   officials that invited them in will have guns."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)