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imomusCall it "hardship conkers": you string up your recessionary hardships and I'll string up mine, we can dip them in linseed oil to make them tougher still, then swing them at each other and see whose explodes first. Or call it the modern version of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch: I've lost more than you have because I had more to lose in the first place. No, I've lost more than you have because I never had anything, ever... and then lost that too.
If we're playing that game, I can say that last month I lost my main source of income, my regular New York Times job. What's more, I had the humiliation of being replaced by Bono (sort of). But you know what? I'm feeling great about the meltdown, the credit crunch, the recession, all of it. There's a silver lining the size of Siberia.
Let's look at some of the good things to have come out of this financial calamity. Reasons to be cheerful, if you like. The price of oil came down from $147 a barrel in July to $48 in December. After 18 years in power, the conservatives were chucked out in Iceland, replaced by an openly lesbian prime minister who will fast-track the country into the EU (great news if you like lesbians and the EU, not so great if you don't). While Obama -- whose presidency is itself a splendid silver lining that may well not have happened without the meltdown -- announced the biggest public works program since the New Deal in the US, Gordon Brown nationalised the British banks and ordered the construction of thousands of new council houses in the UK. For those of us of a socialist disposition, this is fantastic news; a silver lining for sure.
I've been told, ever since arriving in Berlin in 2003, that the "poor but sexy" life we enjoy here can't last, that Berlin will yuppify and property investment will push its rents into line with those in London and New York. Well, that won't happen now. Who the hell is going to invest in property in Berlin, when nobody's buying houses even in the UK? Again, silver lining.
Then there are the Slow Life and post-materialist arguments. Many have questioned the idea that wealth trickles down and that a rising tide floats all boats for decades, and many have found politicians' jubilation every time a new car factory opens dubious. Is endless economic growth possible, and is it desirable? John Lanchester, in the London Review of Books, questions whether letting the car industry die is such a bad idea: "when the car industry is held up as a barometer of economic well-being, a voice inside my head always wishes that someone was making the counter-argument against a thriving car industry. Thomas Friedman recently said in the New York Times that the Detroit bail-out was ‘the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay’. There’s something in that; when I hear that new car sales are down – a fact which is always announced in sepulchral tones – part of me wants to cheer."
And here's Japanese art director Yasumasa Yonehara, interviewed in Mekas, talking about how the recession will affect the Japanese fashion industry: "I think Japanese people spend too much money on everything, so I welcome this recession. It will be hard, but I think everyone will relax a bit... In this recession we should be able to better live within our means. I often mention this, but most fashion editors eat instant ramen while they make their magazines. They make fashionable magazines in that kind of state. Everyone should quit trying to do the impossible, because you don't have to be fashionable. We need to make magazines that fit real people. There are just too many magazines in Japan with images that contain no reality, and this is a great time to rethink that. Individuals who are rethinking their lives have already started to buy clothing more within their means. So it makes sense that Uniqlo is selling so well."
This isn't a definitive list of reasons the recession might make us cheerful -- someone should start a daily blog of links to positive news stories that wouldn't and couldn't have happened without the meltdown. A big theme behind a lot of these stories would certainly be the revelation that capitalism is not necessarily good for you. We've already looked at Dr Oliver James' contention that capitalism makes you mentally sick. If you want evidence that it can also make you physically sick, and even live a shorter life, have a listen to this Thinking Allowed special on Post-Soviet death rates.
But this silver lining business is annoying some people, who see it as nothing more than an unpleasant cocktail of socialism, schadenfreude and puritanism. In a blog entry entitled And another thing about roundheads..., Lord Whimsy recently quoted a Spectator article by Toby Young entitled The recession is not a ‘much-needed reality check’ — it’s a source of great suffering: "Puritans love disasters," says Young. "No sooner has some calamity befallen mankind than some hair-shirted scold emerges from his priest hole and starts wagging his finger. The message is always the same: ‘You are being punished for your immoral lifestyle.’" Young is particularly annoyed by Oliver James and George Monbiot, his political enemies on the left.
Young has a point when he says that unemployment, bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosures are not conducive to mental health, but fails to see that this simply underlines Oliver James' point; unemployment, bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosures are all integral parts of the capitalist experience. As we were constantly reminded during the Thatcher years, when "Sid" was encouraged to buy shares in de-nationalised industries he already owned, "shares can go down as well as up".
So we can play hardship conkers all day if you like -- I've suffered too, you know! -- but at the end of it let's just lie down and look at the sky, because there's a cloud up there with a bloody gigantic silver lining. As Agnes Bernelle put it: "You want to be rich? But isn't that what you are?"
If we're playing that game, I can say that last month I lost my main source of income, my regular New York Times job. What's more, I had the humiliation of being replaced by Bono (sort of). But you know what? I'm feeling great about the meltdown, the credit crunch, the recession, all of it. There's a silver lining the size of Siberia.
Let's look at some of the good things to have come out of this financial calamity. Reasons to be cheerful, if you like. The price of oil came down from $147 a barrel in July to $48 in December. After 18 years in power, the conservatives were chucked out in Iceland, replaced by an openly lesbian prime minister who will fast-track the country into the EU (great news if you like lesbians and the EU, not so great if you don't). While Obama -- whose presidency is itself a splendid silver lining that may well not have happened without the meltdown -- announced the biggest public works program since the New Deal in the US, Gordon Brown nationalised the British banks and ordered the construction of thousands of new council houses in the UK. For those of us of a socialist disposition, this is fantastic news; a silver lining for sure.
I've been told, ever since arriving in Berlin in 2003, that the "poor but sexy" life we enjoy here can't last, that Berlin will yuppify and property investment will push its rents into line with those in London and New York. Well, that won't happen now. Who the hell is going to invest in property in Berlin, when nobody's buying houses even in the UK? Again, silver lining.
Then there are the Slow Life and post-materialist arguments. Many have questioned the idea that wealth trickles down and that a rising tide floats all boats for decades, and many have found politicians' jubilation every time a new car factory opens dubious. Is endless economic growth possible, and is it desirable? John Lanchester, in the London Review of Books, questions whether letting the car industry die is such a bad idea: "when the car industry is held up as a barometer of economic well-being, a voice inside my head always wishes that someone was making the counter-argument against a thriving car industry. Thomas Friedman recently said in the New York Times that the Detroit bail-out was ‘the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayer money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay’. There’s something in that; when I hear that new car sales are down – a fact which is always announced in sepulchral tones – part of me wants to cheer."
And here's Japanese art director Yasumasa Yonehara, interviewed in Mekas, talking about how the recession will affect the Japanese fashion industry: "I think Japanese people spend too much money on everything, so I welcome this recession. It will be hard, but I think everyone will relax a bit... In this recession we should be able to better live within our means. I often mention this, but most fashion editors eat instant ramen while they make their magazines. They make fashionable magazines in that kind of state. Everyone should quit trying to do the impossible, because you don't have to be fashionable. We need to make magazines that fit real people. There are just too many magazines in Japan with images that contain no reality, and this is a great time to rethink that. Individuals who are rethinking their lives have already started to buy clothing more within their means. So it makes sense that Uniqlo is selling so well."
This isn't a definitive list of reasons the recession might make us cheerful -- someone should start a daily blog of links to positive news stories that wouldn't and couldn't have happened without the meltdown. A big theme behind a lot of these stories would certainly be the revelation that capitalism is not necessarily good for you. We've already looked at Dr Oliver James' contention that capitalism makes you mentally sick. If you want evidence that it can also make you physically sick, and even live a shorter life, have a listen to this Thinking Allowed special on Post-Soviet death rates.
But this silver lining business is annoying some people, who see it as nothing more than an unpleasant cocktail of socialism, schadenfreude and puritanism. In a blog entry entitled And another thing about roundheads..., Lord Whimsy recently quoted a Spectator article by Toby Young entitled The recession is not a ‘much-needed reality check’ — it’s a source of great suffering: "Puritans love disasters," says Young. "No sooner has some calamity befallen mankind than some hair-shirted scold emerges from his priest hole and starts wagging his finger. The message is always the same: ‘You are being punished for your immoral lifestyle.’" Young is particularly annoyed by Oliver James and George Monbiot, his political enemies on the left.
Young has a point when he says that unemployment, bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosures are not conducive to mental health, but fails to see that this simply underlines Oliver James' point; unemployment, bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosures are all integral parts of the capitalist experience. As we were constantly reminded during the Thatcher years, when "Sid" was encouraged to buy shares in de-nationalised industries he already owned, "shares can go down as well as up".
So we can play hardship conkers all day if you like -- I've suffered too, you know! -- but at the end of it let's just lie down and look at the sky, because there's a cloud up there with a bloody gigantic silver lining. As Agnes Bernelle put it: "You want to be rich? But isn't that what you are?"
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 12:39 pm (UTC)Isn't tht what you are ?
Date: 2009-02-02 01:14 pm (UTC)I wonder if this recession will bring about a new era of drugs.Or at least a new one, as it did with post-WWII LSD.
For some time, people shall be travelling inwards before expanding out.
Some do view videogames as a light drug, but it really doens't alter your perception of things.Which brings them to : "until which point of reality emulation does a product become nocive ?"
Until kids in Zimbabue can play videogames all they want, and "hipsters" in Guana take LSD , then all and everyone of us in Europe and The Americas and Asia, are rich regardless.
Re: Isn't tht what you are ?
Date: 2009-02-02 01:17 pm (UTC)Alex P.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 01:24 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's great if you never want to see a viable alternative energy sector. Long live petrochemicals!!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 01:36 pm (UTC)Sorry to hear about the loss of your post to Bono, of all people. For my part I recently found another job to go to, working on some project involving websites for six months.
For me the silver lining is the slump in the housing market. I'd like to buy my own home, because with current tenancy laws you basically have no rights or security (Landlord can give you two months notice to boot you out, plus you need permission to do anything to the place). I've had to move home 12 times in the last 12 years, and it's driving me nuts!
Another thing that struck me is that I no longer feel under pressure to 'consume' and have the 'latest must-have' item...
So anyway, those are my reasons to be cheery.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 01:36 pm (UTC)As for council houses - would it be overly pessimistic of me to point out that all Brown has done is remove the existing restrictions on the building of social housing, rather than actually setting out a timetable or committing any money?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 02:14 pm (UTC)We're helping you achieve your best work.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 02:17 pm (UTC)Boom/bust is inherent to capitalism, and just because we're in the bust part of the cycle doesn't mean that capitalism is any less strong than it was before. Banks have been bailed out, billions of dollars of bonuses continue to be paid out on Wall St.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 03:00 pm (UTC)Days of Future, Passed
Date: 2009-02-02 03:07 pm (UTC)One could also say that we can't even predict or estimate that old reliable, human behavior; modern "Westerners" tend to see mankind as becoming increasingly enlightened and tolerant, but severe privations can readily check that notion of progress. Scary what humans might do and have done when bread gets too scarce.
Yes, one could say any or all of those things. Me, I'm no Nostradamus or even an Amazing Criswell. I can opine that without a doubt the major problem the earth faces is indeed overpopulation (global warming just one result of that), which is undeniably the result of traditional religious beliefs. It's not a matter of density of population, either; we need both dense cities and the sparsely populated farmlands to feed them (just not the suburbs). It may seem civilization has melted away in places like Siberia because of low population density, but weather conditions have probably prevented much human activity to thaw the ice and flourish there for a long, long time, if ever ... Sorry, but yesterday I was reading my "Population Connection" (formerly Zero Population Growth) subscription, and nothing darkens my skies more than the hard truths spelled out by their magazine.
I would be a lot more cheerful, perhaps, if I could find those two albums Agnes Bernelle made in the Eighties and have eternally been looking for.
PS That last post I see just now about boom/bust makes a lot of sense, at least regards the American economy; one might fear that we are soon to be busted too flat to ever boom again.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 03:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 04:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 05:26 pm (UTC)Now that the car companies seem to be inevitably collapsing, it's chilling here. A region of five million is contemplating the end of all economy and the resulting multiple thousands-of-square-miles of new ghost-town as people flee to other parts of the world to find a livelihood.
It's also not clear tome that Obama's public works programs will be used to improve public transportation and bring smart urbanism back to the United States. So far it seems that much of it is going to repair roads and highways and that how to use it is also being left up to states, who nearly always want to build new highways.
I understand well why people worldwide hate tnhe auto industry and hate cars, but without a single other industry to run Detroit, those legitimate criticisms are lost in the contemplation of the potential of a complete failure of our home town as a place for human beings to live.
So let the car companies die -- but understand that Detroit is also a place, not just a concept.
Please move your company here. We have lots of cheap buildings.
Detroit Wildlife (http://vimeo.com/2371774) from florent tillon (http://vimeo.com/user930546) on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com).
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 07:06 pm (UTC)Where's the silver lining in the vilification of abortion or the adultification of children? Or adoption rates going down and the number of homeless people going up?
To mention nothing of animal rights. This new ruralism is all about cruelty to me. There is no need to rip the heads off pheasants when you can give a cow a loving, caring home for years before you kill it painlessly.
creativ e destruction
Date: 2009-02-02 08:54 pm (UTC)Re: creativ e destruction
Date: 2009-02-02 09:09 pm (UTC)Interesting, that relates to Bataille's idea (in his weird economics book The Accursed Share) of ceremonies and gifts being a deliberate squandering of resources.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 10:58 pm (UTC)Assuming all of these are good and desirable things, isn't the tough question then, how are all of these things going to be paid for, in a sustainable, practical way?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-02 11:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 12:14 am (UTC)Hope you have means to get by in the lean times.....do song royalties help?
Personally I've been finding that although there has been less money about for my electro-art, there is more demand for cheap TVs and stereos. These I have picked up off the street, out of skips, at the junk market etc., over the last few years (people chucked stuff out like there was no tomorrow) and later repaired, to sell in small local ads. Even sold a VHS vcr the other day.
Seems like all the slinky new (but expensive and often unrepairable) flat screens have lost some of their shine to lots of people at the moment. Better for the planet at least.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 12:36 am (UTC)I really like your tunes and such, your a great singer-songwriter and you should def keep it up!
Straight hood, Momus.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 01:34 am (UTC)Regretably though, I have to acknowledge that I'm fortunate and recognisably it is actually lower-paid workers and minimum wage workers who are placed in the weakest position who suffer most in recessions.
So far the evidence is that these are precisely the people most affected by the economic downturn.
Seeing the positive in the changes the economic downturn has brought about is commendable but really I think the full affects have only begun to be manifest and lets not be too optimistic too soon.
Recessions usually play out with the worst off in society having to bear the brunt.
"Young is particularly annoyed by Oliver James and George Monbiot, his political enemies on the left."
George Monbiot is an orthodoxy-preaching career-envirionmentalist, who turns a very tidy buck with said occupation.
He has been a critic of both Marxism and anarchism in the past, fortunately he has accrued several (more astute) critics, who are actually on the left and can boast some genuinely radical ideas.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3132/
‘Humanising politics – that is my only agenda’ | spiked
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 01:36 am (UTC)But what will Iceland do about its hard-won 200-mile fishing exclusion zone? This is both 1) the only fishing conservation measure in Europe that's actually worked, and 2) incompatible with the Common Fisheries Policy. I saw a documentary about the Cod Wars of the 1970s. Many of the Icelanders interviewed said they thought the CFP was the secret real reason for the whole conflict. Under the CFP the British Navy was still free to escort British trawlers fishing in Icelandic territorial waters and bully the Icelandic coast guard; but not British trawlers fishing in British territorial waters, because these were now EU territorial waters, open to the fishing fleets of all EU states. The UK could not create sustainable, Icelandic-style exclusion zones around the Scottish Isles, reserved for local fishermen; because these would have breached the Treaty Of Rome.
It'll be great if the the EU Fisheries Policy becomes more Icelandic, rather than vice versa. But the Icelandic policy was made by a tiny homogenous nation which then depended almost exclusively on fishing for its economy. They simply couldn't afford to get it wrong. The EU policy will probably be a bodge-it job involving political horse-trading between twenty-something states, many of which (Austria, Czech, Hungary, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia - arguably Bulgaria & Romania) don't even have coastlines ( - the Black Sea doesn't really count).
I wish I could share your unbridled enthusiasm for the EU. But the EU's greatest monument is the CAP. It still takes almost half of all EU money. And it's directly at odds with all that rosy ruralism you celebrated yesterday. It makes life far far worse for third world farmers, it rewards big rather than small farmers in the EU, and it makes the food bill nearly $1000 a year more expensive for a typical family of four. My hope is that recession will hasten its reform.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 04:21 am (UTC)Okay, but aren't you here getting back to what Max Hastings had to say to the Guardianistas?
Also, can I ask what time you tend to go to sleep and wake up in Berlin? You seem sometimes to be up very, very early in the morning, but also very late at night. Do you ever sleep?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 04:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 09:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 10:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 10:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 11:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 12:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 01:13 pm (UTC)well , apparently after one piece he was unceremoniously shifted to sports. Let's hope this 'so-bloody-dreadful-it's hilarious' piece raise your spirits.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/02/bono-super-bowl
....i mean, we get great insights like "It does not matter who wins or who stars or even if I understand the rules at all " "everthing in America is Super: Superman, Supermarkets, Superglue" ....FFS, SUPERGLUE??
It's pure Dan Ashcroft at the 'weekend on sunday'!!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 01:16 pm (UTC)the aim of the EU is to make one large marketplace , with single currency, and interest rates, = far easier for multinationals.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 01:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 02:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 02:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 03:15 pm (UTC)I don't really hear the glam. Which tracks in particular are supposed to sound all Gary Glitter or Ziggy-era Bowie or whatever?
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-03 03:49 pm (UTC)Joemus
Date: 2009-02-03 10:01 pm (UTC)Though I do like your take on the recession (or whatever you want to call it), at least a lot more than than that in the piece Max Hastings wrote in the Guardian I think it was Yesterday.
Stephen Parkin
Re: Joemus
Date: 2009-02-03 10:20 pm (UTC)Re: NY Times
Date: 2009-02-04 03:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-04 11:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-04 12:59 pm (UTC)[Error: unknown template video]
Re: NY Times
Date: 2009-02-04 01:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-04 09:42 pm (UTC)