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What if everybody... [1]
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Date: 2025-04-10
What does “the economy” mean to a person who is just scraping by, living hand to mouth and has no recent memory of any other way to live? What does “the stock market” mean to a person whose dinner is often instant macaroni and cheese and a peanut butter sandwich?
But I love instant macaroni and cheese and peanut butter sandwiches. I actually love ramen, too. And I like eggs, but I’ve never bought them that often.
What I love most are the people around me—and they have been carefully curated. When travelling about in the world, one must interact with some zombies, but they are just zombies, and most of them are not really dangerous, although some are. I have done some ghosting in order to live as zombie-free as possible.
I have heat, hot water, and a clean place to sleep. Lights and Internet access are pleasant luxuries. However, the cell phone is not really a luxury—even my neighborhood crackhead has one, and every dollar he gets his hands on goes up in smoke. He does yardwork and takes out garbage for a few bucks that probably go right up in smoke, but he can somehow pay a cell phone bill. I happen to live in Chicago, and when it snows, he grabs a show shovel and lives his best life for as long as dollars keep falling from the sky.
And an idea occurred to me: What if everybody pretended they were poor? What if everybody slashed their own budgets to the bone. What if everybody pretended they were living in Gaza, or the Ukraine, and just having any kind of meal, a place to sleep, and their loved ones around them was all that mattered?
I think THAT would crash the economy.
Could it be that “the economy” is mostly about luxuries? And there’s another economy that’s about survival? The truth is that surviving in this country is easier than some. It may well be getting worse, but it’s still not as bad as others have it. Lights and heat mostly stay on, communication is easy, and food and friends can usually be found.
There are hurricanes, and tornados, and floods, and snowstorms, and earthquakes, and wildfires that level entire towns. But we always manage to clean up the mess, or mostly so. Most other pain is completely self-inflicted by our society, and some of us have to live under the threat of violence every day.
The most vulnerable are the weakest among us: elderly; sick; disabled; children. But a true strong person values their strength by protecting the weak. Why else would you need to be strong?
So, when I hear “the economy” or “the stock market”, I think of something far away. To me, “the economy” is about luxuries, and I have few to none. Basic necessities are not luxuries, and people scramble to have them come what may.
The luxuries I know are cheap beer and card games with music and laughter in the background. And if everybody puts their pocket change together, maybe a take-out pizza.
Death is inevitable. But extinction may be negotiable. We just have to wait and see.
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