The Fall of the West
Rural life can be incredibly lovely and meaningful. It also can be cruel, crushing, and boring. It all depends upon the manner in which we are raised and in our personal preferences. As more and more people traveled out West for the dream and hope of a freer life, the drudgery of their spartan existence grew. Small villages increased into towns. Crime and people who perpetuate crime followed. Gambling, prostitution, theft, alcohol, and many other diversions traveled westward to new markets.
Some pushed further west, only to be stopped by the Pacific. Some continued, despite the great Ocean to Hawaii. They sought paradise and freedom. Many came from Asian Kingdoms seeking their own autonomy.
The drudgery was so overpowering. Diversions helped, but were few and far between. Some started their own businesses to get out of it. Some specialized. The same old stories played out again, but their were no more frontiers.
World populations increased. Newer modes of transportation allowed more efficiency and international exchanges of goods. Some used the labor of children to increase the availability and number of these goods.
Education levels increased in lower tiers of society. Some of it allowed more specialists to be created. Some created more worker bees for industry. Less and less generalists were needed.
The need for food increased. Since less and less people were working the soil, new methods were needed to enhance the soil, and new techniques to get higher and higher yields from it. Agriculture become a science. Former generalists become specialists. The means of generating more yields comes from specialized chemicals from imported oil.
Specialists in industries realize that despite having more and more choices of goods and services, the price is so great for them. Much of the goods are little more than shiny toys.
Kingdoms have expanded into just about all land areas. They press upon each other. Wars break out over land, resources, and concepts of freedom. People for a variety of reasons are mobilized into national forces, sold the idea of patriotism and a preservation of freedom. The old Chieftains have transformed into a ruling class that exploits them. They make money off the goods that project power the most, destroy the most, kill the most.
Some workers foolishly cede their power to liars that promise equality for all. They tell half-truths about the former chieftains. The are in-effect the same kinds of exploiters, taking great liberties with property, but worse, stealing away Freedom. They promise the State will feed, cloth, and do what is best for them.
When the soldiers return, they sell them little plots of land, made into artificial communities, with efficient roads to get them to the factories. The sell them more shiny toys to lull them into the deepest of slumber. New entertainments are created to sell them more shiny toys.
The sweet beautiful Freedom that they held so dear, that blood had been shed over, becomes so lost, that very few seem glimmers of it. In fact, while some altruist still cling to it, they are often exploited by evil people. The latter only seek new markets for their shiny toys. The most efficient way of increasing new markets? Entertainment that projects cultural power to sell those toys.
The industrialists realize that the best way to increase the wealth, is to allow others to invest with them. Artificial income is generated by essentially legalized gambling. Wealth is held up as the great equalizer. In the worst most perverted examples, wealth is sold as being synonymous to freedom.
Some specialists make great sums and lose great sums in this debacle. In order to kept the whole house of cards generating income, cuts in costs in industry must be created.
Factories are relocated to places where the income for the worker is lower, hence profits can be higher, and income from dividends can be larger. Products become cheap, while made with slave labor. For a time, the former industrial workers have more shiny toys while they switch to service based economies.
The main representatives that exploit the workers, curtail their freedom, misuse the military, take money from the industrialists, both decry and simultaneous sell the idea of globalization saying it will benefit all. It doesn't.
Construction workers are happy to be fully employed. They even can be choosy about which projects to join.
A few people wake up. They scratch their heads. How did Freedom become more toys? The pursuit for larger and larger homes without any need for more space startles some. Why do I need a 6 Bedroom 4 bathroom home? Their voices are soft, but insistent. Some find some of the answers in Church. Some re-read the Constitution finding answers there.
Most still follow the ways of materialism. Less and less profit can be made though. Fewer and fewer people have the ability or income to accept larger and larger mortgages. New financial products must be created. Easier ways for the “less fortunate” must be made to allow them to buy shiny toys. Most buy into it. They've been sold the idea of home ownership their whole life.
A lot of people have a lot of their assets tied up in their mortgages. At least on paper. New financial products are created. Sign here, and you can free-up that asset. Many reinvest their money into making that home worth more, buy things that depreciate, or pay off things that are depreciating. For some, this concept is sold as being more fiscally responsible in the worst perversion of that idea.
People have difficulty paying their mortgages. At first, it's the last people to buy a special guaranteed government mortgage. Less construction is being initiated. Less people are willing to buy better, newer, shinier toys.
The bankers who made all their money, invested all their money in bizarre financial instruments themselves to get astronomical yields. The representatives who accepted their money for re-election and who had been retiring from the Legislature, and working for them openly, all made excuses for them.
People who have net worth on paper from real estate...they see a drop in the value of their homes. Progressively more and more people cannot pay their multiple mortgages and some walk away since the amount it is worth is so low, that walking away is better than continuing to pay, even if they can.
Many must pull from other assets in order to pay their bills. Wealthy manipulators of the markets make a fortune by betting on declines in markets, then purchase the very same investments later at lower prices. They continue the cycle so much that less and less people are able to invest at all.
Some prudent ones have invested in gold and silver. These markets are also manipulated to bolster currencies. Some never take physical delivery of their metals. In point in fact, they own a piece of paper or a ledger entry.
Unemployment soars. No one has disposable income to buy shiny toys. Some begin to realize how stupid the whole goal was to begin with.