Stuff will be getting a lot more expensive in the not-distant future, and you can bet that the Chinese are not going to be selling it cheaply to us in return for our increasingly worthless greenbacks. Perhaps the only thing more grim than our current economic moment is the economy that is awaiting us. We will either learn thrift by a new commitment to old virtues, or we will learn it the hard way. We will be able to afford fewer things, move around less and we will find ourselves facing a world that is not subject to our notional control. For most, this will be an occasion for lamenting. To my mind, it would generally constitute a better way, but a hard way when it comes by force and not by choice. Hard especially because – like our response to the current â??crisisâ?? (a word that reflects our belief that this is something extraordinary, unexpected, exceptional, a departure from the norm rather than the new norm), we will not believe in the reality of the reality that we face. We will deny its truth and its causes, looking instead for another cause other than ourselves. We will deny until the bitter end, avoiding the bankruptcy that awaits us in the belief that past returns are the guarantee of future results, most of all for no better reason than we wish it to be so.
Patrick Deneen Unreal estate
