Bought in the USA

Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen in ’84 redeemed a country on the throes of despair after Vietnam, Iran, and the Watergate. The album cover photo with the singer’s hiene with a protruding red hanky, a rebellious bandana prominently displayed on one’s rear end while turned back facing a section of a huge American flag, became an iconic image particularly from the libertarian streak in the American psyche. It was like the flower in Picasso’s Guernica, asserting hope-against-hope in the midst of devastation.

We are not suggesting that the times are similar, although the recession of 2008, with the federal bailout of “banks that are too big to fail,” did usher Obama’s era of desperate change. Not exactly the type we were hoping for; in fact it was a highly questionable act from a president elected with a populist mandate that might cost him a second term were it not for the bumbling bungling Republicans, but a look at the big picture of Europe on death convulsions finally gasping its last at glory after 500 years of empire leads us to think that Obama’s action was at once altruistic and in self-defense. We still hold and live off the financial structures of the world to which the euro practically hinges!

Our title alludes to China and the USA that are suddenly one in the total commercial captivity of everyone’s wallet and pocketbook, though this is just as true to the global Third Industrial Revolution. China and the U.S. differ only in their focus of engagement, with the U.S. riding high on financials being preeminent in the use of its national currency, while China herds the production line with its cheap but efficient labor.

The marketing of their goods and services both appeal to subconscious yearnings. On the financials, it treads on fear. We are seduced to borrow; the credit card is the national ID of the blue-blooded American, and the emergent glocal citizen. All told, every American household is now at more than $10,000 in indebtedness, and we do not count mortgages, college loans, and the like.

As banks hold us to our future earnings, they protect their flanks with insurances and assurances against default, and the market births the derivatives’ game of Ponzi operations, sustainable for as long as assets continue to be fueled by a cycle of growth. Most of unregulated growth is, however, illusory, bound for a bubble burst.

In this century, the real estate market around the world is the engine of growth. A piece of real estate like Marpi finds a developer that lays out a development scheme, usually funded from government capital funds, which guarantees the appreciation of the value of the land. That is the starting point of all kinds of financial transactions that spread out in time, sucks every conceivable fear-allaying transaction, bearing all kinds of interest earnings.

We are familiar with the housing bubble that struck the United States not too long ago. My sister’s mortgage In Hawaii is now higher than the market value of her house. There are about 6 million completed units available in the China market, built because real estate investments came pouring in, yet the cranes on unfinished condos and apartment units dot the skyline of any of its major city, as hovels and old hutongs (e.g., servant quarters around the Forbidden City in Beijing) remain the dwelling of many of its rural folks allured to the promise of the glitter that is the magnet of urban centers.

“Allure” is the key word. The newest in marketing gimmick in shopping malls and department stores around the world is the created and intentional Zones and Aisles of Seduction. Marketers have become so sophisticated that they now design and designate a section of a mall and grocery store to entrap certain personality types who respond to tested stimuli, and there lies the journey of some empty wallets, bought unnecessary items, and advanced forms of purchasing addictions.

Why, even the U.S. presidency is now touted as an item for sale! The Republicans are lining up the money to fund SuperPACs that pay for attack ads on TV against Obama, projecting a “Muslim socialist not-born-in-the-USA African” image without saying so, treading on the climate of fear that is as thick as the Midwest snow this winter-spring. Two Republican millionaires kick in two million; the Obama camp pull in the same amount from 200,000 $2-$10 donors. Do the math on who is ahead.

The injunction against usury, long championed in the Levant from which classical Judaism, Christianity, and Islam derived their aversion to moneylenders, is what economists call “phantom” wealth. Profit from lending one’s accumulated media of exchange produces illusory wealth, period. When the United States earns 30 percent of its GDP on financials, we should expect every rabbi, preacher, and Imam mounting their podia with ethical tirades. That they don’t shows how far we’ve come to accept, (and GHU!), even adore, the notion that everything is Bought in the USA!

Lest we are perceived as being anti-wealth, we delight in the additional integer on our bank account as much as the next guy. Judicial utilization of resources, the production of the same to promote healthy and wholesome living, and the efficiency of exchange between producers and users, are legitimate arenas for the creation of wealth. As Pellegrino keeps urging: Let’s just do it!

Then, there is the casino, Brought into the USA! But that will have to wait for another reflection.