Saturday, March 29, 2014

Boomers on easy street

Nice to be a boomer.  Canada is in a massive goods deflation, and the money saved is chasing after housing.  After all, money can only be destroyed in wars, or building giant white elephants such as the Niagara Tunnel and the Bruce Black Hole.

It all started with the generation after us (like my kids).  They became giant gluttons for digital content.  I remember spending a fortune on the kids on vcr tapes, cd's, and games.  There was one problem with this massive consumption - it was good for nothing!  Didn't produce wealth, didn't do diddly squat.  The content cartel just blew it on drugs.

Can the kids get jobs today as Professional Content Consumers?  No, but they naturally drift into content creation, but nobody's buying any more.  When's the last time you paid for digital content?  We are awash in garbage content, and we don't even want it any more.

The last industry to suck up the graduating kids is the retail industry.  That's right, that's what your degree is good for.  But this industry is striking out, since the Mighty Fish is now ordering directly from China!  After years of us sleeping at the switch for boring industry, the Chinese have taken up all manufacturing.  But that left lots of business for Dollarama and such to sell this stuff cheap (with a 200% markup).  All over now.

I just bought an LED plant light from Amazon, directly from China.  I figure it is about 3 times less than anything from a store.  It flew directly from Hong Kong to here.  Who cares about a warranty?  That's deflation, which is great for a guy on a fixed income.

It's not true Japanese-style deflation, since it is a productivity improvement.  Can't wait to buy my next car directly from Korea!  This type of goods deflation liberates money which goes to inflating scarce energy and fuelling housing speculation.  I can't see it going into local productivity, which would mean more jobs for the kids.  For that you need brain power, and it's all going to California.

So, I just sit here and make fun of everybody.  Sucks to be me (NOT!).


* The preceding was satire.  I apologize in advance for everything.

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