This Space for Rent

Where will they live?

Avedon Carol is wondering where the B*sh junta and their masters are intending to live after they've converted the United States into a larger version of Venezuela. I suspect that they intend to continue to live (if, by live, you mean "keep a few mansions" along with their estates in England, their summer houses along the Cote d'Azur, and their hunting lodges in Africa) in the United States, well fortified in their gated communities and secure in the knowledge that there will be enough quislings around to support them.

Remember that the super-rich have already moved their factories and research facilities out of the United States; if the United States goes into a terminal decline, it just means more land for the landed gentry because all the things that stop them from having immense estates (land and inheritance taxes, land use laws, annoying inholders who won't sell and that you can't just shoot) will collapse along with the state.

I'm sure that some of the super-rich have already considered the problem of losing their rents if some of the big cities become vast slums, but it's not as if you can't make money leasing to poor people (and you can often make more money leasing to poor people, because they don't have the luxury of just telling you to fuck off when you jack up the rent; the new peonage laws that the Evil Party are putting into play will make certain that the little people won't have any choice but to pay and pay and pay.) And remember one of the important things that's motivating the Evil Party and their masters; it's not so much that you have more, it's that everyone else has less.

So the United States will end up being a bloodless zombie dancing to the orders of the Chinese. Guess who owns the factories in China?

«Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, declared recently: "What we're trying to do is outline an entire strategy of becoming a Chinese company."»
Dow Jones reported that a Cisco filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission stated that Chambers' compensation including bonus remuneration was $1.9 million, covering the year ended July 31; that reflected improved profits and equity returns. Chambers also exercised two million options for $38.3 million in the last fiscal year, Dow Jones said.
In addition, Chambers held more than 30 million options valued recently at $203 million. The company's stock price, which rose above $70 a share five years ago, was trading this week for slightly over $18.