Great Social Equalizers in the Time of Subprime (last part of 3 parts)
By the philippine daily idiot
IN SPITE of the present world financial crisis that threatens to swallow us whole, hope springs eternal if we keep on discovering the great social equalizers of the world.
The idea of a great social equalizer gets starker, e.g. its importance becomes more emphasized in interesting times like the time that we are now in.
BUT FIRST, what the heck is a great social equalizer, anyway? My lazy Googling skills didn't bring me anywhere.
Perhaps, a great social equalizer is: any instrument, device, institution, thinking, movement, thought, invention, cause, organization, paradigm shift, fad or fetish that tries to bridge the gap in terms of fun and coolness between the rich and the poor, and between the powerful and the powerless. That is, to attempt to somehow equally distribute/democratize fun among people or groups of people. :-)
As long as there is poor and there is rich, great social equalizers are here to stay.
No great social equalizer is really that great or perfect but any attempt is more welcome than nothingness in the face of disparity in the distribution of wealth and fun and power and coolness and Serendra properties and Rolexes across nations. Calling great social equalizers as great is only for rhetorical purposes.
History is littered with great social equalizers:
1. the Industrial Revolution
2. Karl Marx, literally
3. the pre-paid phone sim card
4. the United Nations and its agencies
5. The violence/armed struggle resorted to by marginalized groups. If there are no legal avenues to successfully advance a just cause, history teaches us that violence, acceptable or not, is a sensible instrument for leveling the playing field. Most nations of the world were born out of violence.
6. The Metro Rail Transit. Body to body, the rich and the poor ride the train.
7. the Internet and its spawn, the blogosphere
8. Democracy, of course
9. the rule of law
10. The snarling traffic on the non-express South Expressway. Whether it's a Jaguar or a kariton, the speed is the same: crawling speed. Hehehe.
11. the Department of Agrarian Reform, in theory
12. fighting words
13. They said heaven is a great social equalizer. I'm really an agnostic.
14. You name it! Our digestive system is one great social equalizer. You know, whether you eat caviar or galunggung, they all end up as the same thing -- shit. I think there is not much difference between the poor and the rich in terms of turning food into feces.
15. Come to think about it. The financial crisis today is one heckuva great social equalizer. Quick, look at the profiles of those friends at Friendster that proudly state that they work for companies such as AIG, Meryl Lynch, Lehman Brothers. Or that they live in Iceland. Hehehe. Profile updated: Worked for.
As a resident of the Third World, I am nonplussed by the fall of the much vaunted Wall Street and how it streams into our unsheltered personal asses.
I am nonplussed on two levels.
I am nonplussed because, from what I know, it's regrettable that the great American invention and great social equalizer called the American Dream, tantalizing to most of us, is inherently tied to the credit crunch.
Notice that we are surprised how fast the average hard-working Juan could get a home with an SUV in the garage in America. His car is all over Friendster. This is because the American Dream is reachable when Juan opens a credit line or a credit card. You know, a sort of DREAM NOW! HAVE THEM EVEN NOW! PAY LATER! This reflects the so-called ownership society envisioned by the US Republicans.
Problem is, credit becoming over-credit is what befalls Walls Street. Does this ultimately mean to our nursing graduates, “Hello to local call center jobs”?
At level 2, I am nonplussed in the sense that although our government would say that we may be affected by the credit crunch caused by subprime American homeowners, the truth is, here in the Third World, our asses have been subprime since forever, kindof. Our loans are peanuts by American standards. We don't do loans to buy an SUV or a mansion. I know a lot of friends who loan para lang makapunta sa Boracay. Enough said.
There is so much disconnect between what's happening around here and the great social equalizer called the American Dreamanywhere abroad. Heck, there is even more disconnect between Wall Street and Divisoria. What the government probably is talking about is that the in-flow of remittances, passed off as the trickle-down effect of local good governance to prop up the corrupt government, would likely slow down. (In contrast, Thailand and Indonesia don't even need remittances to progress. That's how worse the Great and Glorious Nation is.)
NOW, our disconnect from the great social equalizer of the American Dream is also due in part to an unheralded great social equalizer: the black market. Hey, I'm not talking here about plutonium or cocaine. The non-credit-based black market is simply the maverick way of making fun accessible to the poor. Maybe the official market is vulnerable to any problems in other parts of the world but the non-taxed black market of pirated CDs, shoes, and everything else in Greenhills and Divisoria is less so or even not at all affected.
Around here, as I have been saying, the black market is the new black, it is de riguer. The black market on steroids is a natural outgrowth of the homogenizing effect of monopolies (e.g., Windows, mp3 format, BluRay, etc.) on IT products. Why?
Ans. Because a lot of products are based on the Windows platform et al and everyone uses Windows. It is feasible/lucrative to pirate products that everyone has already been using. Monopolies are maybe dark and evil and want our souls but thanks to the monopolies and to Bill Gates, they had inadvertently given birth to a more vibrant black market.
This is entirely beside the point. Okey, the ultimate great social equalizer is the appreciation of the simpler things in life. On second thought (maybe I'm just sleepy), that's the essence of the black market. (The selling and enjoyment of the home-made kakanin and halo-halo is essentially black-market; shoe-shining and jeepney-driving and -barking are essentially non-taxed and totally black-market.)
Even if our local asses have been sortof subprime since way, way long before subprime became a hot new word, we are prime in making the best of what we have in here. That's what I do. I don't have a credit line and my phone is a Nokia 8210. I don't eat in fancy restaurants. I'm writing this on an EeePC. I'm online via free Wifi. How crisis-proof I could get?
Meanwhile, they are having a hard time parting with their plasma TVs and SUVs. Good morning.
The idea of a great social equalizer gets starker, e.g. its importance becomes more emphasized in interesting times like the time that we are now in.
BUT FIRST, what the heck is a great social equalizer, anyway? My lazy Googling skills didn't bring me anywhere.
Perhaps, a great social equalizer is: any instrument, device, institution, thinking, movement, thought, invention, cause, organization, paradigm shift, fad or fetish that tries to bridge the gap in terms of fun and coolness between the rich and the poor, and between the powerful and the powerless. That is, to attempt to somehow equally distribute/democratize fun among people or groups of people. :-)
As long as there is poor and there is rich, great social equalizers are here to stay.
No great social equalizer is really that great or perfect but any attempt is more welcome than nothingness in the face of disparity in the distribution of wealth and fun and power and coolness and Serendra properties and Rolexes across nations. Calling great social equalizers as great is only for rhetorical purposes.
History is littered with great social equalizers:
1. the Industrial Revolution
2. Karl Marx, literally
3. the pre-paid phone sim card
4. the United Nations and its agencies
5. The violence/armed struggle resorted to by marginalized groups. If there are no legal avenues to successfully advance a just cause, history teaches us that violence, acceptable or not, is a sensible instrument for leveling the playing field. Most nations of the world were born out of violence.
6. The Metro Rail Transit. Body to body, the rich and the poor ride the train.
7. the Internet and its spawn, the blogosphere
8. Democracy, of course
9. the rule of law
10. The snarling traffic on the non-express South Expressway. Whether it's a Jaguar or a kariton, the speed is the same: crawling speed. Hehehe.
11. the Department of Agrarian Reform, in theory
12. fighting words
13. They said heaven is a great social equalizer. I'm really an agnostic.
14. You name it! Our digestive system is one great social equalizer. You know, whether you eat caviar or galunggung, they all end up as the same thing -- shit. I think there is not much difference between the poor and the rich in terms of turning food into feces.
15. Come to think about it. The financial crisis today is one heckuva great social equalizer. Quick, look at the profiles of those friends at Friendster that proudly state that they work for companies such as AIG, Meryl Lynch, Lehman Brothers. Or that they live in Iceland. Hehehe. Profile updated: Worked for.
As a resident of the Third World, I am nonplussed by the fall of the much vaunted Wall Street and how it streams into our unsheltered personal asses.
I am nonplussed on two levels.
I am nonplussed because, from what I know, it's regrettable that the great American invention and great social equalizer called the American Dream, tantalizing to most of us, is inherently tied to the credit crunch.
Notice that we are surprised how fast the average hard-working Juan could get a home with an SUV in the garage in America. His car is all over Friendster. This is because the American Dream is reachable when Juan opens a credit line or a credit card. You know, a sort of DREAM NOW! HAVE THEM EVEN NOW! PAY LATER! This reflects the so-called ownership society envisioned by the US Republicans.
Problem is, credit becoming over-credit is what befalls Walls Street. Does this ultimately mean to our nursing graduates, “Hello to local call center jobs”?
At level 2, I am nonplussed in the sense that although our government would say that we may be affected by the credit crunch caused by subprime American homeowners, the truth is, here in the Third World, our asses have been subprime since forever, kindof. Our loans are peanuts by American standards. We don't do loans to buy an SUV or a mansion. I know a lot of friends who loan para lang makapunta sa Boracay. Enough said.
There is so much disconnect between what's happening around here and the great social equalizer called the American Dreamanywhere abroad. Heck, there is even more disconnect between Wall Street and Divisoria. What the government probably is talking about is that the in-flow of remittances, passed off as the trickle-down effect of local good governance to prop up the corrupt government, would likely slow down. (In contrast, Thailand and Indonesia don't even need remittances to progress. That's how worse the Great and Glorious Nation is.)
NOW, our disconnect from the great social equalizer of the American Dream is also due in part to an unheralded great social equalizer: the black market. Hey, I'm not talking here about plutonium or cocaine. The non-credit-based black market is simply the maverick way of making fun accessible to the poor. Maybe the official market is vulnerable to any problems in other parts of the world but the non-taxed black market of pirated CDs, shoes, and everything else in Greenhills and Divisoria is less so or even not at all affected.
Around here, as I have been saying, the black market is the new black, it is de riguer. The black market on steroids is a natural outgrowth of the homogenizing effect of monopolies (e.g., Windows, mp3 format, BluRay, etc.) on IT products. Why?
Ans. Because a lot of products are based on the Windows platform et al and everyone uses Windows. It is feasible/lucrative to pirate products that everyone has already been using. Monopolies are maybe dark and evil and want our souls but thanks to the monopolies and to Bill Gates, they had inadvertently given birth to a more vibrant black market.
This is entirely beside the point. Okey, the ultimate great social equalizer is the appreciation of the simpler things in life. On second thought (maybe I'm just sleepy), that's the essence of the black market. (The selling and enjoyment of the home-made kakanin and halo-halo is essentially black-market; shoe-shining and jeepney-driving and -barking are essentially non-taxed and totally black-market.)
Even if our local asses have been sortof subprime since way, way long before subprime became a hot new word, we are prime in making the best of what we have in here. That's what I do. I don't have a credit line and my phone is a Nokia 8210. I don't eat in fancy restaurants. I'm writing this on an EeePC. I'm online via free Wifi. How crisis-proof I could get?
Meanwhile, they are having a hard time parting with their plasma TVs and SUVs. Good morning.
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