Economic Cycles

According to Marx, history is deterministic, and a proletariat (whatever the heck that is) inevitably rises up and bla-bla-bla-bla-bla-bla. Yeah right. 

We’ve been through this thing several times now. First, it was 1929. Then again in 1987, the whole thing collapsed. I was living in the groovy year 1987, and believe me it was a collapse. El collapso.

Translate that one!

In any case, people looked for alternatives – mine was Japan. I knew a chick over there, so I bounced over to Tokyo during the summer of 1988. I almost starved to death my first summer over there! You give sushi (raw fish) and rice a try sometime!!

Still, there was excitement in trying to make a living in a foreign land. I don’t recommend it to anyone, because Tokyo isn’t New York, and Westerners tend to go to Tokyo expecting the rags-to-riches economic experience. Unfortunately, Tokyo was never successful at creating economic opportunity for immigrants like that found in New York. They are two very different places, but I did find some opportunity there in the wake of the economic collapse of 1987.

So now the year is 2009, and we’re going through this again. That’s not to mention the year 1999, when we had something of a collapse with the Dot.com thing. (All Wall Street acronyms will be avoided. Any further disclaimers, etc., etc., are hereby null and void.)

In America, when the Democrats leave office, they close the economy down. Call it “Rolling up the Medical Industrial Complex and taking it with you”. The same happens with the Republicans. They roll up the Military Industrial Complex and take it with them.

Economic collapse happens everytime. Maybe it's not so much a cycle as it is a political phenomenon, but it seems to happen regularly.