You were probably taught to revere our economic system: capitalism. You were probably taught that “socialist” Europe was evil, and communist Russia was the worst. And, like me, you ate it up. That’s what we were supposed to do.
Well, hmm…
This is what we all bought into:
This home located at 1062 Plymouth Drive in Sunnyvale, Calif. recently set the highest price per square foot ever recorded by the Multiple Listing Service. The two bedroom, two bath home – 848 square feet in size – sold in two days for $2 million. It had been listed for $1.45 million. That means it sold for $2,358 per square foot, which is the highest price per square foot in Sunnyvale recorded by MLS Listings which has data going back to Jan. 1, 2000. (Courtesy Michael Silver)
Yes, the house is a convenient 10 minutes from Apple, Google, LinkedIn and Yahoo. The young man (Single, thank goodness. Today’s American family would consider this house too small to live in, especially with just 1 bathroom!) who purchased it plans to live there and plunked down all cash with a 10 day closing.
He’s lucky. More than a few articles have been written out here about the tech employees that rent U-Haul trucks and live in them in the parking lots of some of these employers. They shower in the gyms at work. They eat in the cafeterias at work. Why? Because renting the truck is much cheaper than renting an efficiency apartment. They can afford the truck rental but not the apartment.
Pretending them to be “lifestyle choices,” they use electric skateboards (like the Boosted Board or the OneWheel or the new Bird rentals), but the truth is they can’t afford to park a car, let alone buy one out here in the techtropolis. One of my Lyft drivers works full time at Tesla. A lot of the drivers drive so they can have access to a car; some who work other jobs also drive at night to just feed their family.
The beautiful old homes that are among the iconic images of San Francisco were built for and bought by the American working class, the shipbuilders and hard laborers of their day. Today the wealthy (and currently booming) tech industry and wealthy foreign investors (not the “Mexican illegals”) have forced those people out to be sure. Only the wealthy can afford those exact same houses. And the tech boom is destroying the iconic structures of the city, replacing them with steel and glass skyscrapers only the wealthiest can afford.
The school teachers, the policemen and women, the fire fighters… They can’t begin to afford to live in the city. This is the American Dream gone belly up.
Oh, and that horrible place called Europe has a new law going into effect next month: a law to protect consumers’ online privacy. Facebook had to create a European version of Facebook1. Apple has made some changes to their privacy implementation, but at least they gave everyone the same changes as far as I know.
Yeah. Europe bad. We’re number one! Where’s my remote? Isn’t there some game on TV? <Beer burp>
Tim’s not at all pleased with the forces at work in this nation, creating a 3rd world country here: those who have and those who have not because they were forced to give it all to those who wanted more. And those same forces keep feeding the US its steady diet of political and economic BS. And those same people keep voting the Republicans back into office2 every election because Jesus and his Fox News crew said so. Oh, and let’s not forget the Sinclair Broadcast Group …
Wow. Just unbelievably wow.
Oh, and here’s a little tidbit for you about the Washington investigations of Facebook this week: “In all, the committee members are in hock to Zuck for $381,000; other committee who’ve evinced an interest in holding Facebook hearings aren’t far behind: the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee got $369,000 from Facebook, and their peers on the Senate Judiciary Committee (who want to hold joint hearings with Commerce) raked in $235,000.” Source: Boing Boing. Yeah. That’s going to be a happy outcome. Money well spent. ↩
It’s not just the Republicans, but it’s mostly them at the present time. All bought and paid for! ↩