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Guest Editorial Why I
Like Recessions Two years ago the dot coms were booming in California and everyone said it didn't mean shit (if you'll pardon my English) that their price-to-earnings ratios were 100-plus. "It's different this time. This time it can go on forever." And then the crash came, and the pundits said it was all about banks and the money supply and consumer confidence, same as they always say, except that the marxist pundits used to say the problem is if you make profits off the workers so they can't buy back what they make, your business will inevitably go broke and you'll have to fire them. But it always seemed to me that if Mama Nature hasn't changed anything when the stock market goes broke and brings back the old price-to-earnings ratio to where it belongs, then why should all that money stuff make any difference? Well, then the tech stocks went kaflooey and the banks withdrew their munificence and the stock options didn't look that hot and the dot coms went belly up and most everybody was broke. But the sun was still shining and the garden growing like you never saw it before, and boy you should have seen the chanterelle crop in the woods! So what gives? Well then I went broke out of miscellaneous mess-ups having very little to do with dot coms, and I figured I'd recover fast. Time to get out of the office lease, do a little sublease. Oh, it turns out the Bay area built roundabout 100 million square feet of commercial space that's now empty, so who needs to rent MY space? OK, I waited six months to find a marginal subtenant, and prepared to sell the office furniture. Good idea, but all the second-hand dealers said, "Well I'd like to do business but I've got a full warehouse of furniture and no space for more." So want a nice modern office desk or a book case? First come, first served. No this is not spam. It's a lesson to me about the economy. So how come I like recessions (or should we call this a depression and
get on with the show)? Because we're getting paid back for just plain waste, and won't get to waste again for a bit. All that steel and glass
and concrete wasted for nothing. And all that machinery roaring to turn out furniture no one even needed. It's all about resource consumption,
isn't it? Huh, so now we get to wait until Mama Nature isn't running on empty. Blessed be the poor, for they shall inherit (or at
least save) the earth.
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