From America to Zimbabwe, the coming anarchy

[TheDoctor]

It's a pity Ann Arbor is so surrounded by decaying cities and towns.  I lived in Ann Arbor for a little while, and quite liked it. If it weren't for the winters, it would be a great place to try to ride out the doom.

The surrounding countryside of Washtenaw County is a beautiful place. It is full of hills, swamps, rivers, streams, lakes, oak knolls, woods, and fields. It is still a remarkably robust ecosystem with great food growing potential. Many of the small towns around Ann Arbor are old picturesque, Victorian Era, pedestrian friendly communities surrounded by farmland. Tecumseh, Saline, Clinton, Manchester and others come to mind. The winters are a piece of cake with the right clothing. I love the fresh air, peace and solitude of winter walks in Michigan when everyone else is indoors watching the tube.

I also like many of the features of my town for similar reasons. It has an old pedestrian friendly downtown and old neighborhoods. The old factories have been demolished. Any condemned homes were demolished. We are not a microcosm of Detroit or Flint. The community is still a beautiful place and has been here since the 1700's.  The joblessness with likely be the death knell of the place. When I was a kid, we were home to numerous paper mills, an auto plant and suppliers (like Monroe Shocks and Struts and a place famously called the "Finger Plant" ), the LazyBoy factory and world headquarters, a foundry.... People could get fired from a job and get another the next day making enough money to pay for a home and a car while the wife stayed home to raise the kids. They are all gone except LazyBoy headquarters. Now we are like zoo animals in this town.

I think you summed it up perfectly forager - it is unfair to say the older towns around Ann Arbor are decaying.

I'm sitting on 10 acres a few miles North of Tecumseh and a few miles East of Clinton, and yes economic times are tough, and lots of for sales signs, but I don't feel the towns are decaying at all.  In fact there is if anything a growing sense of community in Tecumseh as times have gotten tougher.  The turnout for their 'silly' little fall Pumpkin festival was great this year and last - what do you do when you're tight on cash? - go to a free festival and walk around and run into friends and neighbors and look at the crafts for sale and let your kids go on a few carnival rides (ok, $, that did cost a bit), and just have a great relaxing time - community - what a concept!

SE MI gets such a bad reputation because of Detroit.  I definitely wouldn't want to ride out this mess in Detroit, or the surrounding shallow-minded, sheeple-infected middle and upper class suburbs that grew exponentially the past two decades with all the farmland now gutted and replaced by McMansions and strip malls - how can you have any sense of community in large cities that sprung up in 20 years from nothing, with many people probably not even knowing more than 2 or 3 of their neighbors.  But the older towns further out from Detroit that have held onto their identity - great place to be if you ask me.....

[Katie]

I do think this area is beautiful and has some of the older towns/communities that are wonderful.  However, every family seems to be touched by unemployment.   Perhaps this whole area is just coming to the collapse ahead of many other parts of the country.  Does this mean that those "early adopters" will be able to figure out solutions sooner?  It's possible.  Anarchy is possible as well, too.  Will that start in Detroit/empty suburbs and spread?

[forager]

The area (SE Michigan) is a good study in what happens as the traditional industrial economy collapses in an otherwise suitable area for habitation. It does often feel like we are on point. Sometimes, I also wonder if the entire area is being setup for widespread gentrification as other parts of the country begin to crumble from the ecological foundation up? I would move back to Tecumseh in a New York minute if I could get work there. I worked out of Tecumseh in 2004-2005 for the Emerald Ash Borer Response Project. It was the best 15 months of my life. Peace, beauty, cool co-workers, good people, community, nature, architecture, walkable neighborhoods, nearby hunting grounds... It was all there for me when I was being paid to walk in the woods everyday in rural Southern Michigan. Those are my "good ole days."

[Katie]

The area (SE Michigan) is a good study in what happens as the traditional industrial economy collapses in an otherwise suitable area for habitation. It does often feel like we are on point. Sometimes, I also wonder if the entire area is being setup for widespread gentrification as other parts of the country begin to crumble from the ecological foundation up? I would move back to Tecumseh in a New York minute if I could get work there. I worked out of Tecumseh in 2004-2005 for the Emerald Ash Borer Response Project. It was the best 15 months of my life. Peace, beauty, cool co-workers, good people, community, nature, architecture, walkable neighborhoods, nearby hunting grounds... It was all there for me when I was being paid to walk in the woods everyday in rural Southern Michigan. Those are my "good ole days."

Shhhh!  [No, not widespread gentrification  ].  No, no, it's horrible here all kinds of MZB's coming from the big cities already, no one would want to come here, haven't you seen Roger and Me, it's all a wasteland like that, like Flint and Detroit.  Plus the winters are brutal, just brutal, I say.  You wouldn't like it here.  Stay in the south and the desert, it's warmer  .

[steelmoon]

Occasionally, even a NY Times columnist gets it right.

A word, Mr. President

Obama should have focused on the catastrophic employment situation instead of Afghanistan, Wall Street bailouts - and even healthcare.

But hey, I've got newfound respect for some Yankee fans for what was chanted at the victory parade!  (Hint: it wasn't "Who's your Daddy!")

[steelmoon]

Perhaps with the exception of healthcare-related services, vocations across the socioeconomic spectrum are being destroyed at an accelerating pace.  The carnage is not limited to manufacturing.  Submitted for your review:


2009 Worst Year for Lawyer Headcount in 3 Decades


Why is this related to the coming anarchy?  For one thing, it costs upwards of $150K these days to finance a degree from a private law school.  Many if not most of the students meet this enormous tuition burden by taking out federally subsidized student loans.  Will these loans ever be paid back?

Another thing to consider.  The firms listed in the article include some of the largest and best-known in the country.  They recruit associates from the top-ranked schools.  Yes, some of them will find jobs elsewhere.  But if the collapse proceeds apace, many will not.  An educated, entitled, aggrieved, unemployed class with no visible prospects is a VERY dangerous thing from a political perspective.  Revolutions are not born among the proles, but among the disenfranchised educated classes. 

[hillwalker]

  Revolutions are not born among the proles, but among the disenfranchised educated classes. 

Interesting and insightful comment.

However, I just fail to see a 'revolution' /against/ the wealthy and entitled classes coming from
the wealthy and entitled classes. Nope. Just can't see it.

Note, this disenfranchised educated class you refer to, aren't the ones who were studying the humanities,
political and social sciences, they are the ones tapping their feet impatiently during their ethics lectures
waiting to get out and play some tennis confident in their futures of driving about in Porsche Cayannes
and so forth. Not exactly the proletariat.

[steelmoon]

You're right, the wealthy will be insulated.  But not the formerly "wealthy," or the mere aspirants to wealth.

Mostly, these are the ambitious, "overachieving" products of the aspiring middle class I refer to.  Once they realize their expectations of living a more affluent life than their parents are no longer tenable, and never will be, they will become very angry. That anger has yet to truly set in.  Most of these folks still believe we are in a recovery, and the terrible job market will eventually recover too.  I.e. employment is a "lagging" indicator.

I do not predict they will necessarily become a revolutionary vanguard.  It is merely one of many possible outcomes.  I do maintain that once they have their terrible realization that there will be no recovery, they - this class of persons generally, not just unemployed lawyers - will be a much greater political threat to TPTB than the "proles" (sorry to use that derogatory term, it's the best I can come up with at the moment).

Earlier in this thread the late, lamented Jeromie posted some good links to Shirer and others discussing the political somnolence of the bourgoisie.  I agree, but only up to a point.  That point is where they find their comfortable world and material expectations crashing, irrevocably, about them.  I believe we are approaching that point.

[Seahorse]

Recessopm = rising suicides, homelessness.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/elkhart-coroner-blames-hi_n_352806.html

[Katie]

Perhaps with the exception of healthcare-related services, vocations across the socioeconomic spectrum are being destroyed at an accelerating pace.  The carnage is not limited to manufacturing.  Submitted for your review:

Why is this related to the coming anarchy?  For one thing, it costs upwards of $150K these days to finance a degree from a private law school.  Many if not most of the students meet this enormous tuition burden by taking out federally subsidized student loans.  Will these loans ever be paid back? 

Wow, what you just said.  Student loan repayments going south.  Another way for our financial institutions to crumble.  Maybe they can foreclose on the degrees people got.  The banks could own even more toxic assets that way.   

[dagrove22]

No offense to any lawyers out there, but Why are so many lawyers necessary anyway? Just curious.

[steelmoon]

No offense to any lawyers out there, but Why are so many lawyers necessary anyway? Just curious.

I'm not offended by your question.  I agree we have too many lawyers, far more per capita than any other industrialized nation.

There are probably several reasons for this.  One is historical/cultural, as we are a litigious society and have historically done a better job of giving the citizenry access to formal judicial process.  (Not to say we have perfected that by any means.)

But I also think the proliferation of attorneys is another symptom of distortions in our job economy over the last couple generations.  Our reckless transformation into a high-tech "service economy" not only eliminated assembly and manufacturing jobs, but also resulted in a reduced demand for many vocations that require a college degree.  As a result, I think, many college grads looked to graduate school, including law school, as a way to enhance job and earnings prospects.  This process ran in lockstep with the growth of the student loan/higher ed industrial complex.  The number of law schools increased, facilitated by the legal industry's de facto regulatory body, the ABA.  Law schools are highly profitable and relatively cheap to operate.  E.g., UMass is trying to acquire a law school, even though Mass already has 9 law schools!

In other words, it's just another piece of the bubble that is still deflating.  But don't worry, we'll have fewer lawyers soon enough.

[steelmoon]

Oops!  Massachusetts jobs created from stimulus was "wildly" overstated

As a matter of fact...

Prior outlook that the state would emerge from the recession earlier than the nation as a whole "appears to have been an illusion"

Expect even more job losses in 2010.  D'oh!

Meanwile...

Returning Mass. Green Beret faces challenging civilian job market

[dagrove22]

Thank you Steelmoon. You learn something new everyday, hopefully.
I'm a fine artist. Vocation wise a carpenter & landscaper depending on the clients needs.
Have a good day.

[Seahorse]

Ten states face financial peril.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/11/news/economy/states_economies/index.htm