Things I am thankful for about the recession.
Renewal comes with destruction. It's natural, it is why forest fires, if natural and limited are not bad things. With this recession/depression thing, we'll hurt for a while, but there are a bound to be a few benefits. Here's my list of what I either think will or hope might happen as a result of this economic downturn.
1. The death of the big box. Circuit City in the US is closed. I hope many more follow it. I hate these warehouses of huge, bland lack of choice masquerading as choice. They are, generally a blight. Aside from the philosophical reasons for hating them (are they really offering everything? or just everything they want to sell you?), there are practical reasons: the service is usually shit. They are staffed by minimum wagers who do not give a shit. Here in HK there are no chain stores selling electronics (or much of anything besides a couple of department stores). Instead there are thousands of tiny shops competing. There's one place in Mongkok where it's an entire 4 storey building dedicated to electronics (it's on Shoe Street - an entire STREET for shoes). It's fun, messy, risky and you seem like you're a participant in the purchase process not a spectator.
2. Banks Other than the fact that we need them, and if we let them all die the economy would tank even further, I cannot think of one good reason not to let (force) all banks everywhere to go under. They are almost without exception, pure evil. The labyrinthine regulation, exorbitant rates and fees, and customer service that was based on the practices of de Torquemada. They are all fuckers and the sooner they're out of business the better we'll all be.
3. American Cars There's simply no good reason for GM to exist. They make bad cars badly. There concept of a single company owning 15 brands that compete with each other is retarded. Kill it. Put the whole thing into Chapter 11, and come out the other side as 1 brand (pick the most valuable? Chevy?) and go from there. But first they have to learn to make the kind of cars that people want, not what they think they should want.
4. MBA Perhaps it is unfair to tag all of them at once. What I really mean is that I hope with this colossal fuck-up, this monumental buggeration of the world economy we can stop treating the investment bankers and guys with MBAs as if they are the pinnacle of human achievement. For years now an MBA was seen as the ticket to success. For years arts degrees have been declining at universities as business degrees have been in the increase. We taught and entire generation of people that the only worthwhile education is one that directly prepared you to join the business world and become a titan! Well thanks MBA guys, now we are all fucked. And you know its going to take the kind of creative thinking that someone with an arts or science degree can exhibit to drag our asses out of this mess. So one side effect of this depression that I would love to see, would be for the entire world to snort with cynical laughter in the face of anyone with a business degree who tries to give us advice.
These are just some of the things I'd love to see gone.
