- Life expectancy in the US for women has dropped sharply, at its lowest since the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918
- As if sensing this, in the same time period, suicide rates jumped among children and young adults.
- Also, an average of 18 veterans a day commit suicide. That’s almost one every hour.
- People are hoarding food.
- Bill Gates says that even if you do well in high school, you don’t know enough to succeed in this economy because our American high schools are not competitive internationally. He’s freaked out. Those are his words. Luckily, people listen to him because he’s rich. Also, he will live long, as he can afford any of his illnesses. And he can send his children abroad for schooling, where they will get decent educations, not be suicidal or have to fight in wars.
- They will also be able to afford to drive but only because soon, only billionaires will be able to drive: gas prices are at 3.47, headed to 3.77 by the end of the month, and a 4.00 summer. Diesel is already over 4.00 a gallon
- A short conversation I had with a taxi driver in San Francisco may explain why your gas prices will not go down, your prescriptions will now cost more and the war will never end — why John McCain said “I think you could argue that Americans overall are better off, because we have had a pretty good prosperous time, with low unemployment, low inflation. A lot of good things have happened.”: Cab Driver: You’re a professor? I had a professor in my car that I took up here in 2000. [we were headed to the USF campus] He was a professor at Berkeley. He told me then actually that the Republicans had a plan in place to take the wealth of the country and put it in the hands of the top 2% of the country. He said he had that from a wealthy Republican friend of his. Me: Seriously? Cab Driver: Yeah. And you know, that’s exactly what happened. At the time I thought he was nuts, and didn’t think much of it. And then after articles started saying it had happened, I remembered it. Me: Was that before or after the election that year? Cab Driver: [thinking] Before.
Dear America: You’re Broke, Hungry, and Dying Young, Also Maybe On Fire But Not A Gasoline Fire Because You Can’t Afford That
Filed under apocalypse, current events, dialogues
i’m terrified.
Me too.
Great title. I knew there was a reason my book list includes Morris Berman’s “Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire” and James Howard Kunstler’s “World Made by Hand: A Novel”. Enjoyed your UKL interview.
Jan: Thanks. I was a little proud of the post title and also the interview. A lot proud of the interview, actually.
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