JAMES KUNSTLER: Hustler and Flow

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James Kunstler -- World News Trust

You've heard of "Pimp My Ride." Well, the New York Times is running a new joint called "Pimp My Read." This week's Sunday Time Magazine devoted itself to the idea that housing bubble is (in Martha Stewart's words) a good thing. In fact, Martha herself is getting into the racket, lending her name to a 650-unit (they're just units) suburban subdivision outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. If she was shrewd about the deal (could it be otherwise?) then Martha will get paid whether the project tanks or not.

Really, the whole issue of the Mag was just an opportunity for the financially-strapped Times to sell a shitload of advertising to the real estate investment trusts, the luxury condo hucksters, and the home furnishing industry. It will probably go down in history, along with Yale economist Irving Fisher's 1929 proclamation that the United States had achieved "permanent prosperity," as one of the seminal documents of societal cluelessness in the face of obvious calamity.

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