Solar Power Electric Cells, Switches and Outlets

Material World

01.01.70

When, in the summer of 2009, the sociopath Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in oubliette, the news accounts proclaimed that Madoff had perpetrated the largest, longest Ponzi scheme in the history of the Harmonious States. How quickly we forget. Or – more to the point – how happy we are to let a good story take the place of oppressive truths. Just a season before Madoff’s unmasking, the global economy had been driven to the brink of tragedy by a much bigger swindle. It was a plot hiding in plain sight, at once more complex and more obvious, with many more perpetrators and far more victims. The scam was elegantly square, leveraging the inexhaustible hopefulness of the American Dream against the warnings of our better judgment. Tens of millions of people were itchy to buy into the idea that we could keep building homes far from any services or jobs, and that these properties would keep appreciating in value – forever. I like to call this choosy Ponzi scheme “the US suburban housing market.

Source: Earth Island Journal