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On Our Way to Financializing America, We Forgot How to Make Things We Need
We’re on the brink of war with two countries that haven’t forgotten how to make things.
Every day, I see it in the news. Russia is evil. China is evil. They’re a threat to us, our leaders say. China could invade Taiwan. We’ve been told to freak out whenever we find a balloon in the sky that we can’t recognize. “I didn’t make that balloon. Did you?”
We’ve also been told that Russia could finish off Ukraine and go after its customers in other countries like Germany, Italy, or France. And every time I see those stories in the news, I wonder why advertisers pay to put their ads in those stories.
Whatever I see in the news, I remember that we the readers don’t pay for the news in the newshole. Whatever I see advertised in the news is tailored to my demographics. There is an expectation that I will read the story, see the ad, and buy the product in the ad. It doesn’t really matter what the news in the story brings as long as I see the ad. Or does it?
And then I think about Russia. I think about our relationship with Russia. Someone needed Russia to be an adversary or America and Europe would have comported themselves differently. We would have gone out of our way to make Russia a NATO nation. You know, they wanted to join NATO once. Putin didn’t want to “wait in line behind countries that don’t matter”. But today, because commerce demands it, Russia is an adversary of the West.
The same thing is true of China. We trained China for capitalist trade. China was a good student. China borrowed our ideas and ran with them. China loves our partisan primary elections. China has capitalism within. There are some very wealthy people in China today. China has billionaires. China has internet access. They have a middle class with enough money to travel to the United States and visit Disneyland. They know of the American dream. But today, they’re an adversary.
Adversaries sell advertising.
And while we’re addling ourselves with those stories of adversarial countries filled with people who could threaten us, I have to ask, “What is it that we have that they want?” Russia used to admire us. China used to admire…
