The Way We Live Now: reclaiming our world. The homeless are reclaiming the houses. The arbs are reclaiming the arbitrage. The consumers are reclaiming the debt. Everyone's "reclaiming" the gold, from greedy Mother Earth. Get yours, or stop whining!

First they built a ton of houses, then they gave every last person a loan to buy one of these houses, then all the people defaulted on those loans, since 99% of their net worth was wrapped up in their brand new house, then everybody got evicted from those homes, and they all sat empty, because no one could afford to buy them any more. Now, we're making justice happen by putting all those homeless people into the empty homes. It's a great solution until they come and actually put these newly housed people into jail, which is the way that the housing problem actually gets solved, in the end.

American ingenuity. If everywhere had it then everywhere would be America. But they don't and they aren't. We're on the comeback trail, a rugged land full of masculine risk arbs who are just arbing all over the economy, and record-setting art auctions that don't even make the average American blink twice cause they're just like, "I don't even know who Murakami is, some foreigner." We're a land where the consumer debt tumbles while the gold prices soar, and does it faze us?

We're not going around paying our doctors in sausages, let's just put it that way.

So while other countries are worrying about what comes next, we're buying up all your shale deposits and making shit out of them that people actually want.
houses for needy. risk arbs. record auction. consumer debt tumbles. gold high. housing homeless. That's the can-do USA. Just don't ask us for any more houses. At least the homeless don't have subprime mortgages (except those that do).

[Pic: Alex Proimos]