Questions for Economists Regarding Culture War

I am not an economist. Envious I am of their knowledge, I do not have the wherewithal to pore over painful charts of supply and demand. I do however have a profound amount of respect for what, in theory, they do. Possibly more of a hope than a reality, economists may have an advantage of neutrality no other position has, except perhaps physicists. They, like mathematicians, have the position to look at things in a cold objective manner. Except, unlike the system of mathematics and the physical world, the system they must consider is that of human behavior with regards to resources, and therefore they must consider human behavior.

This is where my trust in them deviates. Physicists must consider all elements, and although minimizing variables is useful in modeling for the sake of comprehension, the inclusion of all factors involved remains critical to the precision of their work. Economists should do the same, but because of cultural distinction, I suspect they tend to fall short on this requirement. This is of course a suspicion alone, and so I have this list below of questions for economists I could only dream of getting answers to:

Preface to all questions - Counter-culture is a thematic element that was always remote and offered some form of mystique. Although one could sociologically argue it was always a compelling force, the percentage of those "counter-culturally" defined has increased in at the very least terms of visibility (though I would argue all of these communities have also increased in percentage of the population).

1.) How healthy is it for marketing practices to continue to marginalize an ever-growing percentage of the population? The Gender-queer and trans-identified may not be a large chunk of the population, but time will only increase the self-identified and sensitivities to these people and so resentment for the gender-binary economic climate will definitely affect consumer
behavior. Demographic profiling has not improved in decades and I can say with confidence that the marketing world at the very least does not peg me (and trust me, I'm not that much off the scale as others). But yet I have a paycheck, and consumer potential, I need objects, food, clothing. Yet somehow I'm barely pandered too, let alone legitimately regarded as an effective consumer force. This population is all but declining. Marketers take heed, we exist and our dollars do affect you, especially when they aren't going to you but instead your competitors (however unbranded they may be).

2.) Why isn't culture being considered in the housing market crisis? There is something painfully contrived about suburban culture. There are two kinds of towns - real towns and city-dependent suburbs. Real towns have fostered some form of community over generations, were created organically, and despite a typically conservative tendency that may be in conflict with my person, legitimately have a neighborly feeling. The kind of neighborly feeling my parents look back on nostalgically that city neighborhoods used to have. But instead my parents, and a large portion of their generation, abandoned that to re-construct a stage of a town in the sprawling Jersey suburb that exploded in the 80's. The rate of suburb growth in the state now defines it (whereas small-town blue collar and north jersey city folk were more typical pre-1985). And of course the phenomenon occurred across the nation (though I myself can only be more familiar with what happened in Jersey).

Yet something is really wrong with the housing situation right now. It's a buyers market simply because the demand is abysmal. So why is there all this property that was so aggressively developed suddenly left without those to fill it? I guess I can only point the finger at who i know best - myself. I'm the reason. There is no way in hell I am going to buy my parents' house, or yours for that matter. I much rather cram myself into my Brooklyn apartment than going within a mile of some boring-ass townhouse in central Jersey. Why? Suburbia has become synonymous with the teenage woe of being trapped without any re-enforcing sense of community to counter it. It was a social desert your parents chose to bring you to because they wanted a yard big enough for Fido. No one really liked each other because everyone was transplanted at the exact same time for the exact same reason - a little kingdom of your own at basement prices. The white picket fence could be bought in exchange for a painful two-hour commute and a complete abandonment of the community you elevated yourself out of. Irish/Italian/Jewish class climbers flooded the state with the hope of being near enough to feel comfortably isolated (rather than the scary existential crisis of the country). You could play fetch in the back yard and wave over the fence to those you would never shake hands with. You would never see each other at church, because there was no central church, too many denominations came and no one really agreed on how the religious community could operate. So your children fell off into a secular cynicism while the unfortunate dependence on car travel only heightened economic woes you were never raised to probably consider.

This whole observation could serve as strictly a relatively interesting cultural editorial - if it wasn't for the fact that it probably has deep economic implications. I am not moving back there, even though it was built, in essence, for me. And many others will do the same. So I ask, economists, are you even remotely aware of how this affects your market? Or do you, yet again, insist on ignoring those who aren't chasing after the "average American dream" at the cost of your own failure of perception?

3.) Independent of all the reasons I list above, I have to also admit - even if I wanted to buy my parents home, I may be able to in say, 15 years. I'm 24, and broke. I'm not just dead even broke, I'm in the hole broke from student loans. My dad had loans, but nowhere near the scale that I have. The social agreement of education is broken, where private education (or more accurately, education that is not provided by the state 100% financially) has become necessary rather than a "bonus." As a result, we are all in debt, some of us a little, some of us a lot (like me) and yet we have to question whether it was worth it. The volume of debt I have compared with my current income is astounding. And it isn't going to be alleviated for some time. How was I supposed to know at sixteen these implications? How were my parents to know not needing to go through it themselves? This is a crisis, and its sadly at the cost of the creatively minded. The education cost on average does not depend on major. Yet, some start at $60k, others at $30k. The creatively minded lean towards the latter settling for jobs with a liberal arts degree that cost just as much as an engineering degree. And although there's always the shitty argument that the only leading implication of this is that one should therefore pursue engineering, the truth is we all can't become engineers (it would saturate the job market). The fact is there should be some check on loan debt, school cost and starting salaries that a strictly privatized world does not offer. And a lot of use are stuck in between, and we are all going to pay for it, not just a handful of people. I myself am going to be okay, because though I make shit now, I know it'll grow and won't be such a problem. But the collective problem of the many stuck in this hole, those who were crucially uninformed and mislead, is starting to form a pinch that will only sharpen.



So here is my over-arching question for you economists - are you still so willing to assume that there are only two people you need to care for? Daisy the housewife and Joe the breadwinner are strong forces, but not as compelling as fifty years ago. Marginalize where the pay potential is growing, where the driving forces of dollars continues to bloom, you'll fuck yourselves over. So why isn't there any give? Is a depression really worth a complete denial of your populous? Evangelicals may say yes, but I'm pretty sure shareholders would say no.

My type

Some effort seems to have been taken of late to determine where exactly I align in attraction and roles. I'm not entirely sure who "they" are who have taken such great care to discuss it with others, though I feel compelled to play with the idea myself. What is my type? I mean, I like women, distinctly. To be a smutty shit, pussy is fabulous on the tongue and I do find that as my confidence reigns supreme so does my wandering gaze to women's shirts. Past the grit though, I come to almost worship women, see them infused with a spirituality that is flatly thematic of the gender that feels as though it transcends human flaw. I feel that, even though I may not take them as lovers, men that also have some form of Her in the deep makings of their person have a greater chance of befriending me. Then again, this could all just go back to justifying the grit.

But I've known for long enough how much I like girls, yet this brings me no closer to the answer to my question. "Little and cute" manages to be a theme for me with my past partners, but at the same time soft butches and strong femmes draw me in just as coercively. I'm a switcher, typically fixing myself as a top when I'm single and looking only to inevitably bow down and bottom for whoever hangs on long enough to actually remember my eye color.

I suppose part of the reason I'm curious about this question is because of who posed it: a new acquaintance/soon-to-be friend I ran into in the bar last night as well as her friend that I met. It also didn't free up the possibility for too much honesty since the question of my "type" was framed in the extremely aggressive flirtations of this girl Cassie. My level of "butch-i-tude" was scrutinized (belt width, fingernail clipping status, sturdiness of shoes, lack of over-the-top arrogance) in some weird attempt to communicate what she wanted me to be. I guess despite the hopeless androgyny I provided she still was trying to drag me home with her since she wouldn't stop grabbing my ass and rubbing her tits on me.

Not to say this wasn't fun, trust me, it was. I may not have the cock to be completely at a loss in the situation (and complete under a spell) but she had a great body that would only get nicer with more revealed. She was drunk, granted, though not wasted to not be aware of how I was mutually nervous and into it as far as bar flirtations. But it came as time passed all I could do was back off. It was a circus show, meant to be play and something I really didn't think would escalate that evening. I knew though if I wanted to I could have been at her apartment two blocks away in a heartbeat, and I considered this several times wishing I had the funds available to drink my way to grow a pair. But for all the fun it was, how contrived it was nagged at me, as it always does. She gave me little tidbits about her profession, which seemed respectable, and her interests, which were educated and intriguing. But the presentation still made these just tacked-on details to the attempt at the ghost boner I would never get.

But then something weirdly gave. It was getting towards the end of the night, and there was talk of everyone present to meet up for food today (which, mind you, didn't happen). I was still in a position where if I wanted to go for it, I could, but I really just tensed up and backed off and remained playful without showing any intent to leave with her. So then we're talking about going home, and I mention my intention to walk home, alone, ten minutes away. This created a disproportionate amount of distress in the girl and she insisted I take a cab with my friend, though still kept up a playful tone. Figuring this was a way to get me into her apartment, I commented to my friend that she was freaking out over nothing, and that I would be fine. Then my friend revealed with the girl present that she was shook up because she had the misfortune of being mugged lately and so was being protective.

Then somehow the scene got very dark. The girl's face betrayed something beyond the distress I had seen a moment ago, and she looked to my friend, her friend, only to say that she was not mugged at all, but something far worse, and my gut dropped. The bombshell hit here, in the bar, among all the silly glee and rush of first impression, only to be smoldered upon by something that clearly had not even scarred yet. The upset in her face was controlled, but only enough so you could see it being controlled. My friend was taken aback, apologetic, and so very sorry for not knowing to not touch upon it, for she had heard a more benign version of the story. There was no salvaging the joy of the evening, so through some awkward mutterings and a scramble to get her coat on, she buttoned up, commented to my friend about how she clearly wasn't "my type" which was not a big deal, hugged goodbye and pecked me on the cheek before rushing out the door. My friend was upset with herself for the situation, though it was such a sadly innocent circumstance.

I wondered how she was walking home, if even the brief two blocks back felt monstrously vulnerable for her. I wondered if forever her first impression of me would be the few minutes that ended the night rather than my nervous smiles and weak-handed responses to her advances. And then I realized that the games throughout the night were fun, but only made me awkward, and in my weaker moments suspicious, as they always do with me. And yet, only at the end of the night did I realize how beautiful she was, because she was suddenly real and flawed. And then I wondered how much of a monster I was to take that away from the situation, if my compulsion to protect was going to ever be stronger than my compulsion to worship those above. I really don't feel any need to apologize for my response to it though, because however terrible and extreme this "moment of truth" was, however personal it was and something I should not have been at liberty to be aware of, it was exactly that, finally after hours of games and sex play some insight into a pulpous person that can actually grimace, and clench, and moan.

I guess this basically is the closest I'm going to come to defining my type. Trannies, and soft butches, and metro-sexual dykes, and lipstick femmes and quirky girls are all equally culpable at getting my attention when walking down the street, but nothing really sticks in my head until some gem of the person is revealed, and people who can readily demonstrate this to me in my first interactions are more likely to catch my attention. This probably isn't the response this girl would have wanted, and maybe I myself am not too keen on someone so sexually reliant in public, but an intrigue was fostered from something and I look forward to running into her again.

Kind of confused by the night, and where I stood, and whether or not I was a piece of shit in that moment, I made my way home to jack off wondering if I would always remain focused on the ever-present She and finding her, or if nights like last night are just further examples of a reality I need to face regarding how we find each other. I dreamt of the girl you can never really pin down, the one that looks at you with a wisdom that needs no purity to support it but only a genuineness people are too often scared to share...



...I took the cab home by the way, splitting the ride with my friend.