Musings Report #48 11-30-13 Renaissance of the Fix-It Society?
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Renaissance of the Fix-It Society?
My long-time friend G.F.B. suggested that widening income/wealth disparity in the U.S. (please see related links in From Left Field) might drive a broad-based cultural Renaissance of the once prevalent "don't replace it, fix it" value system and the small-scale economy of shops and fix-it folks that enabled the repair of household items.
The popularity of the "Maker" shows, culture and magazines certainly supports the contention that at least one segment of the populace has a renewed enthusiasm for crafts and fixing/re-using things. The rising sales at auto parts stores (Autozone, etc.) (and the delivery of parts via the Brown Truck Store, a trend noted by correspondent Mark G.) also support the view that as the real incomes of the "middle class" decline, more households are turning to fixing vehicles on their own rather than replacing them. That the average age of vehicles in the U.S. continues to rise further supports this trend.
In other words, a decline in purchasing power will leave an increasing number of households with a choice: either buy low-cost, low-quality replacements of broken items that will need to be replaced themselves in short order, or repair a higher-quality item--the ideal of the Degrowth movement I have been covering this year.
Two other trends support this return to repair: the availability of a staggering number of spare parts via the Internet, delivered to your door, and the rise of 3-D printers/fabrication devices. As G.F.B. noted in our conversation on this topic, the Web, software and 3-D printers will enable fix-it types to download the software bits that define a specific part to a 3-D printer and then push the button to fabricate the part in metal or plastic.
The feedstock for 3-D fabs is not free, of course, but it is certainly cheaper than fabricating parts by hand.
The rise of a fix-it, small-scale economy of repair shops and community 3-D fabs that can be rented by individuals would be a welcome expansion of what I call the Community Economy, the parts of the economy that are not owned or controlled by global corporations or the Centralized State.
Such localized repair resources are already proliferating; I have seen stories on such community shops in Germany, where people can either borrow tools to fix their broken appliances or pay a repair person a fee to help them effect the necessary repair. Here in Berkeley, there is a bicycle shop operated by a non-profit that lets the public borrow bike-repair tools for free (it's open to the public on certain days). It also has paid staff who do bike repairs and teach bike-repair skills to teens.
We all bemoan the loss of quality in many household appliances and electronics. The possibilities for repair are not unlimited, but they are certainly broad enough to enable the rise of a localized, small-scale fix-it culture and economy. Doing more with less can actually create decentralized employment and trade.
Summary of the Blog This Past Week
Monday's post Taking Stock of the 21st Century was one of my broader contexts: "The constant dismissal of unprecedented extremes as "same as it ever was" is actually a pernicious form of perception management, i.e. propaganda."
Best Thing That Happened To Me This Week
Seeing the David Hockney exhibit at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco. Particularly noteworthy were his iPad drawings, some of which were displayed in a fast-forward sequence that showed how he layered on each "paint" stroke. I was a skeptic of Hockney's work but now appreciate his mastery of composition.
Market Musings
Since various market pundits are predicting the Bull Market will last into 2016, let's project the Federal Reserve's balance sheet (i.e. expansion of money, created electronically) and the S&P 500, since the two are clearly correlated. At the current recent rate of expansion, the Fed's balance sheet will exceed $7 trillion by 2016, while the SPX will have soared to 3,000 from 1,800.
As Bill Gross observed in the story below, Scrooge McDucks, much of the corporate profits that supposedly underpin the rise in stocks are the result of share buy-backs and financial alchemy. Does this chart look sustainable, given the weakening global economy and the reality that corporate profits are largely alchemy, i.e. not based on rising revenues?
From Left Field
Scrooge McDucks - Bill Gross of Pimco calls out those who became multi-millionaires (like himself, he notes) from the vast expansion of credit and the financial alchemy that is generating the illusion of corporate profitability....
The Distribution of Household Income and the Middle Class -- a year old but still valid, from the Congressional Research Service. Sample factoids: of the 121 million households reporting income, only 2.3% made $250,000 or more. the top 20% pulled in 51% of all income. There's your $7 and $70 T-shirts....
Map: Property Taxes in Your County -- average taxes paid, rank of tax paid, rank of % of home value.... Hawaii County, average tax paid $733, average home value, $322,000; Alameda County, California, average tax paid $4,200, average home value, $558,000 ... how does your coujnty rank?
"Problem is, we seem to be entering a world in which we need our utilities to make very good decisions, not necessarily in line with self-interest. And to make them in a hurry."
Dean Okimoto, president of the Hawaii Farm Bureau, told Civil Beat that while the bill targets large biotech, it could end up hurting small farmers down the road. "How can you say you can only farm what you are farming now?" he said. "You may be putting guys out of business by restricting what they can and cannot use going forward. The cattle guys are depending on trying to develop a drought resistant grass."
"We are at a juncture," she said of the Big Island. "Do we move forward in the direction of the agro-chemical monoculture model of agriculture, or do we move toward eco-friendly, diversified farming?"
"Ability is nothing without opportunity." Napoleon Bonaparte
Thanks for reading--
charles
