Inflation, Land, And Tattoos
By Peter Goodchild
04 June, 2012
Countercurrents.org
The present or future pendulum of so-called inflation and deflation, by which I really mean "high prices" and "low prices," can be seen clearly in the price of land. One initial point to keep in mind is the ironic fact that the people who can afford to buy rural property tend to be those who do not need that land in the first place, i.e. those who have enough money that they are not being utterly crushed by the economy. People who really need that land in order to escape the terrible economy have less freedom to pick and choose where they live.
Recently I went to the real-estate Web-site and just picked some numbers: vacant land in Nova Scotia, 0-5 acres, up to $25,000. Result? There were over 700 properties. Every inch of Nova Scotia is for sale. And the prices are too high, so nothing is getting sold, but sellers don't want to take less than they originally paid. (I should know: I have $30,000 tied up there, and I may never get it back.) At the same time, every county of Nova Scotia is losing population because of unemployment. We might consider how much misery it takes for people to say goodbye to their native land; Stephen Nolan's "Leaving Newfoundland" is a clear description of such heartbreak. What's happening now in Nova Scotia is an example of inflation gone crazy: overpriced land that nobody wants in the first place, except a few people who don't have the money to pay for it.
As in the 1930s, one day all of those prices will crash, and people will stop buying things, and money will be just waste paper. Until their latest will-o-the-whisp oil discoveries, the people of Newfoundland were content to get along with the "underground economy": I fix your roof, you give me a bag of potatoes. That underground economy will return.
However, again as in the 1930s, even if we end up with a big swing toward deflation, that still doesn't mean land will be easily obtained. Barry Broadfoot explains this fact, applied to the Great Depression, in his "Ten Lost Years." Yes, property was very cheap in those days. (So were human beings -- people did whatever was necessary to survive.) But that property went to the few people who actually had a bundle of cash, and bundles of cash were precisely what most people did not have. On the contrary, they had to stand and watch as the banks repossessed their houses.
So even though with a little luck I may still get that little cabin in the woods that I'm always fantasizing about, I can't imagine that the same salvation will be available for the next generation. The students of today spend most of their time thinking about body piercing and tattoos. No matter how little cash it will take to get out of the death traps of concrete and asphalt, without a little effort they'll be plain out of luck.
Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press. His email address is prjgoodchild[at]gmail.com
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