vaporized when the city shut down. Credit: ProPublica
On a recent Thursday evening in downtown Chagrin Falls, a Cleveland suburb named for a picturesque cascade in a nearby river, little was amiss: Diners in loafers and sundresses dropped off their BMWs and Alfa Romeos with valets before positioning themselves on patios at prudently spaced tables. Teens ranged around manicured parks taking selfies, while well-groomed women dipped in and out of The Artful Yarn, A Bit of Skirt, and other boho boutiques, cryo spas and vintage home goods stores.
Main Street leads north up a steep hill, past wooded estates, a polo field, and a baroque music venue, until it arrives at a turnoff with a sign on a stone gatehouse with a slate roof: “Marcourt Farm Private Property.”
Down the drive is the 25-acre, nine-bathroom, private lake-fronting, indoor pool-equipped residence of Nicholas Howley, the chairman of an aerospace company called the TransDigm Group, which he founded in 1993 as a merger of several small airline parts manufacturers. […]
I believe we have had a kleptocracy for some long time. FDR, depression and WW2 managed to shake it up for a time until enough people got enough to feel richer, activating greed/entitlement that they too, one day, would be wealthy. So enough people could be conned into tax cuts for the truly wealthy that would benefit the average Joe. It was easy credit that created the illusion of growing wealth whilst the inequality grew.
Now we are rapidly heading over the cliff of financial collapse that if handled well will still be difficult but provides the opportunity for a foundational shift away from inequality and poverty towards a compassionate truly prosperous future. This will be an imperfect multicultural, multigenerational project that could call forth the best of the human species.
Biden’s election could begin this as trump has set the stage for change for better and/or worse. Oh, did I mention sea level rise, storms, fires, floods, ocean acidification, plastics…