The end of production for the Nissan Versa means there are no new cars priced under $20,000 — a blow to some Americans who may find themselves priced out of the market.
I follow some home inspectors who post videos from their new home inspections, and holy crap the things they find are ridiculous. Like, construction companies should lose their licenses bad.
I visit some partially built homes from time to time, and recently saw one just after it had been inspected. On one wall, on the insulation, the inspector had scrawled STUD? In red felt.
The stud was completely missing from the wall. It was just an empty frame filled with insulation. You’d think someone would have noticed earlier during construction, but obviously the actual contractor had just let the day labor go to town and never bothered to review their work before inspection.
lol, that is 100% every australian apartment built in the last 15 years. the window frames are plastic and the cladding is combustible… but it’s got Italian tiles and “European appliances” so it’s an “executive suite”. that will be $1.5million fuck you very much.
It cost nearly the same to make a luxury unit as a stripped down one. Most of the cost is labor. Spend 5 k in fancier materials and get 50k for the unit.
Similar to literally every market that involves ‘things’, as we transition from failing liberal capitalism to horrifying technofascist neofeudalism (aka cyberpunk dystopia).
The next step is… well they won’t lower the luxury prices, everything becomes renting, loaning, etc, even further and harder… untill you end up with bundled subscription plans / leases on a diverse array of physical things, as we currently have with bundles of online services.
We literally going to transition to a subscription based model for just being alive.
… unless enough people actually do something effrctive about it.
Other wise, the K shaped economy becomes a === shaped economy. You’re either on top, or you’re not, and you’re basically treated as a kind of cattle; raised, milked, then expended whenever it is most profitable to do so.
The Disney+ life supscription is partnered with Starbucks, which is also partnered with Amazon Whole Foods and Trader Joes, and Verizon, and Subaru and GM.
The Netflix life supscription is partnered with Costco, Cox, and McDonalds, Chevy and Toyota.
The HBO Max life supscription is partnered with Walmart, ATT, Honda and Ford, … Cluck’in Bell, fucking whatever.
And then also some kind of alliance type structure with various regional or national landlords/land developers.
Like, uh, roughly the idea of a Japanese Keiretsu, or a Korean Chaebol, but kind of inverted, applied much more thoroughly to the consumer side, than to the finance/internal corporate structures.
So yeah, you just pick one of those three life subscription plans, they all have various tiers, etc, and you… well you rent or lease or finance basically everything.
Thats how the idea of a kind of Corporate Citizenship will start, something like that.
That’s my nightmare/prognostication.
It won’t be based around like, families of business that define your employment paths, as exists in much more uh, ‘classic’ cyberpunk, I guess.
It’ll be oriented around consumption, getting things, because… practically no one will even have ‘real’ jobs, having a career will become a defining marker of being born into an upper crust corpo elite class of some kind, the rest of us proles will just be shuffled between gig work, retail jobs, jail, prison, military, etc.
People wanted those mcmansions and rebuilds jack up prices. Now those massive suburban mcmansions are getting old in the tooth and no one wants to buy them. They are realizing they need to build smaller homes finally. We’ll probably see more townhomes with shared structures (walls/roofs).
Similarly with housing. Why make cheap starter homes when you can make so much more with “Luxury” homes and condos.
And yet use the same cheap materials in the “luxury” ones that you would have used in the cheap ones anyway!
I follow some home inspectors who post videos from their new home inspections, and holy crap the things they find are ridiculous. Like, construction companies should lose their licenses bad.
I visit some partially built homes from time to time, and recently saw one just after it had been inspected. On one wall, on the insulation, the inspector had scrawled STUD? In red felt.
The stud was completely missing from the wall. It was just an empty frame filled with insulation. You’d think someone would have noticed earlier during construction, but obviously the actual contractor had just let the day labor go to town and never bothered to review their work before inspection.
A lot of times, it’s the contractor cutting corners and hoping no one notices.
lol, that is 100% every australian apartment built in the last 15 years. the window frames are plastic and the cladding is combustible… but it’s got Italian tiles and “European appliances” so it’s an “executive suite”. that will be $1.5million fuck you very much.
It cost nearly the same to make a luxury unit as a stripped down one. Most of the cost is labor. Spend 5 k in fancier materials and get 50k for the unit.
Similar to literally every market that involves ‘things’, as we transition from failing liberal capitalism to horrifying technofascist neofeudalism (aka cyberpunk dystopia).
The next step is… well they won’t lower the luxury prices, everything becomes renting, loaning, etc, even further and harder… untill you end up with bundled subscription plans / leases on a diverse array of physical things, as we currently have with bundles of online services.
We literally going to transition to a subscription based model for just being alive.
… unless enough people actually do something effrctive about it.
Other wise, the K shaped economy becomes a === shaped economy. You’re either on top, or you’re not, and you’re basically treated as a kind of cattle; raised, milked, then expended whenever it is most profitable to do so.
Isn’t that just health insurance?
Yes, that’s true, but I meant more like uh…
The Disney+ life supscription is partnered with Starbucks, which is also partnered with Amazon Whole Foods and Trader Joes, and Verizon, and Subaru and GM.
The Netflix life supscription is partnered with Costco, Cox, and McDonalds, Chevy and Toyota.
The HBO Max life supscription is partnered with Walmart, ATT, Honda and Ford, … Cluck’in Bell, fucking whatever.
And then also some kind of alliance type structure with various regional or national landlords/land developers.
Like, uh, roughly the idea of a Japanese Keiretsu, or a Korean Chaebol, but kind of inverted, applied much more thoroughly to the consumer side, than to the finance/internal corporate structures.
So yeah, you just pick one of those three life subscription plans, they all have various tiers, etc, and you… well you rent or lease or finance basically everything.
Thats how the idea of a kind of Corporate Citizenship will start, something like that.
That’s my nightmare/prognostication.
It won’t be based around like, families of business that define your employment paths, as exists in much more uh, ‘classic’ cyberpunk, I guess.
It’ll be oriented around consumption, getting things, because… practically no one will even have ‘real’ jobs, having a career will become a defining marker of being born into an upper crust corpo elite class of some kind, the rest of us proles will just be shuffled between gig work, retail jobs, jail, prison, military, etc.
I gotcha. Hell, we’ve been there before. The company towns essentially owned every aspect of the lives of the people that lived there.
Yep.
I guess maybe a less verbose way to say it would be:
Company towns, but…! Everything is computer!
There’s a difference between “cheap” and “inexpensive.” Mcmansions are cheap.
People wanted those mcmansions and rebuilds jack up prices. Now those massive suburban mcmansions are getting old in the tooth and no one wants to buy them. They are realizing they need to build smaller homes finally. We’ll probably see more townhomes with shared structures (walls/roofs).
Before they were building mcmansions and charging a fortune for them. Now they’re building sardine cans and charging a fortune for them. Much better.