Divorce, American Style (It's all sex and lies.)
The Daily Reckoning
Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
dailyreckoning.com
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It's all sex and lies.
Everything. The debt bubble. The real estate bubble. The trade deficit bubble.
Why is there a $600 billion trade deficit? Because Americans want to buy things they can't afford. Why do they buy things they can't afford? To pretend to be richer than they are. Why do they want to be appear richer than they are? Because it gives them higher social status. Why do they want higher about social status? So they will have better access to the opposite sex.
We are back in the United States after an absence of several months. Suddenly, the roads are crowded with Hummers. Why would anyone want to drive around in a big, awkward, ugly, expensive car when a small, cheap one would get him where he was going just as well? Because they want to "maximize their inclusive fitness" say scientists. They want as many of their genes floating around the gene pool as possible. The Hummer is like long, bright tail feathers on a bird. Or a big rack of antlers on a deer. From a utilitarian point of view, they are worthless. Worse than worthless, as a matter of fact. They increase the risk that rivals and predators will notice the animal. They take energy to carry around. And they slow the animal down, making it hard for him to maneuver in a fight or to get away.
The huge cars are only useful, near as anyone who thinks about such matters can figure, as conspicuous consumption; they wink to the opposite sex that the animal is game for a little hanky-panky. If he can carry around all that extra baggage and still survive, he must be tough. So, too, if a person can live in a McMansion and drive a Hummer without going bankrupt, he must be a good prospect for a date.
But it's all relative. If everybody on the block buys a Hummer and puts in a swimming pool, the man who has those things already loses his edge. He has to spend even more - bringing himself even closer to bankruptcy - in order to show off. What can he do? Write poetry and put a feminist bumper sticker on his old Hummer?
"Forget sensitivity," said a woman over dinner last night. "The man must show that he's capable...that he's strong...that he knows what he's doing."
"Yeah," said a divorced friend who has been studying dating strategies, "you have to be 'the man with the plan.' You signal to the woman that you've got it figured out...that your time is valuable...and that, if she wants to hook up with you, she can to so, but only on your terms. What you don't want to do is to take her out on a date and spend a lot of money on her. You have to show that you have a lot of money, but you don't want to give her the impression that she'll be in charge of how it is spent. That would start the relationship off on the wrong foot."
Women aren't stupid, of course. They know you can move into a McMansion with no money down and no money anywhere else. They know you can lease a Hummer and buy an Armani suit with credit cards. They try to find out if the man really has money or not. It is the beginning of the battle between the sexes. The man tries to deceive the woman about his fitness for procreation. The woman tries to detect the deception, while deceiving him - with make-up and various artifices - about her own attractiveness. The poor man has to show more and more evidence that he's really the one with the large rack and the bright feathers. He has to take on more and more expensive burdens. Second and third houses...European vacations...a home theatre...cosmetic surgery. The schmuck needs to spend, spend, spend - or he's going to be spending his nights alone.
You might say that a "smart" woman would see her way through the foolishness of it all and prefer a man with no desire to show off - maybe a good, solid schoolteacher who cares about the environment and drives an old Pinto. But if she mates with such a man, she dooms her offspring, say the scientists, for the man is likely to father sons much like himself - men who are only attractive to smart women. How many of them are there? Her own genes will find fewer opportunities for reproductive success, in other words...and what's so smart about that?
In order to spread her genes as widely as possible, a woman needs offspring, particularly males, who are "high ranking," - that is, those who can carry around gaudy expenses without going broke. Her best strategy is to make with a high ranking male. Her good fortune would be to have many sons with him - high ranking boys who would find many mates of their own. And for that she must make herself as desirable to him as possible. This, too, begins with deception and often ends in disappointment. She must spend much of her time and money as though she were a candidate for public office - that is, deceiving people about what she is. The scientists call it "impression management." She must appear high ranking - by wearing expensive clothes instead of cheap ones...by driving an expensive car, rather than a cheap one...by living at an expensive address...eating in expensive restaurants...going on expensive vacations and sporting expensive jewelry. She must also appear as physically attractive as possible. Remember, it's all about sex.
Meanwhile, driven by these ancient impulses to sexual reproduction...and chauffeured by the Fed...Americans arrive at the cusp of bankruptcy. (More on this below...) |
