Going Under

Celestial had a prophecy about America undergoing a significant economic decline, especially when many of its businesses and industries have shut down or something like that. Not to mention with many Americans becoming homeless, that I think is already happening to an extent. But if America’s economy tanks real badly in the foreseeable future, certain businesses will go out of order and others would have to move elsewhere to remain profitable. They may not even remain American brands and businesses for long, if they ever move elsewhere at all.

The one exception to this would be the entertainment industry, though not necessarily for a good reason and she said that actors will reenact scenes from their movies to get publicity. If the American economy declines sharply this decade, this would be one of the earliest quantifiable signs that America’s on its way to losing world power status. While I do think traces of American influence will exist in the future, America will no longer be relevant to many people. All the more a reason for the Philippines to strongly prioritise both its local industries and ties with other Asian counties like China, for the latter will be our biggest ally.

One such shortage that makes it to the headlines is one that pertains to wheat, the very crop many companies like Pepperidge Farms, McDonalds and Burger King have relied on for years. Like I said before in this essay, if they’re to remain relevant and profitable they’d have to move elsewhere to remain so. (In all honesty, I even prayed to God to have Pepperidge Farms move to Canada for safety.) Actually if Pepperidge Farms does move to Canada and Mexico, it will still do business but it will no longer be an American corporation by then. It will have a lot of wheat to grow, but no longer under American law.

Similar things can be said of other businesses like Crayola/Hallmark if it ever does the same thing too, they will have a lot to depend on but when they do move out of America to do these they will stop being American corporations by de facto. Take a look at Japan if you want an idea of what will happen to America, while many of its businesses are still around and influential the Japanese economy has been in a slump for roughly three decades or more. Japan was going to be a world power, to those who were around to see its postwar rise. But its economy took a wrong turn and now it’s declining.

America will end up in a similar position, perhaps magnified if some businesses and industries do go out of order. Even if it still manages to crank out something profitable, most American industries will go out of order if such companies don’t move elsewhere. And if they do move elsewhere, they will no longer be American companies anymore. America will decline significantly, both geopolitically and economically. A hard pill to swallow, but it will come to pass when God allows it to.

The problem with fast food

I still think what I said about fashion applies to any other business, especially when you multiply resources and people in sheer quantities that it’s going to exacerbate pre-existing problems. For instance, you need a substantial amount of land to raise livestock and then turn them into foodstuff. Similar things can be said about raising fruits and vegetables or any other cash crop for industries like clothing and paper.

If you’re a restaurant owner, you might need more of that which means more resources, more land needed to sustain and cultivate those and more people and machines to get it done on the go. If franchised many times over, you’re multiplying what’s needed. You’d even have to outsource the dirty work to others. But then again similar things can be said of any big business and industry.

The costs keep adding up when taken into consideration that such businesses are risky anyways. It’s not going to be easy dealing with leftovers but the problem’s multiplied when it comes to fast food chains. People will find ways of getting it done right whilst keeping it clean. But it’s not going to be easy.

Japanese and cheap

That practically was the case before in the mid to late 20th century that even as Japan began improving in the 50s, many Western animation production houses still turned to it because it provided cheap, quick animation. Historically, anything made in Japan had the same reputation as anything made in China today (though that too is changing quickly for the latter). Comes to think of it in hindsight, there’s a reason why in the 20th century before there were a lot of Japanese co-productions.

These included Alfred J Kwak, Superbook, GI Joe, Batman, Gargoyles and Thundercats. Currently, this has shifted to Korea and China especially for both Japanese and American productions. (I guess Japan at this point’s now a truly developed country so for most of the part, there needn’t much Japanese co-productions since it’s now a bit too expensive for that.) Not that there aren’t any more Japanese and Western co-productions but that these have gotten rarer.

Looking back, there was a time when Japan was more or less in the same economic situation as China is today. In the sense of being rising but still fairly cheap enough for international companies to turn to when producing productions on the cheap.

Changes in marriages

I think if I’m not mistaken, at some point or another in at least some Western marriages even before the working mum thing there were already wives making a living from doing household chores (and gardening, which I think’s still done elsewhere to a degree) and husbands also participating in household chores. That’s a point made by Stephanie Koontz. It probably wasn’t any better before.

But I think she did identify a shift occurring eventually in the 18th century where it’s now expected women do the housework but also become unpaid. No wonder why the need for career mothers is inevitable. Not to mention that there’ll always be people and especially women who’d be willing to work and find something better, more practical to do.

This is already returning to some extent, not just with career women but also bloggers being paid.

Florence and the turn of the century

It’s more to do with how and why Florence came to be ground zero for the European Renaissance in the sense having to rebuild oneself from a bad disaster like the Black Plague. That and being one of the earliest urbanised areas outside of Greece (I think). Like I said, it’s not that Italy’s nonexistent as a country but was generally and historically a client state of both the Napoleonic and Holy Roman Empires.

Venice used to be a separate country but eventually came under both French and Austrian rule. So did Florence which came under Holy Roman rule though I suppose most of those Italian city-states would’ve functioned very much like what the Commonwealths are to Britain or the many Russian federal republics. In the sense of having varying degrees of autonomy but still under rule of another country.

Whilst Venice’s got a vast maritime empire, Florence relied more on trading and banking for its economic growth. That even occurred right before the Black Plague which made it better equipped to recover. (This is enough to house the Medici, which came to power and got ennobled.) It’s obviously past its prime but it’s come this far.

The original middle class

If there’s anything that can be gleamed from history, especially in medieval and early modern Europe businesspeople (traders, merchants, bankers) were the original middle class. Or at least among them. In the sense of having a job that gives somebody enough security to endure nature’s unpredictability and to support communities and families long enough (moreso when the Industrial Revolution had yet to begin). We get the long-suffering farmers who toil in the fields and the aristocrats and royals who have the privilege to hunt whenever they want and need to especially with so much land they own.

(That’s proving my point why hunter-gatherer communities, regardless if they’re rich or poor, tend to be rural longer and more consistently than those who engage in farming and fishing when it comes to trading or lack of it.)

Admittedly, a good number of rural communities involve a good deal of farming, hunting, gathering and fishing to whatever degree but whenever hunting’s involved, you’re dealing with something that’s economically lousy especially when it comes to resources that get readily depleted. That’s where farming has a big advantage over when it comes to breeding livestock and crops all over again.

We’re dealing with renewable resources and why they help in the long run. Also why they’re that useful to businesses. Especially when it’s needed to appeal to more people. Without them, businesses would either wilt or change for good. Historically this is why businesspeople were the original middle class. Even if farming and trading did have advantages, they’re also harder to maintain for long.

Such people would have to work tirelessly to make ends meet to support themselves and their peers and family. (There’s a reason why hunting was considered to be a leisurely activity. Not that it’s any easier but that hunters can afford to be much more patient than farmers who’re expected to deliver crops and food immediately.) But sometimes that work wasn’t always acceptable.

Even if that’s where they fall back on. Banking wouldn’t get dignified until towards the end of the Middle Ages or something. (In some cases like Florence for a while, it’s where the idea of business as a powerful entity began kicking in as it was a republic.) Trading itself was starting to get really, really big which was helped by colonising other places and business proper hit big in the Industrial Revolution.

That’s when they started becoming synonymous with upper class even if a good number of businesses aren’t that big either (judging from the sari-sari stories in my neighbourhood, it can be hard to maintain it for long if/when it’s not profitable enough).

Romanticising Hunting

Maybe that’s not the right word for it but keep in mind at some point or another those who did hunting were likelier to be part of the upper class, especially in Europe. It’s not that there weren’t any communities outside of Europe that didn’t do hunting to whatever extent but what they do have in common with their European royal/privileged counterparts is that there’s not much urbanisation going on due to how economically inconvenient hunting can be.

Maybe not necessarily always the case but not when breeding’s needed to keep making more versions of the same beasts around especially in agriculture that’s where hunting loses its economic grip. Breeding’s very much needed to make livestock and livestock’s needed to have something to sell with. So it’s parsimonious that in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the middle class consisted of merchant-farmers and bankers.

If it sounds strange, though not always the case, I suspect that businesspeople were both the original middle class and newly rich. It also helped that farming and fishing tended to go hand in hand with trading, much moreso than hunting when it comes to breeding renewable resources like livestock and crops. (When it comes to species being hunted, there’s risk of extinction and why hunting’s economically lousy.)

When it comes to hunting, it could’ve been an occupation but it’s also a popular hobby by the rich. It’s not necessarily easier to hunt but those that do hunt do have the privilege to take longer breaks than those who farm as the latter have to closely monitor and care for their crops and livestock a lot. It’s like the difference between a fashion designer and somebody who either dyes or sews.

The former’s not necessarily any easier but not when the latter’s much more prone to awkward mistakes (as I know from experience). Hunter-gatherer communities don’t have it easier than those that mostly subside on farming but there’s generally less urbanisation. Even if some hunter-gatherers do farm like say some Pygmy and rural communities, hunting’s relatively easier than farming.

In the sense of not having to always monitor crops a lot though there are still some pitfalls along the way. That and for those that do participate in and glorify hunting (yet are wary of the upper class), hunting was expected to be an upper class hobby before. Farming was and still is more of the domain of the common person when you think about it (in relation to markets and groceries).

Anime’s end and aftermath

I still think that anime’s demise might make DC and Marvel diversify in their offerings. Not just by offering characters of different genders, beliefs and ethnicities but also things like horror and romance. They’ve done those before and intermittently so but once anime dies, the need to publish superheroes dies as well. In fact, Marvel might end up publishing a lot of Disney comics taking the licenses away from Fantagraphics and IDW as well as translating European Disney comics.

They did the same to Star Wars from Dark Horse. So there’s a precedent for that. It’s not that they won’t publish Marvel characters at all as much as you might see much less of them (quite a few can make the transition to other genres well). Same for DC except that its fate would be more convoluted. A Chinese publisher might take 50% stake in DC Comics thus DC ends up publishing and translating Chinese comics (they did the same with Japanese ones).

Image and the like might emerge largely unscathed because they don’t publish much superheroes whilst DC and Marvel end up having to fill in a void. The most heavily affected are those heavily involved in translating and distributing Japanese ACG. Should they survive, they too have to switch to other businesses to stay afloat. J-Line Comics might end up being bought by New Day Publishing.

Vertical would have to translate a lot more non-Japanese comics. Funimation and Animax do similarly with non-Japanese non-Western animation. This is where African and non-Japanese Asian comics start taking off big time as there were likely a few of them making it big globally speaking. (These include Supa Strikas, Ragnarok and Aya de Yopougon.)

It’s not that there won’t be any more Japanese ACG but the demand for them declines as soon as other industries start exerting a huge economic say.

Middle Class, Fast Food

Whilst not necessarily or always the case, given there’s always fast food in the form of street foods, I suspect fast food chains proper not only appeared in the early 20th century (thanks to White Castle) but also coincided with a growing middle class. It’s not that the middle class never existed either, the closest historical equivalents to it were either minor nobility and plutocrats in Europe or the farmers, artisans and merchants in India and Japan (and possibly China to an extent).

So there was a middle class before but a genuine middle class independent of plutocrats and minor nobility emerged during the 18th and 19th centuries which tend spread elsewhere in the 20th and 21st centuries. Both the Industrial and French revolutions may’ve influenced the need for a genuinely large middle class at that. When it comes to a growing middle class, there came a need for affordable luxury.

Whilst it certainly did exist before, it wouldn’t become the norm until somewhat later. This where the likes of White Castle emerged. The more internationally successful ones include McDonald’s, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, KFC and Wendy’s. As for convenience stores, these include 7-11, Family Mart and Ministop. Whilst not always the case, it makes sense that these go hand in hand with a rising middle class.

Along with a growing economy. When there’s more of them, there’s a need to cater to them more thus necessitating further growth to pander to and sustain them for long.

A little bummed

Admittedly to be honest, I’m like one of those Muppet viewers who feel bummed out that Sesame Street and Muppets are no longer owned by the Jim Henson Company anymore even though Mr Henson originally wanted to take over Disney and that the company itself might be too small to maintain and operate these franchises forever. Even though it still indirectly contributes to the Sesame Street Workshop or something like that.

Though it would be that some have grown up with Kermit interacting with the rest of Sesame Street and sometimes vice versa that it’s depressingly unthinkable for them that they’re separated. (Like I said, even the Jim Henson Company might be too small to maintain them for long.) To put it into perspective, that’s like imagining DC and Looney Tunes departing ways because China’s Shanghai Media Group bought the former and Tata Group bought the latter from AT&T.

These could be mere stakes but enough to separate them, that’s if China’s economy were to grow substantially so. But that still gives an idea of how small The Jim Henson Company is and how big Disney’s gotten.