I just spent five days over there, and I can affirm that it’s definitely crap. If this is the future, then the future is junk. This is it, folks. This is Late Capitalism. This is the dream capitalism of the future. This is the capitalist dream we all love.
But this is crap. Who says this is good? What kind of Homo sapiens thinks this is the right way to live our lives as humans. Silicon Valley is crap. Silicon Valley rents are crap. Silicon Valley politics (NIMBY Libertarianism) is crap. Silicon Valley prices are crap. Silicon Valley housing prices are crap. Silicon Valley workaholism is crap. Silicon Valley groovy liberal CEO’s are crap. Silicon Valley Democratic “progressive” politics is crap. Elon Musk is crap. Four hour a day commutes are crap. 18 hour workdays, 7 days a week are crap. No dating is crap. Silicon Valley $184,000/yr to live a middle class family lifestyle is crap. Silicon Valley no affordable housing for their low wage workers is crap, and even worse, failed crap.
Do you realize that rents are so expensive now that there are tech workers (generally a well-paid occupation) who can’t even afford rent in San Francisco. They reportedly ride the damned buses all night and get their sleep there. It’s legal to do that. They shower at the gym and change their clothes there too I guess. They are living this insane gutter bum lifestyle so they can have a dream job at a Silicon Valley firm, the dream of all American workers.
All Silicon Valley capitalists are union-busters. Elon Musk, God of Silicon Valley, is one of the worst ones of them all. Musk is just a capitalist. All capitalists are crap. They’re all union-busters. Just because Musk and some of the others are better capitalists than the rest of the capitalist ratfucks doesn’t mean he isn’t a ratfuck too. There’s no such thing as a decent capitalist. If you are decent, the competition will eat you alive. If you are decent and you go public, the stockholders will fire you.
When I was on vacation over there, I figured out that in order to spend 1/3 of your income on rent (which is the only sane calculation of rent affordability), in Mountain View, you would have to be making $72,000/year or $6,000/month. That is because a Goddamned one bedroom apartment costs $2,000/month. Silicon Valley is so expensive that even its own policemen, firefighters and schoolteachers can’t even afford to live there. Silicon Valley cities actually build low cost subsidized housing for their own schoolteachers. You know what? That’s crap.
Many people who work in Silicon Valley commute 2-3 hours each way, often coming from the Central Valley as that is the only place they can find affordable rents. That’s a sick joke. Commuting four hours a day is bullshit. All over the town I was staying in, Mountain View, there were Help Wanted signs in every store for low level positions. They are dying, screaming for workers over there. But there’s no place for those workers to live. On $10/hour minimum wage, all of your income goes for rent on the 1 bedroom. There’s $0 left for anything else. Silicon Valley has no place for its low wage workers to live! Capitalism fail!
This is the dream. The dream is crap.
Enjoy your late capitalism, idiots.
Capitalism Fail 101.
