There’s something quietly unsettling about building your future, indeed the rest of your life, in a place the rest of the world has decided not to acknowledge. Not because it isn’t real — it’s real enough when the electricity cuts out, when the bureaucracy kicks in, or when you need a stamp from an office that may as well be in a spy novel.
Mrs. B and I have long since settled in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a place that exists perfectly well in reality, but is barely on the world’s official paperwork. Which is a very odd position to be in when you’re trying to buy a house, sort your residency, and convince your relatives back home that you haven’t been kidnapped. Recognised only by Turkey, and basically ignored by everyone else, it does beg the question: how the bloody hell did we get here?
We spent the best part of our working life in the tiny British island of Jersey; a wonderful place in which to bring up your children, but wickedly expensive. Last November I visited family there, and one single glass of white wine cost me £14.50. A starter home will cost over £700,000. To retire there would mean downgrading to a studio apartment. Not ideal. So Mrs. B discovered a place where the sun almost always shines, and was totally affordable.
The odd thing is, North Cyprus doesn’t feel like a non-country when you’re actually in it. The sun rises, people go to work, the markets are busy, children go to school, wine is poured, neighbours gossip, dogs sleep in the shade. Real life carries on perfectly well without international recognition. And yet the shadow of that limbo is always there — hovering in the background like an awkward relative nobody mentions.
And then there are the small things — the things you don’t put in brochures. The slower pace, the extra space. The way the day doesn’t feel like it’s chasing you. The fact that people still talk to each other, anywhere and everywhere. The feeling that you can live a life without constantly being sold something, judged for something, or shoved into somebody else’s argument. It’s not paradise. But it is, in a strange way, calmer. And so much better for it.
The politicians will argue until the cows come home about recognition. We’ll settle for sunshine, space to breath, and a glass of wine that doesn’t need a bank loan. Oh, and perhaps a better title for this blog: “Where else would we rather be?”
How did we get here?
What a great question!
Really, how did we?
My country has become an international pariah. Well, not for Chinese, Iranians, or Arabs, but who in Russia cares for them? I can only hope that after Putin there will be very fast changes back to normality. The problem is the dude wants to live forever. I am 51 now and wondering: what will be my age when Vlad makes all of us happy?
My personal life is in ruins, though a time ago I thought I had it all well-packed and ready for the future. No comments here, but I will overcome and build something new.
My professional life has its challenges, but recently life has become much more interesting and challenging in a new environment.
What else? Bitcoin is twice down from its ATH of $126,000. Donald Trump will soon take the ayatollah down and this would be great for the Iranian people. Dems will take the House.
So how did we get here? It’s just like 2Pac said: Life goes on.
How did we get here?
An economist recently described the United States as a third-world country with flat screen TVs. I think that’s fair; in fact, it sounds like that statement could be applied to many industrialized countries across the globe.
This has led to instability and political chaos in numerous countries. People are pissed and rightly so. I have argued in these pages before that the oligarch class has purchased many governments and news outlets. They have used this platform to delude and lie. They strip away even basic dignity without remorse.
Trump and Putin are both examples of billionaires who have surrounded themselves with oligarchs. They reward loyalty with favors and influence. In the US, Ellison has turned the once venerable CBS News into a mouthpiece. He has replaced the main anchor (presenter) and the editor and chief with people more in line with the current administration. Bezos has destroyed the Washington Post as a serious journalistic endeavor. Much of their subscriber base has simply left. The white billionaires involved in this takeover include names like Musk and Murdoch but I’ll leave this alone for now.
Around the planet, the poor have been set against themselves by listening to people like the ones I’ve named above. These regular folk have far more in common with each other than they wish to admit. Yet they continue to eagerly consume innuendo and lies peddled by parasites from above. It’s the fault of the socialists left or the fascist right, not those in control.
The title of the article is: How did we get here? I’ll explain as I understand it. Throughout the country’s history, workers in the US were paid a portion of what they produced. As productivity increased, wages went up. Corporations made more money and could afford to give raises. The system worked for two-hundred years. In this graph from the Economic Policy Institute, as posted in the Wall Street Journal, we can see productivity & pay rise in lock step until the mid-1970’s. Then something happens, the amount of product a company makes is no longer related to what that company pays.
Looking closely, you’ll notice that in the last fifty years, wages have risen by less than 10%. Obviously cost of living continues to increase. The predictable result is that there is not much of a middle class left in America. You either live from check to check, almost, or you’re rich.
Being long of tooth, I know that inflation of three percent is pretty normal but now people can’t afford it. Politicians, even presidents are losing elections for a failure to tame out or control inflation. It’s astonishing how successful the press and media have been in pretending that flat wages for fifty years is not the problem.
I know I’m running long but this is a big deal so please give me another minute.
Here’s another graph that shows the top 20% of wage earners have more wealth than the bottom 80% in the United States. Remember what I opened with about the US being a third world country with flat screen TVs? Here you go. The politicians like to quote how the average American makes well over $50,000 a year. Technically that’s true, as long as you count the names I mentioned above in the calculation. The truth is the actual number is around half that. Why? Because the US Government likes to include Elon Musk to balance out Dean Lewis. Think: one billion dollars equals one-thousand, million dollars. Elon, alone, is worth 852 billion. The whole damn country only has 348 million people! Now throw in fifty of Elon’s closest friends and you can see how the numbers provided by the US Government are bullshit.
I want to close by saying my glass is almost always half-full. I truly believe Trump, DOGE, ICE, and Epstein have exposed just how corrupt the system is. Many people can’t go on financially and are being forced to look at what they are being told by the billionaires running the government. Many others still live in flatland, believing the problem is left, right, not up, down. That’s changing and I believe our new Robber Barrons will, in the mid-term future, suffer the same fate their predecessors did in the 1890s.