File this one under DUH, subheading, OBVIOUS, but the economy is much, much worse than what Dr. Utopia and the rest of the unicorn-riding Kool-Aid Gang want you to believe. 

This week, you’ve noticed posts have been light as those of us here have been involved in a few large projects — some taking extra work now that summer’s here and there’s rare actual work to be had, and others attending a weeklong series of seminars on nonprofit financing solutions in a depression. 

Much to our surprise, about 30% of the presenters this week actually used the word DEPRESSION to describe the state of the economy, in direct opposition to what the White House and Congress issue in their talking points to the MSM enablers and sycophants. Factoring inflation and the recently developed contract-worker/independent-freelancer so prevalent today into the unemployment numbers (a unique American worker who did not exist, for all intents and purposes, in 1929-1932), things are already worse in large cities today than they were during the Great Depression.  The REAL unemployment figures in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and other freelancer-heavy cities is around 20-25%: higher numbers than existed between 1929-1932. 

While the Dow is currently down 55% from its 1999 peak (adjusted for inflation), it still has to drop to 4,300 before it mirrors the 1929-1932 Great Depression crash of the stock market.  However, one of the more terrifying things we learned this week is that the coming inflation tsunami, triggered by the massive deficit spending Dr. Utopia, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid have forced upon us (with Congress not even bothering to read its own spending bills), could potentially tank the markets the 3,700 points that would send the current 8,000 range Dow into a new Great Depression death roll. 

7% inflation would drag the Dow down to 4,300 in about 8 years; the coming inflation tsunami, of which the MSM refuses to even talk about, could realistically bring about 11-12% inflation.  That means 4-5 years from now could very well see this country in worse shape than 1929-1932. 

Today, walking through Andersonville (the closest thing to a “Girlstown” in Chicago to mirror our home base of “Boystown) we stopped in Bon Bon, a little gourmet chocolate shop whose fortunes rose and fell in the last few years, along with the other high-end chocolate lounges in the city.  Bon Bon’s proprieter was engaged in a passionate conversation with a customer when we walked in, telling her about losing the lease for the store and having to sell next May.  The shop’s been losing money for two years, we learned, with the bottom completely dropping out in the last six months or so as gourmet (and, we realized, erotically-molded, karma sutra-inspired chocolates) dropped to dead last on the list of things people can afford to spend their money on these days, even in trendy, upper-income heavy Andersonville (home briefly to many lesbians before they partner up and head to the suburbs, and gay men who more often than not burn too many bridges in Boystown and then head north to colonize Andersonville like Puritans pushed off to the New World — which, we duly note, is the first time in history gay men in Boystown have ever been compared to Puritans). 

The shopkeeper had a great attitude about it, though.  She said she got a lot of buzz from an article Playboy Magazine did on her chocolates, which amounted to about three months of sales bonanza, and then things all basically fell apart.  Playboy insisted she create a website for her shop, which she never bothered to have before, because they wouldn’t write the article unless they could link to a website with it.  

The customer piped up and said she used to be a successful web designer, but that she lost her business in the last year because too many people bought web design software themselves:  she made little money on creating new sites for people, and instead earned the bulk of her profit charging to keep sites going, refresh them, or add new information as business needs changed.  She told the chocolatier that the easy to use web developer software people have been buying, like Dreamweaver, killed her business because once she created sites for people, they learned how to use Dreamweaver to cut out the middleman — in this case, her. 

Bon Bon’s lease seems to be linked to a share in the net profits, so the building’s owner appears to think it can do better with some other shop in that space. Instead of making gourmet chocolates, the shop owner said she’s just make something else instead, something more down-market.  The web developer has no idea what she’ll do, but thinks she’ll go back to school. 

The vignette reminded us of something Billy Joel would have sung about if the whole thing had taken place in a Jersey bar and not an Andersonville chocolate shop. 

It also made us think about all the small business owners we know who went out of business in the last six months — many of whom, like the two in the story above, are big Dr. Utopia supporters.  Realtors, web developers, landscape designers, caterers, event planners, fashion designers, cupcake bakers, and freelances of all stripes. All of these people are very well-educated, and all catered to the needs of people with disposable income that suddenly became not so disposable after all.  They are all now still waiting for all of their hope and change, and all the miracles they were promised by Candidate Utopia before he became our 44th President. 

It’s strange to hear these sorts of people complain about our illustrious president now.  At Caribou Coffee today on Broadway in Boystown, we sat next to quite possibly the most annoying two people we’ve encountered in a while: two twenty-somethings clearly from wealthy families who are all about Green Peace and saving all those poor, ignorant people in Africa (just waiting for two white Midwesterners to rescue them from their many plights) and telling all the foolish Americans how terrible they are and how they are all destroying the planet with their consumerism and economic self-determinism.  One of them was South African, and had the most grating and irritating accent, which was employed loudly complaining about America and how she was being asked to leave since her visa was not being renewed, but noting that “this isn’t what was supposed to happen.  Everything was supposed to be different now.  Obama is president, for crying out loud, why aren’t things different?”.  The Iowa farm boy turned neo-hippie she was with, the kind of guy who tries to guilt trip you about the steak you’re eating (while he’s wearing a leather belt and largely using an interest in environmentalism as a wildly effective (from what we hear) way to score with girls like the irritating South African in front of him – who, we should note, had a certain hunger and desperation in her eyes that made us wonder just how well she was working out plans to trick the farm boy into some kind of arrangement where she could stay in the country she seemingly hates but is so angry about being asked to leave). 

It’s funny to see the neo-hippies realize 2008′s Hope/Change-palooza was all a load of crap, just as ultimately in their 40s, if not sooner, these same twenty-somethings quite often realize they’ve truly wasted the last 10-15 years of their lives on leftist nonsense, that patchuli smells terrible, and no one ever wants to listen to people with grating South African accents lecture about all the many problems America has (while simultaneously whining about no longer being able to live here, and going on and on and on about what’s going to happen to the cat she’s had for a year that South Africa won’t let her bring with her when she’s deported). 

But, it’s sad and frustrating, more so than funny, because slowly we see people waking up and realizing what we warned about back in 2008.  

This is why, once Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign, we fought tooth and nail for John McCain first, and ultimately with our whole hear for Sarah Palin. 

None of Dr. Utopia’s promises were real — but his determination to push this country onto a destructive Marxist track was VERY MUCH REAL, and could very well be the end of all of us. 

On the streets of Boystown and Andersonville in the last several days — we kid you not — we saw nicely dressed people, just a little dirty, but wild-eyed and desperate looking, digging through trash bins on the street or dumpsters behind restaurants.  One man yesterday looked like one of the random, slightly overweight, middle-management accountant types indigenous to every cubicle farm in America (and obsessed with red Swingline staplers on occasion).  He still had the ubiquitous nylon badge holder/key ring straight out of central casting dangling around his neck, the kind his ID used to be on when he swiped in at Aon every day (the name of the insurance giant on the nylon, given to him at orientation his first day or as some worthless prize at a training seminar or other event, we’re sure).  And, there he was, in The Golden Age of Hope and Change, in dirty khackis, excited to find a styrofoam cup with a lid still on it in the trash outside Potbelly’s. Feral-like, he scooped that cup right up to his mouth and slurped up its contents, savoring it as the only food he’d had that day, most likely.

It was stunning and sickening and heartbreaking and TERRIFYING all at the same time, because when we were kids and asked our grandparents what the Great Depression was like and how they first realized there was inescapable trouble coming, THIS IS WHAT THEY SAID THEY NOTICED FIRST.

Office workers eating garbage in broad daylight on the street.  Former business people prostituting themselves on Craigslist or giving handjobs to strangers in alleys for twenties. People selling their big screen TVs to pawn shops for $100 to try to make their rent and avoid eviction. 

Another friend of ours, Brian, used to make $140,000 a year selling window treatments around Chicagoland.  He was a sales leader, winning countless company awards, raking in all those commissions since every time a condo was flipped in Chicago, the flippers bought all new window treatments for each sale.  His business still soared as the real estate market tanked, because condos that weren’t selling prompted their increasingly more desperate owners to change window treatments, paint schemes, and staging options repeatedly as they kept trying and trying to close deals.  But, things started to go downhill for Brian last December…and not having any savings (living always beyond his means, blowing most of his money on nights out at Sidetrack’s, and spending more than he ever brought in, even when he was sitting on a gold mine), he actually lost his condo last week and is now nomadically staying a few nights here and there with friends, before crashing on another couch until he gets back on his feet, whenever THAT will be.  Thankfully, Brian has friends to keep him from having to slurp chili out of Potbelly’s trash, but not everyone is so lucky.  

People who have never struggled with anything and have always had high-paying, great jobs have been unemployed for MONTHS with no prospects.

People who never heard the word “No” for anything are being rejected for jobs that are three or four levels below what they’d typically be paid fortunes for are being reduced to taking unpaid internships to diversify their resumes and make themselves more marketable.

Some people are just giving up on finding work and have moved back in with their parents while they go to law school or go get MBAs, deciding to ride out the new depression in school while the gilded world around us implodes on itself in this the most historic and excellent Golden Age of Hope and Change.

Speaking of Sidetrack’s, an actual gold mine if ever there was one, we ran into one of the owners over Memorial Day, a big force for LGBTQ Equality in Illinois and a genuinely nice guy (even though we criticize him for allowing his VJs to misogynistically attack Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, etc. — and don’t think we will ever let him forget it, no matter how much we do like him), who honestly is probably the most positive and upbeat person we can think of.  We have never, EVER heard him say anything not 100% upbeat.  But, when we chatted and he asked one of us how we had been and Robby said, “Oh, I’m working hard to make this a great summer, there’s a lot of great opportunities and I’m giving it my all”, we were stunned when the normally positive bar owner said, “That’s good to hear because we need some optimism for a change, things are so bad, it’s depressing and everybody’s always so down”.

Wow.

Empty bars that are normally packed.

Deserted restaurants practically giving meals away trying to entice business.

Being able to find a table and occupy it for hours and hours on end in a normally jam-packed Caribou’s.

All because no one has the money to spend on the whole Boystown keeping-up-with-the-Brendans whirl.

And so, so many Brendans are leaving Chicago each month, no longer able to afford their rent and life in the big city.  Back home to Iowa they go, or across the border to Indiana for longer commutes to work (if they still have jobs) but much, much cheaper rent.  

Adios Boystown, hello Hammond. 

The MSM and White House continue to tell us, every day, how historic Dr. Utopia’s presidency is and how happy we all must be that we have a black president now.  

We hear over and over again how glamorous Mrs. Utopia is and how everyone should look like her and dress like her (and wear sofa upholstery and old coffee filters sewn by drag designers as couture evening wear).

Hope!

Change!

Middle-management slurping old chili out of the garbage!

People losing their homes!

Talented professionals going almost a year without finding jobs!

Welcome to Dr. Utopia’s America, people.  It’s the man the MSM claims is the new Lincoln, the one who’s taken over and nationalized the car-making industry…the man who reminds us not of Lincoln, but of Hoover…and we all not only know how terrible government-made cars are, but also how much Hoovers SUCK.

And we hate to tell you this, but it is all only going to get worse for the rest of Dr. Utopia’s term.