American Dream

5 comments on “American Dream ”

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1. Pascal's bookie 1

   14 April 2009 at 9:55 am

   yep.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverville

   and also..

   Victorville is what they call an “exurb,’ one of thousands of new sub-suburban sprawls all around the country built for poor Americans. To flocking homeowners, Victorville must have seemed like a glorious reaffirmation about everything good and right about American values, a place where the poor could finally afford a home of their own. Instead, it turned into just one more slaughtering ground in the the biggest scam of the century, a place where tens of thousands were lured to be ripped off and set adrift…

   …Victorville was never meant for the world of the living. Out on the horizon, you could make outlines of lofty snow-capped mountains. But under your feet, it’s nothing but a patch of dried-out dirt. These houses were built here at the whim of WaMu and Countrywide Financial executive types just so they could have a product to push, a part of a complicated system of speculator fraud meant to do only one thing: transfer money from the lower-class suckers straight into executive bonuses. For that they needed a constant supply of fresh meat, and Victorville performed exceedingly well. In 2007, a year in which five million Americans migrated to shitholes just like this, Victorville was the second-fastest growing one of them.

   When I looked at the house two weeks ago, the real estate agent couldn’t tell me much about its history. All she knew was that it had one previous owner, a family that moved here from somewhere south of LA. They didn’t get to enjoy the American splendor of their new digs for long, though. One year is all they had before the bank seized their home and flipped it to someone insane enough to invest in this city’s toxic real estate market.

   Read the rest

   Journalism!
2. SHG 2

   14 April 2009 at 3:52 pm

   Nice photo. I wonder what hardworking photographer just had their intellectual property rights infringed by the Standard, which is now hosting the image as if it was the Standard’s, and which is offering no credit or attribution whatsoever to the owner?
   • Tane 2.1

     14 April 2009 at 3:57 pm

     Clearly we’re not claiming it’s our own. This was sent in by a reader – if you know where it’s from then I’m happy to attribute it. But I suspect you’re just interested in trolling.
     • SHG 2.1.1

       14 April 2009 at 4:20 pm

       Whether I’m trolling or not is beside the point. You are using someone else’s creative work on your website without attribution or even a “photo submitted by reader, photographer unknown” disclaimer.
       • Tane 2.1.1.1

         14 April 2009 at 4:27 pm

         Well, it’s right there above you. I suspect this has more to do with your right-wing politics than any great concern for the photographer involved.

         Oh, and it’s polite to post under just the one handle here. Please make up your mind and stick with it.

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