The Standards of the USA in 2025
Where they are in place, they can always get lowered.
There are changes taking place in the USA today. Where most of USA housing used to be single stories (because they were relatively cheap to build when land was cheap), today we see a revolution of homes built with two stories or more.
The land is not as cheap as it used to be. Plus, folks realize that once you build one-storied homes, and you want to change that setup, you have to demolish first and then rebuild — that is a very expensive addition compared to building on virgin lands.
In a way, the market is functioning properly, translating the increased price of land into building in smarter, often smaller, fashion.
However, the market is following a more sinister path as well since the middle class of the United States of individuals and families have less money to spend than ten years ago. More of the money ends up in the hands of the upper class, and while the rich may want a third home, or even more, they won’t go for buying 200 homes. The rich cannot fill the gap left behind by the middle class with less money to spend.
- Naturally, the housing market builds for whomever can afford a home, and we see a trend of diminishing attractions (living in smaller homes is of course the smarter thing to do in this part of the world).
- Meanwhile, the elite will end up moving more of their money to Wall Street instead of spending it on buying yet another home.
Wall Street is doing really well. Just like it was in the 1920s when the elite had consumed all it could consume and the rich put the remainder of their money in the stock market.
- See how it was like in October 1929.
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What are the standards of the United States?
It turns out that there are no standards in the United States. Rather, there is the appearance of standards and we are all trying to fit in that mold. The pendulum swings exactly because the pendulum is not based on the ground, but on a pivotal position much higher up.
Even the US Constitution is not really the true foundation it proclaims to be, since Supreme Court Justices are the actual ultimate in our nation, and the US Constitution therefore no longer the ultimate.
- The ground we stand on, economically, politically, socially, is not a solid basis.
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In the 1970s, the German and Japanese economies were doing really well, while the economies of the victors of WW II, the USA and the UK, were not doing well.
Instead of reforming our socioeconomic societies to ensure the higher standards established in Germany and Japan remained in place here, too, the standards got lowered.
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher made a pact and lowered the importance of the demands made by the lower and middle class, and gave more of the money to investors.
- It worked.
Domestic and foreign investors ended up spending more of their money in the US and the UK, improving the economic output here at home.
Interestingly, the nations with the higher standards lowered their standards, too, because they tried to keep more of the international investors interested in their economies.
Yet overall, the standards got lowered. Instead of working ourselves toward a better world, competition became the center of attention. The rat-race elements got stronger, the benefit streams flowing toward the top got wider, and the political situation adjusted itself to the new reality.
Yet a slippery slope does not ameliorate itself of course.
The slippery slope likes to continue doing what appeared to be so successful, even when this would lead to greater costs to the environment and diminished returns for the lower classes of society.
2025
Fast forward to today, and we see the rat-race elements did not adjust themselves toward normalization. At times of needs (or of perceived needs), the same action is taken today to make the United States more attractive again.
- The standards in the United States are lowered once more.
Surprise or not, after Brexit, the UK wanted to get a new pact with the USA, and Biden did not provide that. Donald Trump, however, gave Britain what it wanted in 2025.
It is not yet clear if the UK can force the standards of, for instance, the EU to get lowered. There are signals that EU investments may shift a bit toward the cheaper British isles. Selling England by the Pound, as pop band Genesis once sang, has become attractive again. Pulling investment Euros away from the continent, making the companies benefit from the lowered standards.
- The zero-sum game means that the standards are lowered for the lower classes for sure.
The story is the same in the USA, even though the cheaper dollar may not tell the entire story yet. Right now, it is very attractive to buy stocks in the USA because of the cheap dollar. The boom may get followed by a bust.
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Meanwhile, the housing market is building smaller homes, one-, two-, or three-storied because the market does not support a new housing stock for the McMansions boom we had in the past.
The United States lowered its standards in 2025, and this results in changes that we can see in our economic environment. We can also see this back in the sociopolitical landscape. Folks are more angry with one another, particularly at the lower ends where things are now harder for people to get by.
Particularly at the lower ends folks think that other people are benefiting instead of them. They are looking for scapegoats instead of solutions that would benefit the world.
With just a two-party system, voters at the bottom may stay home, riot in the streets instead. Or… support a new revolution (based on the slippery slope and not on finding the best solutions).
The standards can always get lowered in the name of competition.
