This is a good review of what appears to be an interesting book about the most unequal county in the United States.
In my book, Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate, I reference Jackson, Wyoming, the hum of Teton County, and a place we visited several times when we worked at Yellowstone National Park. In the book, I describe Jackson as a town where the billionaires have chased out the millionaires. This was 15 years ago, and the inequality and wealth of the super-rich has increased dramatically. At the beginning of the pandemic, these ugly people flocked to their estates in Jackson, so they could isolate themselves. One even brought his own ventilator. Some have "concierge doctors." They believe that their wealth's origins are neutral. Or as Mrx said, quoting the Romans, "Pecunia non olet." Money does not stink. Big-time Trump supporters. They all, without exception, should be shot. Here is what I wrote about Jackson in the book: We first visited Jackson, Wyoming, in the late spring of 1997, after a long drive through a snow-filled Yellowstone. Jackson sits just south of the Teton mountains, the most important land formations of Grand Teton National Park. You have to drive through this park as well, since it is nearly contiguous with Yellowstone. The Tetons are classic western mountains, one after another in a chain of sharply etched peaks rising high into the blue western sky. Much of Grand Teton National Park was once the private property of the Rockefeller family. During our sojourn at Yellowstone, we encountered hordes of Secret Service agents in Jackson protecting Vice President Dick Cheney, who was in his home state to accept a gift of the Rockefellers’ YR ranch, the last remaining parcel of Rockefeller land, which is now also part of the park. Thirty years ago, Jackson was a tiny cowboy town, charming in its way, with a beautiful natural setting, surrounded by mountains and close by the picturesque Snake River. Even in 1997 it was possible to get a cheap but decent motel room and a moderately-priced meal, and take a leisurely stroll around the town admiring the park, whose entrances are made of the antlers of dead elk, and the stark dry hills overlooking the streets. Rafting, hiking, and skiing were readily available recreations. An excellent art museum, dedicated to nature paintings and sculpture, was just outside town. Things have changed dramatically, due primarily to the striking growth in economic inequality since the middle of the 1970s. Both income and wealth have become increasingly lopsided. To put it simply, money has been transferred from the poor to the rich. For example, incomes in the United States grew considerably between 1979 and 2000, as we would expect in the world’s richest nation. But who got this growing income? The richest one percent of all households, whose income is mainly from dividends, interest, rent, profits, and capital gains, grabbed an astonishing 38.4 percent of the income growth produced over a thirty-one-year period. The poorest 20 percent of households took home a mere 0.8 percent. Consider that in 2003 there were 111,278,000 households in the United States. One percent of this number is 1,112,780 households. These rich households got a share of the income increase forty-eight times higher (38.4 divided by 0.8) than the 22,255,600 families that comprise the poorest 20 percent of households. The overall distribution of income is more unequal now than it has been at any time since the 1920s. The distribution of wealth is much more unequal than income. The richest one percent of households own the lion’s share of all assets and they keep getting more of them. There has been an incredible growth in the number of millionaires and billionaires in the United States. In 2004, for example, there were roughly 77,500 households with net worth, excluding residences, of at least $30,000,000, a number that has been rising rapidly since the 1990s. There are in the United States literally millions of millionaires, and in 2004, there may have been more than 350 billionaires. Such numbers must be taken with a grain of salt, and I offer them as approximations, but there is no doubt that the number of rich and very rich persons has increased dramatically. What is important here is that these people have more money than they can spend on ordinary consumer goods. So they look for ways to use their money so that it not only grows but offers them pleasure as well. One such venue is real estate, and what we see in every geographically well-situated place that is habitable is an influx of affluent property seekers and visitors. Inevitably this money transforms a town: there is a building boom; more roads are constructed; upscale stores and restaurants replace older, local establishments; housing prices skyrocket; immigrant workers are recruited to serve their betters; and political power changes hands. In Teton County, where Jackson is located, the median home price has risen threefold in the past five years and is now more than $600,000. The mean cost of a new home exceeds $1.5 million; sales of homes listed at more than $5 million tripled between 2003 and 2005. Vice President Cheney, former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, actor Harrison Ford, and many other members of the rich and famous have homes in Jackson. Most of these people are actually in the town and county for only a few weeks a year; their houses are otherwise closed. Locals have coined a name for this privileged set: “two-two-eighters”— couples who spend two weeks a year in town, living in their 8,000 square feet houses. I suspect that the best job in town is that of realtor. Jackson is home to nearly as many real estate dealers as restaurants. Once home prices start to rocket upward, land and homes are hyped beyond belief. One realtor actually advertised “antique” land for sale; the land was guaranteed to have been hunted by Indians and worked by prospectors and other romantic Old West types. The Teton Village ski complex lies a few miles north of Jackson. When we visited, it was a typically tacky ski area, with mediocre restaurants, gift shops, ski lifts, and concrete and brick condominiums. However, Teton Village has recently undergone a makeover, so that it could become a fit rendezvous for those with too much discretionary income. Now there is a Four Seasons restaurant with a top chef. At the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, there are heated pools, an 11,685 square foot spa with sixteen treatment rooms, and in-room boot fitting for hotel guests. Closer to town there are $700 a night hotels and fancy dude ranches for the discriminating traveler. When a town is gentrified, low-wage workers are needed to clean hotel rooms, to attend to rich households, to wait tables and do dishes in restaurants, and to construct new homes and buildings. In much of the West, those that do this work are Hispanics. Ten percent of Jackson’s population is Mexican. The foreign workers, and nearly all others, including teachers, nurses, and police officers, cannot afford to buy or rent housing. So they live either in makeshift trailer housing—sometimes on hotel or motel property—or out of town, usually across the dangerous Teton Pass in Idaho. Workers are poor and invisible, and the gap between their economic circumstances and those they serve is enormous and growing. Oftentimes the older, more middle-class residents take out their anger at the changes towns like Jackson are experiencing on the new mainly foreign-born workers. They don’t see the economic system that brings forth the changes in the first place. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#4018): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/4018 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/78565363/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
