This past week we traveled to Pebble Beach, for the ATT Golf Tournament. The event was interesting, it was fun to see the real golfers up close, and the celebrities were entertaining; especially witnessing their pedestrian approach to golf (a lot like mine).
But, the surroundings were more interesting. Pebble Beach is a public golf course that charges almost $500 a round (some public!)
It shares a spectacular coastline view with several other golf courses, some public, and most private. (Private gold courses, for those of you who don’t follow golf, usually cost more to join than most of us make in a several years).
This year the ridiculously exclusive Monterey Bay Country Club was used as the third course along with Spyglass Hills (another public course that costs over $300 to play).
All this lies on the famous “17 Mile Drive”, a public road that is blocked off by a gate that costs to pass. This is explained away as a “park entrance”, when in reality it is a public access that is treated as a private drive. The coast is owned by the resorts and homeowners; all 17 miles of it, citizens can drive through it, pay ridiculous prices at the resorts, but can’t live there. Only the rich and famous can live there.
This gated community is one of the richest and most exclusive on earth. Of course it is all for the views, that are breathtaking. The stench of money is everywhere, from the castles that stand as dwellings to the $15 dollar drink I foolishly ordered at the Pebble Beach Lodge.
But the 8 miles to a gallon while wallowing in conspicuous consumption is what really got me!
Mercedes Benz had a display at the entrance to the tournament. Several glittering models were on display, and you got a $1000 off coupon if you stopped and looked. As we perused the cars, my wife gravitated to the convertible. The sticker got me, not so much for the price, as for the mpg estimates. It read, “8 miles in town, 14 on the road”. That’s right, 8 miles to the gallon.
This symbolizes why the United States is finished as a world economic power. The conspicuous consumption and mindless squalor of the rich and famous was startling. But what was most startling was seeing that 8 miles per gallon sticker, as we read of $4.00 a gallon prices re-emerging across the nation in a few months.
Meanwhile, as we marveled that so many rooms could be put into one house, with only two people living in it, conservatives are rallying for more tax breaks for the rich and killing high speed trains, and other public transportation ideas.
Cal train, an essential commuter train that runs up and down the peninsula in the Bay Area of California is facing huge cutbacks in service because the counties it passes through cannot balance their budgets. The latest proposal is to close many stations, stop weekend service (the train carries fans to Giants games), and raising fares. This will have the result of putting more cars on Bay Area highways at $4.00 a gallon!
Eight miles to a gallon! This screams at me as I remember the acres of landscaped opulence along the pristine coastline that essentially has been walled off from the poor and middle class. Americans will be cutting back on their commutes, facing absolutely no alternatives because of conservatives cutting public transportation, while the rich and famous drive cars that get 8 miles a gallon.
Everyone, I mean EVERYONE, who looked at those cars, salivated over the idea that they could possibly own one. Of course, 99 percent of us could not even come close to actually owning one, but we all dreamed.
And that is the ultimate tragedy. Americans dream of being like the rich, of owning a car that is polluting the environment and sucking gas reserves into oblivion, the more conspicuous and ostentatious the better.
And then there is Monterey Bay Country Club, referred to by my friend as only accessible in his lifetime because the tournament was being played there.
But, hospitable they were not. There were about a dozen outdoor privies at the entrance to the course, which was at the extreme opposite of the venue, as far away from the clubhouse as possible. My friend and his wife walked to that side of the course, and were told at the guardhouse, that they most certainly could not (the guard sniffed) use the restrooms in the clubhouse (which looked like a castle). There were no other restrooms on the golf course.
The Country Club was no doubt paid thousands for the use of the facility, but the public was treated like dirt. “Let them pee in a cup”.
And, our conservative friends in Congress are working overtime to spread this aristocratic culture all over America. Eight miles a gallon for the rich, nothing for the rest of you.
And what keeps this myth alive, is the pathetic belief in many Americans that they too can be someday rich and famous like the aristocracy that lives along the beaches of Monterey Country Club.
At dinner, the last night of our stay, the restaurant owner visited with us, and gave us a lottery ticket (one lottery ticket), with the hope that we could win and share the prize. He was a nice man, who made conversation and was thanking us for dropping over $150 at his restaurant with a $1.00 lottery ticket.
And we all took it, and laughed and secretly hoped that ticket would be the winner, opening us to the world of the rich and famous we had just visited along the Monterey Coast.
America has become a pathetic bunch of fools, who continue to revel in being conned by rich aristocrats, who hate us and continue to box us into poverty with conservative economic policies that concentrate wealth in the increasingly arrogant few.
The American Dream never intended to concentrate wealth so drastically. But, it is a natural product of the free enterprise economy. The actors and comedians we watched hack their way around the golf courses, benefit from a system that rewards the few lavishly, and the rest get less and less.
I am NOT suggesting we take it all back from the rich, or their talent hasn’t earned them their wealth. I am suggesting that the wealth be redistributed through progressive tax rates, to re-build a middle class. The concentration of wealth so aptly illustrated by 8 miles per gallon luxury cars is what is killing the American Dream, not enhancing it. Sooner or later, ordinary citizens will not be able to afford paying for or driving the 17 mile drive, leaving the beauty to the aristocrats. Of course, the resorts will die, because the middle class is who is supporting them
That is what America is about, supporting an economic elite who live in gated communities, keeping the beauty of America for themselves?
By the way, Pebble Beach Lodge and venue treated us great. The prices were ridiculous, but we were treated as guests. I cannot say the same for Monterey Country Club. It was obvious that the public were needed at Pebble Beach, and should stay away from the Country Club.
I have not even mentioned Peak Oil that means the supplies of oil are finite and decreasing. I have not mentioned the global climate change that petroleum emissions cause, that one day will put Pebble Beach under the ocean. The rich and famous do not have the money to stop the rise in ocean levels caused by climate change. Their mansions will be more waterfront than intended in the near future.
Anyway, I will be thinking of the eight dollar a gas this summer when I am walking to the market which is five miles away to get some milk.
Eight dollars a gallon! Is this a Great Country or What!
