If These Walls Could Talk

Last year we had to strip one of my father's buildings straight down to the its original wall the tenet did so much damage. What I saw were generations of ideas and attitudes strip away before me. You can tell what people must have thought just by observing the type of brick used and how it was put together. The building was built in 1929 and it wasn't exactly did with perfection in mind, but still, it was solid. Then, as time went on, owners changed hands, new needs necessitated cosmetic adjustments.

Walls were added, thus adding more bricks only this time it was the 1940s, and then the 1960s (my father bought it in 1966), right up until 2009.

While it cost money to renovate it was a chance to reinvigorate the place. To add better materials up to new modern standards. It's always beneficial to rethink and revisit our original layouts.

Same with the building I'm renting for the day care. Where it needs to be done, I'm making sure we bring everything up to speed. It's putting me way over budget but the cost of not doing it may be worse in the long-run for me. Originally built in 1962, the place was in need of some real upgrading.

Which made me think. It's a neat analogy to use about our economic mindset. The current one in place, which I'm not sure what it is but let's just say it's a "theory-based, tax and spend oriented for the collective good' type of economy predicated on unprovable notions of being able to predict and manage risk.

I'm no expert or scholar so I can't put it into academic terms but, what's the term I looking for, this position has gotten really, really stale. Like the walls in my buildings.

Now. The option is to merely build upon the wall with the same attitude and materials so as to make the building "functional" to rent out but that risk there is you will always have the headache of tearing down walls. Fix and destroy. It's a band aid approach. Sort of like regulation in the markets.

Or, you can take a deep breath, shut down for a few months and redesign the sucker to ensure it's as good as new with better materials thus saving you a migraine down the road. Of course when you srip out a part of an extension it gets scarier to look at but it must be done.

It's a choice.

To me, our economic "experts" keep betting on the former strategy thinking it worked once it should always work. Not sure about that logic. Conversely, what didn't work in the past doesn't mean it has no merit. Maybe it does or did but clearly things are a tad askew and the solutions being offered are not solutions but a reverting to a comfort zone we think we know.

What's better to have a series of small mangeable problems where you can solve as you go or having several massive problems that engulf you to the point of near paralysis?

I know I prefer the former. In order to get there though we need to work backwards from where we are. There's little logic in "bailing out" companies based on the reasons given. Remove the safety net and see how risk assessment changes. Nor is bigger better and top-down edicts from clueless politicians are equally as bad. You can't direct things that way and expect to be efficient.

That's what I've learned from two walls (who spoke with a Gaspesienne accent for some reason) in two buildings in two different parts of the city from two different eras.

Your move.

Our move.

And I just got a case of deja-vu as I write this. Seriously.