Natalia,
Well said! The tenor of your last paragraph
accords with what I wrote a few minutes ago
(under the amended thread "A poor man's guide to neuroscience").
Keith
At 00:34 20/06/2012, you wrote:
This came out a week ago:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/fed-americans-wealth-dropped-40-percent/2012/06/11/gJQAlIsCVV_story.html>http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/fed-americans-wealth-dropped-40-percent/2012/06/11/gJQAlIsCVV_story.html
With figures such as these, over which some of
the top feared disastrous psychological
pressures are placed on the individual, and
other Western nations experiencing similar
hardships over employment, everyone is exactly
where the 1% need them to be for a repeat of the
Dirty 30's. Bear in mind, the wealthier nations
have never really been well off--they were
acting as if scarce resources are unlimited, and
very much failing to realize that if their
fellow humans abroad are suffering, primarily
due to said selfishness, or because of
destructive 3rd world development strategies
that better achieve that end. What adversely
affects one group eventually comes back to bite
the rest, like pollution and war.
We already have, according to CBC this morning,
some 25 wars globally, most of which have been
long-term. As Ed suggests below, countless turf
wars should develop within municipalities over
everything from luxuries to basics as things get
tougher. But gangs, as well as the top 1%, will run out of staple supplies.
We may soon have to do what Cuba did when the
USSR stopped sending food and fertilizer after
its collapse. Because Cuba's economy was based
solely on growing and exporting sugar cane and
tobacco, both heavily dependant on chemicals for
mono-culture crops, everyone had no choice but
to go organic, and grow their own. It swiftly
became the only way to feed themselves in a
world unwilling to provide assistance. And it
was the best thing that could have happened to
them. Lets hope they can stay clear of
derivatives, fiat funds and US food wars. And
for year-round energy to grow our own food,
we'll be forced to develop alternative
energy--another life saving industry. That is,
if we can stay together as a society.
With an unrelenting, still feverish "1984"-like
belief in derivatives/swaps being good for the
economy, despite the big meltdown and all
consequences, and with no government rules or
checks foreseeable and all politicians investing
heavily in such unhealthy markets themselves, I
suspect the money masters will be free to run
both treasury and resources past the point of
rebuilding for a very long time. Down the road,
derivatives won't work as B.S. once the system
collapses. Gold will likely return as the
standard, if weapons don't. Rebuilding will
likely become a local thing for those areas
where we don't kill one another off, though how
we can avoid guns and aggression as part of that
new world, I'm not sure. Short of gene
manipulation to rid us of stupidity and
suit-psycho behaviour, we'd best prepare for
more craziness. The notion of neural
manipulation, though already in the works in the
secretive worlds of the controllers, is too
costly and time consuming with society soon to
crash round our ankles. Just another control
dream. Though many would guess correctly that
advertising, education and propaganda have
worked beautifully in this respect, their
effects require constant tweaking and chronic
exposure. There won't be such expenditures in the near future.
This could be viewed as typical of gloom, but my
response is atypical of the Canadian masses.
Where they place faith in oil, Harper or other
politicians, or even religion to pull us up out
of economic despair, I believe that life's
purpose is noble, far richer and definitely more
capably envisioned than any Wall Street puppet
master can conceive. Controllers can't control
life's meaning, though they manipulate many
minds to that effect for what seems an eternity.
Many civilizations collapsed because of usurpers
and undeserving leaders. In time, a drop in the
bucket. Built upon falsehoods, nothing lasts.
Millions may die needlessly, but this sick fairy
tale with the greedy and powerful as worshipful
cries out for a fresh ending, and that ending
calls for rejection of money as god; for
enlightened humans to become Earth's caretakers
and one another's compassionate and respectful
teachers. We have to rewrite, re-envision,
re-distribute, re-tell, re-learn and re-think,
re-educate, and re-wire towards a responsible,
and life-teeming future. But I don't believe
those great voices will be heard until the
monstrous machine grinds to a halt. Once media
is down, and armies and civil servants are no
longer paid to protect politicians, the
mercenary forces will be far off in isolation,
guarding the elusive banksters. Then
communication will be possible. The dirty
diapers will at last get changed. In short, no
faith in the system, but plenty in the purpose of mind and existence.
Natalia
On 19/06/2012 12:07 PM, Ed Weick wrote:
Whatever is happening is a mix of
things. Gloom does seem to have taken over --
a general feeling that even when you really
try, you're not going to get anywhere, so why
bother. Things afflicting the US economy, and
parts of Canada as well, include the growing
power of the 1%, the loss of jobs because of
automation, the sending of jobs abroad where
they can be done more cheaply, the purchase of
products we used to make from foreign sources,
and a general uncertainty about where things are going.
The proportion of the labour force that has
stopped looking for work has grown, as has
unemployment among those who still want to
work. And college degrees don't seem to matter
much anymore. The old system of middle class
propriety and sobriety is fading out, as is the
middle class itself. However, something else
that isn't given much attention as yet may be
happening. In his "Coming Apart", Charles
Murray refers to groups called something like
"street corner gangs" that are increasingly
present in Fishtown, where his poor whites of
America live. These guys don't want steady
jobs or responsibilities, but they will take
advantage of whatever may come their way --
welfare, petty crime, or whatever -- and they
are learning to stay afloat quite effectively
in the increasingly depressed economy. Yet one
has to wonder what would happen if their
numbers grew. Might they move society away
from it's present state of manageable disorder and more deeply toward chaos?
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>de Bivort Lawrence
To:
<mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING
WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 12:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Gloomy America
Gloom is popular these days....
Not that there is not good reason for concern,
more for some than others. It is when gloom and
pessimism become a psychological condition and
displace the natural abilities of a person or
community to be proactive in resolving the
reasons for concern that gloom-as-fad becomes
dangerous, and perhaps fatal to the person or community.
I see such self-defeating levels of gloom in
some people and some communities in the US and
Europe, and, to refer to some of the messages posted here, to Canada as well.
To an interesting extent, the nature of this
gloom is ironic: wealthy societies and their
members falling into gloom because their levels
of wealth have fallen, while in poorer parts of
the world optimism reigns as people experience
and expect relative progress, though the level
of progress they may achieve will still be far
below that thought of as the norm in the wealthy societies.
Is there some karmic justice in this? Have the
wealthy merely become spoiled, and in their
ensuing gloom they guarantee their further fall toward the global median?
I've always credited Canada with better
political discourse, cleaner and less-selfish
motives than the US, and better (foreign)
policies. It saddens me to see Canada seemingly
sink into the political and psychological norms
of the US. I so much hope that I am overstating the case.
Cheers,
Lawry
From:
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:45 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,
EDUCATION';
<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] Gloomy America
Worth reading, but brace yourselves, it's gloomy.
Ed
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/us/many-american-workers-are-underemployed-and-underpaid.html?_r=1&hp>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/us/many-american-workers-are-underemployed-and-underpaid.html?_r=1&hp
Sample:
Now, with the economy shaping up as the
central issue of the presidential election,
both President Obama and Mitt Romney have been
relentlessly trying to make the case that
their policies would bring prosperity back.
The unease of voters is striking: in a
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/19/us/politics/20120419_poll_docs.html?ref=politics>New
York Times/CBS News poll in April, half of the
respondents said they thought the next
generation of Americans would be worse off,
while only about a quarter said it would have a better future.
And household wealth is dropping. The Federal
Reserve
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/business/economy/family-net-worth-drops-to-level-of-early-90s-fed-says.html?ref=binyaminappelbaum>reported
last week that the economic crisis left the
median American family in 2010 with no more
wealth than in the early 1990s, wiping away
two decades of gains. With stocks too risky
for many small investors and savings accounts
paying little interest, building up a nest egg
is a challenge even for those who can afford to sock away some of their money.
Expenses like putting a child through college
where tuition has been
<http://trends.collegeboard.org/college_pricing>rising
faster than inflation or wages can be a
daunting task. When Morgan Woodward, 21, began
her freshman year at the University of
California, Berkeley, three years ago, her
parents paid about $9,000 a year in tuition
and fees. Now
<http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/news/detail25.htm>they
pay closer to $13,000, and they are bracing
for the possibility of another jump next year.
With their incomes flat, though, they recently
borrowed money to pay for her final year, and
to begin paying the tuition of their son, who
plans to start college this fall.
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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