Many people already know there is no point in being optimistic about the state of America. However, there are still lots of people who just don’t understand — yet. The main reason for this is the problems are so severe that the solution is something brand new — it is not going to be fixed with lowering interest rates (been 0 for years) or another stimulus program that gives out money to corporate America. Everybody who thinks this is just another recession or even depression, are totally wrong — they are the biggest reason the solution is a long ways away.
Among the people who think this way are the President, the Congress, and practically everybody else in elected office. In a way, they have to think these crazy ideas because the solution — even if it would ever occur to them — is even crazier. It doesn’t fit or even co-exist well enough with the status quo. And these people are all about the status quo because they are doing just fine … thank you very much — “so sorry to hear the rest of you are fucked”. Like Herman Cain recently said — paragraphed — “if you are not rich it is because you are just too lazy or stupid”. This is from a guy who thinks another pizza joint is what cures all ills.
For the people in America not doing fine … like the unemployed, the underemployed, the homeless, the foreclosed upon, most of the 99% … there is a harsh reality. Let’s exclude the 99% that still have jobs and feel like everything is fine for them and they will never lose their job. They are delusional but there is little we can do to help them until they come to reality .. and most of them will.
So, for the people not doing fine …
What is happening has never happened before — technology has changed everything. If you tell somebody that they will say, well — what about the printing press, Industrial Revolution, Trains or typewriters — you get the idea. These were great advances for the time. In fact, you can go back and find quotes of how the world was going to end because of <fill in the blank>. Technology has always been scary to people — because change is scary, generally. But what happens, when the technology is a net reducer of jobs for people?
Today’s technology is unlike anything we have seen before. The reason is this. We now have technology that can replace people permanently. Before somebody mentions it — yes, people are needed to build the new technology. But here is the difference — not as many people as it displaces. Our current technology has pushed us over the top of the hill when a technology developer can replace lots more people than it takes to create it. The only reason as many people are employed today as they are is because the technology to displace them hasn’t yet been deployed — but it will be! This type of technology has never happened before. When we had railroads, it expanded labor needs. Most of the technologies in the past have done this. In fact, computers in the 1960s caused a huge expansion of labor for decades. But that has changed forever.
But, there is still plenty of work for people to do, using the new technology. But here is the second problem. Much of this work cannot be monetized. Thus, capitalism and the corporate world is just not interested. So, they stockpile their money as if the money was actually worth something long term. It is not only funny but about the only silver lining for the poor.
Meanwhile, the spiral keeps going down. As more and more people lose jobs, and demand dries up. It will ripple to the next batch of people who are not using, as technology eliminates even more.
The truth is in the long term we are all dead and if this problem ever gets resolved, this what I am talking about just got even worse. But America is going to be dead long before many of the people reading this are.
America is Doomed.
Admin: Just when I think you have become totally brainless, you never cease to amaze me. You wrote this post with more finesse than I could ever muster. I couldn’t agree with you more on any point that you made save one. DumbaKrapic Socialism will not only not save us, it will damn us to hell.
I agree with you that the clowns on the Repukikan debate stage are “ignunt” as to even identifying the problem, much less the solution. We are in a true quandry. A real pile of proverbial shit.
You can’t even imagine what my life has become, but I’m not a sheeple as you probably have discerned. I’m as “entepreneureal” as Steve Jobs, although I deal on a much lower level. I don’t employ technology. I disemploy it. When I go the store (rarely) I use the casheir line. I will never use the self checkout line. I know girls who work as cashiers. They make 10 bucks/hour, can’t pay their bills, have a “chile” or 2 at home, no hubby,no reliable boyfriend to help, and on and on. I want them to keep their jobs. Fuck the computer scanner.
If everybody did a little bit each day to “make their lives less convenient” then we could (at least temporarily) put the skids to this insanity. I live in a barter economy now. 3 years ago, I lived in a “paper” economy. The transition is incredible. The rich people who I worked for either aren’t rich or are too scared to act rich. I trade things all day. A wheelbarrow of wood for crab trapping rights on their docks. Or trapping nuisance racoons for the use of swimming pool. Or I keep up their pools for a promise that my family can stay at their mansions when they visit. I trap rabbits and supply raw Amish butter if they let me keep my shar in their freezers. And on and on. Everybody I deal with is honorable and trustworthy, as am I.
Something is going to happen. In fact it is happening right now. Scarry? You bet. I’m prepared, but the vast majority of sheeple aren’t. I’m slicer that motor oil at living on a wing and a prayer.
I agree with you that technology is dehumanizing and is destroying us, as we know us. I have no particular ideology. I simply beleive that those who can will do. We will revert to some kind of mercantile capitalism where people with skills will reemerge as the dominant class. Blacksmiths, silversmiths, tinkers, furniture makers,trappers, hunters, chair caners, mechanics, etc… will see their worth improve. I can drill wells illegally.I can provide food. I can supply heat. I can service anything made from old technology. I’m a machinist. I can make parts to equipment that should have been retired years ago. I am worth my weight in gold. I really do have sympathy and some empathy for those who got sucked into the “interdependant society”, because I have never depended on anybody other than myself.
Believe it or not, I have 3 years of firewood (petrified live oak that will never decay) stockpiled and have built a fantastic hot tub for under $200 dollars. Most idiots would have bought a jacuzzi for 4 thousand and made payments. Do I feel sorry for them. Never. Can everybody do what I do? Absolutely. Will they? Never. They will whine, cry, throw a shit tantrum, squeal like a stuck hog, beg,borrow and steal. Screw ‘em!!!
I agree that this time it is different. I have known this for over 20 years. I quit a lucrative job (suit and tie), sold everything, moved to the woods (where my life originated) and have had a great time for over 20 years. Do I have any money. I don’t know. I haven’t checked lately.
We are done. With that I can agree with you. What I say is don’t try to replace failure with uncertainty, or prior failure. Something is going to spew from this eruption. This is real and I truely believe that violenc, martial law, looting, civil war, succession will result. This will all happen far faster than the fluoridated zombies even understand. Our cities are tinder boxes. State like Knew Yok and Californicate will become funeral pyres. I’m glad that I’m not in either.
Make your final preparations. Look at Libya. You think that it can’t happen here but it will, shortly.
Smart sons a bitch Dr Les ! Like my home. Its in a old neighborhood. Schools are great, No cable T.V. bill for $150 per month, but this enables me to have a cabin North and property in between the cabin and home. I drive a Chevy, and my daughter WILL go to college. Hopefully by the time she is ready for university it will be worth it to get a fukin education. Right now it is useless too.
If I was single I would buy a house in the hood for $500 dollars and live like a homeless dude with tons of dough buried in the back 40 !
My buddy just paid cash for a house in a yuppie/queer neighborhood for $20,000 ! 150-200 yr old oaks in the yard, yuppie scum next door. Us dirtbags are gonna have a blast !
And Obama ! What gives ? Is he a flake or what ? This Ra-Tard thinks more NAFTA’s are gonna save the world ? WHAT !!! In the skilled trades all material comes from all over the world. Pipe=China, round ? no comes on the job looking like an egg !
Carbon steel Pipe fittings 2′ and up, Pakistan, Isreal, Mexico, Brazil, China, Usaually fail once installed in the pipe hangers ! So FTAA ( think of the europeon union) WTO (world trade organization), CAFTA…
Fuk put more folks out on the streets Obama. Like the Mexican 18 wheelers which are gonna be allowed to come into the US in a few days . The teamsters have been fighting this for years ! But unions suck right ?
Who is fighting ? I am. I have been to our capitol three times. I volunteer all the time. donate my blood. Tent cities are gonna be permenant tent-divisions. You watch. These folks got nothing but $28,000 to $70,000 in student loans ! This is why FREE education is key ! Capitalisim is greed ! Free college means students out of university have no burdans or debt ! this is why the stronger states in europe have a strong structure. The brilliant ones stay put. They do not leave. in my state they bail to chicago, new york, anywhere but here ! This country is sooo beyond wasted ! We are living in America’s Engineered Decline !
And then the good old days ! What ? when colored couldnt vote ? The KKK would hang a colored ? Burn down a church ? It is like this with the muslims now. And the new pro-abortion with marajuiana..This country is so warped I see why my friends are husslers. We pay with cash ! direct deposit ? pay your bills with auto deduction ? Nuts ! Buy a $ 20,000 home with CASH ! You know that filthy green shit you will kill your mother for ! Just to get high..And these squids stand in a fuin line for a phone ? WHAT ! A phone mind you ! I have no idea where I am anymore ! Soon enough Gun shops will have to sell ammo/rounds/bullets by the single. Wanna know why ? Well because ammo is sold by the box of 50, to 100, or maybe 25. But once there s no money left, folks will only beable to afford only one bullet you see. Not 25 or 50 or even 100. Sir , I just need one to fire into my skull to end this miserable life I have ! Make it count folks ! Future Shock is upon us from the greedy sluts (ourselves) that wanted it this way ! US !!!!
Ductile. You’re insights never cease to amaze me. Everything you said has hit the nail on the head. You and I think alot alike. I’m not as Union as you but it was the unions (or the threat of unionization)who brought us livable wages, a prosperous middle class, a great manufacturing base, and made the “made in the USA” the symbol of global quality. I have a friend who is a lawyer and used to be rich. He lost nearly everything. He’s like me, waiting on Socialist Insecurity.Both of us have 2 years to go. I haven’t billed him for a year because I know that he can’t pay me. I continue to do the upkeep because I know that someday he will, or at least he will do his best, maybe partial. We were always best friends. He always wanted to buy into my little pipe dream in Panama. He still might make it.
I love the idea of people like you and me moving into yuppie neighborhoods for a few thousand bucks. The neighborhood homeowner vigilantes would be out in force!!!! HeeeHeeeHeee.
Hey, the more you cut out, the more comfortable you become without debt, the easier it is to work less, and self sufficiency is it’s own reward. That is why you have the cabin up north and your daughter will get to go to the university, even if when she “grajeeates” she lives in a tent sub-division for a few years, or 20 or 30. You’re on track Ductile. Stay there. But dispense with the OJ on your wieght loss program. Trust me on that one. If you don’t trust me, trust Dr. Atkins. He wasn’t 100% correct but he was soooo on track for the limited info available in the early 70′s. He’s the father of the low carb lifestyle. It is not a diet. It is a way of life that protects you from degenerative disease. I wish he hadn’t slipped on that ice in NY and hit his head. He’s the guy who started the whole ball of wax rolling. We know more now, but we wouldn’t had he not gotten our attention.
Just as I was becoming interested in the comments here, they seemed to rapidly turn into crazy, senseless rants. What the hell are you people talking about?