Where the Boomers Led Us, Or Our Worse Presidency to Date

[pbrower2a]

(07-27-2022, 03:24 AM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(07-27-2022, 01:26 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: We have conventionally understood that  enough prosperity solves all problems. I'm not sold on conspicuous consumption, and such as we have implies resource depletion that will ultimately impoverish us and waste heat that could make our planet far less habitable than it is now.

I'll raise you one: most people should spend some time in their life being poor. Understanding the concept of scarcity of a visceral level is the beginning of understanding problem solving, restraint and patience. There are few things which will teach you more about competition, and, conversely, few things that will teach you more about cooperation. People should be encouraged to pursue greater prosperity over time, but prosperity in the hands of those with underdeveloped character and understanding brings nothing but ruin.

I had my first real experience with poverty only when I was in my sixties with the realization that getting out of poverty (house-rich, but poor in liquid assets and desirability in the work force except at jobs that keep one poor. I sought a "nights and weekends" job in a dollar store as a possibility of making a little money while seeking real pay for my efforts. The store saw through that. 

At some point one must learn that one cannot afford to waste money. One must budget anything significant. Maybe one decides to brown-bad lunch to work so that one has more money to put into the down-payment for a house. Maybe one must defer spme expensive trips as vacations. If you live in Greater Chicago you can go to the Lake Michigan shoreline instead of the California coastline or visit some amusement park far closer (and less expensive) than one of the two main Disney parks. (Those used to be reasonable; they aren't anymore). You must save for purchases such as electronic equipment instead of putting them on the never-never, and you should consider buying used stuff to getting the schlock at rent-to-own rip-off emporia. 

The people who rule us believe that their power, indulgence, and the gain are mandatory objectives for everyone else, and that mass suffering by the common man on behalf of those objectives is mandatory. In essence, he who owns the gold makes the rules, and because we have the privilege in sharing the same country with them and they own the assets we owe them everything. The nastier the elite (and this applies to fascists and commies as well, with the military-criminal syndicate in what Mike Flynn calls "Minnamar" as one of the worst), the less tolerant they are of any education that promotes critical thinking. To be sure I can't say enough hostile stuff about Donald Trump, but he is exactly what the super-rich become when they go from founding businesses that need good relationships with customers to seeing people as captive customers.  In a pathological capitalist society, life becomes a bidding war for the essentials in which those shut out starve. We aren't there yet, but we could go that way. 

Quote:While we're at it, we need to chill with all this Kenynesian, broken window fallacy nonsense that just incentivizes "growth" (read: frivolous spending) for its own sake. Few things are better at promoting inflation, erosion of personal savings, responsible financial behavior (both government and private) and the rise of bureaucracies who become insulated from the consequences of their decisions. If anything, I'd argue this is one of the major causes of the current 4th Turning.

I don't know what Keynesianism has to do with any "broken window" stuff. Obviously, frivolous spending at the personal level does not create individual prosperity and well-being. I have always refused to be ripped off even when the promise in return was bliss.  We may be better off when bloated, bureaucratized entities in business die. Do you really miss A&P? Montgomery-Ward? K-Mart? Sears? Borders? That's only retailing, but that was suspect. Bureaucratic bloat is one way to encourage groupthink that institutionalizes incompetence while creating nothing in return.  

I have a cynical view of bureaucracy as a means of kicking people upstairs who are more likely to quit, especially for a competitor, or even be fired and start reading the works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao for solutions to the pathology of capitalism. Put such people in a bureaucracy (which could be civil service) in which they can buy a house on a thirty-year mortgage, a new mid-sized car every five years, and perhaps be well-off enough to send their kids to college instead of suggesting to them that such a trade as meat-cutting is a good course in life, and one might fend off a proletarian revolution. 

It may be that we need more competitive capitalism and not less to fend off either a right-wing or left-wing tyranny. Every society has its wannabe Hitlers and Mao Zedongs.