Can The Economy Ever Be 'Good' While So Many Don't Have Walls?

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-14-2020, 08:35 PM)TheNomad Wrote:

(03-13-2020, 05:02 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-12-2020, 07:38 AM)beechnut79 Wrote: That song, (Gentle on my Mind), although not really thought of that way, was popular smack-dab in the middle of the hippie era when free-spiritism was very much in vogue. Sometimes I think we could usu a little more of that today. Am now in my 70s and still would like as little responsibility as possible. Depressed that most of the bills never seem to go away. Probably won’t be able to retire until death, even though I never had substance abuse issues.

Yes, it was more the norm to be a free spirit during the last awakening.  It went with the times.  When you were young, a member of a band (such as those who wrote the song) and had not yet put down roots, it was easier.  Boomers have sunk roots since, generally.  I sympathize with the seeming ugliness of some of those roots.  Persistent buggers, no?

Should I chime in here, "free spirit" means to a child "unknown chaos / danger".  I am so glad and thankful to the gods for Strauss and Howe's concepts, it helped me understand WHY I felt so alienated and under-protected as a child.

It's also enlightening how Prophets had the world to claim for themselves.  A healthy infrastructure, parents who adored them, every material thing they could want (NEED was a given, WANT is the operative word).

^^ this is a generality.  But it works.

Then, when they were finished shitting on everything I just mentioned, decided to "put down roots" as you say, and then here we are in 2020 - living in essentially their world - and things have been falling down through my entire adult life, no one can agree on how to move forward on anything, and America wonders if we can even survive until Summer.

It was all about them.  Their visions.  Their ideology.  It still is.  I recognize America needed them to overthrow a stale culture.  I can't say The Doors shouldn't exist.  But their use is over.  Please just die already.  Self-impose that you will no longer vote or involve in politics if you can't do the latter.  Admit and recognize YOU are the problem right now.  Whether you call yourself a color or a side or a movement.

You are not here to change culture.  Your time for that is over.  Now, we need inner change you cannot provide.

please opt out

Hmm.  Let me see.  The people who made America great are the villains, and the folks that ruined it heroes?  Is there something a bit off here?

From my perspective, there was a progressive era from FDR to LBJ.  There was a conservative era from Nixon through at least Trump.  

The New Deal through The Great Society is another way to speak of the progressive era.  Tax and spend liberalism is a somewhat derogatory if descriptive phrase.  One feature was problem solving.  Whetner it was repetitive depressions, fascism, communism, racism, sexism, the environment or a moon that needed flying to, lots of money was thrown at the problem.

Then there was a conservative era.  America could no longer solve every problem.  There was the fall of Saigon, Watergate, the oil crisis, the hostage crisis and the hostage crisis.  There was small government, voodoo economics and an the resultant willingness not to look at problems.  Jobs were sent abroad.  The division of wealth soared.  College debt rose.  It became hard to get a good job.  Attacks were made on functions which steered the wealth towards working people, such as labor unions and benefits.  Some were unwilling or unable to save for retirement.  There was a common wisdom that you could not let either party take things far, that you had to put the other party in, that I have called the see saw.

From my perspective, the problem is not boomers vs everyone else.  It is red against blue.  The period when the blue were in charge, America was great.  When the conservative era came, it was not.  The progressives had their act together.  The conservatives had their act together too, if you were upset by change, a racist, or an elite.  If one can stretch your mind it is possible to see why America changed, reasons why we asked not what we could do for our country, but what the country could do for us.  You can only strive for greatness so long.  Then you need a break.

But the break can’t last forever.  The time is coming, is perhaps already here, that we have to see clearly and work hard for a cause larger than one's self.

I can say that by the benefit of the time of our birth, we benefited from the last of the progressive years.  Younger generations have suffered more from red policies.

But I can also see an accident of boomers being two groups, blue boomers and red boomers.  They vary much by time and more by philosophy and politics.  They are very much different.  Some lazy individuals cannot seem to tell the difference, but the blue identify with and promote the progressive era, while the red attempt to justify and glorify the conservative era.  The two groups are different enough that the really shouldn’t be lumped together, or given praise or blame for the other group’s thinking.  Some lazy or blind people make that mistake.

These lazy or blind people should please opt out.