It's a recovery only if you're rich

[ElCubano]

Quote from Maverick74:

My Favorite movie Nitro.

Here's a thought. What if the world is just the sum total of all our individual qualities. I've always said this and continue to believe that if everyone focused more on making themselves better that the world around them would change. Think about it. We live in a world where everyone is more focused on everything BUT themselves. We read tabloid magazines, watch reality TV shows, yell at the politicians, celebrities, our neighbors, our relatives. We always talk about the "other" guys problems. Never our own.

What if we looked inward. What if each and every one of us just focused on improving ourselves instead of trying to improve other people. Instead of forcing change on to others, we forced change to ourselves. Nitro, I think when most people look in the mirror, they are so disgusted with what they see, that they project their anger and dismay at the world around them saying the world needs to change, not themselves. Just a thought.

fantastic post to those who live in industrialized nations and are higher up on maslow's chain..others wake, sleep and shit survival, where there is no room or thought of anything else...

 

[nitro]

Quote from Maverick74:

My Favorite movie Nitro.

Here's a thought. What if the world is just the sum total of all our individual qualities. I've always said this and continue to believe that if everyone focused more on making themselves better that the world around them would change. Think about it. We live in a world where everyone is more focused on everything BUT themselves. We read tabloid magazines, watch reality TV shows, yell at the politicians, celebrities, our neighbors, our relatives. We always talk about the "other" guys problems. Never our own.

What if we looked inward. What if each and every one of us just focused on improving ourselves instead of trying to improve other people. Instead of forcing change on to others, we forced change to ourselves. Nitro, I think when most people look in the mirror, they are so disgusted with what they see, that they project their anger and dismay at the world around them saying the world needs to change, not themselves. Just a thought.

For sure that is true, and we collectively reflect far too little. Plenty of outstanding books to read to guide us this way, but you can only take a horse to water, you can't make him drink. "The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates.

But no matter how much the people during the French Revolution looked in the mirror, no matter how much Jews in Nazi Germany looked at themselves in the mirror, no matter how the Masada Jews looked at themselves in the mirror, there are inequities that are so oppressive that no amount of reflection will get you out of the hole. The problem is that the enemy in these situations was so easy to identity. The enemy today is an abstraction, THE MARKET!!!!! That is what Al-Queida doesn't get, flying planes into building with innocent people doesn't do anything but kill innocent people, who serve the same master!! Reminds me of a quote from "Crimson Tide". See the end of this post. In a world economy with no moral center, the market itself is the enemy.

You know, there are millions of people that are simply giving up looking for work, just in the US! (probably hundreds of millions world wide!!!). Many of these people will spiral into mental illness, many of them into organized crime, many will join terrorist groups like Al-Queida, many will simply commit suicide. Will you look these people in the face and tell them to look in the mirror?

Capt. Ramsey: You do qualify your remarks. If someone asked me if we should bomb Japan, a simple "Yes. By all means sir, drop that fucker, twice!" I don't mean to suggest that you're indecisive, Mr. Hunter. Not at all. Just, uh... complicated. 'course, that's the way the Navy wants you. Me, they wanted simple.
Hunter: Well, you certainly fooled them, sir.
Capt. Ramsey: [chuckles] Be careful there, Mr. Hunter. It's all I've got to rely on, being a simple-minded son of a bitch. Rickover gave me my command, a checklist, a target and a button to push. All I gotta know is how to push it, they tell me when. They seem to want you to know why.
Hunter: I would hope they'd want us all to know why, sir.
...
Capt. Ramsey: At the Naval War College it was metallurgy and nuclear reactors, not 19th-century philosophy. "War is a continuation of politics by other means." Von Clausewitz.
Hunter: I think, sir, that what he was actually trying to say was a little more -
Capt. Ramsey: Complicated?
[Men laughing]
Hunter: Yes the purpose of war is to serve a political end but the true nature of war is to serve itself.
Capt. Ramsey: [Laughing] I'm very impressed. In other words, the sailor most likely to win the war is the one most willing to part company with the politicians and ignore everything except the destruction of the enemy. You'd agree with that.
Hunter: I'd agree that, um, that's what Clausewitz was trying to say.
Capt. Ramsey: But you wouldn't agree with it?
Hunter: No, sir, I do not. No, I just think that in the nuclear world the true enemy can't be destroyed.
Capt. Ramsey: [Chuckling, tapping glass] Attention on deck. Von Clausewitz will now tell us exactly who the real enemy is.
[Laughing]
Capt. Ramsey: Von?
[Men laughing]
Hunter: In my humble opinion, in the nuclear world, the true enemy is war itself.

 

[nitro]

Quote from ElCubano:

..others wake, sleep and shit survival, where there is no room or thought of anything else...

Exactly.

 

[nitro]

I strongly recommend this book:

Twenty-Three Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8913542-twenty-three-things-they-don-t-tell-you-about-capitalism

Morpheus: ... It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from nitro:

For sure that is true, and we collectively reflect far too little. Plenty of outstanding books to read to guide us this way, but you can only take a horse to water, you can't make him drink. "The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates.

But no matter how much the people during the French Revolution looked in the mirror, no matter how much Jews in Nazi Germany looked at themselves in the mirror, no matter how the Masada Jews looked at themselves in the mirror, there are inequities that are so oppressive that no amount of reflection will get you out of the hole. The problem is that the enemy in these situations was so easy to identity. The enemy today is an abstraction, THE MARKET!!!!! That is what Al-Queida doesn't get, flying planes into building with innocent people doesn't do anything but kill innocent people, who serve the same master!! Reminds me of a quote from "Crimson Tide". See the end of this post. In a world economy with no moral center, the market itself is the enemy.

You know, there are millions of people that are simply giving up looking for work, just in the US! (probably hundreds of millions world wide!!!). Many of these people will spiral into mental illness, many of them into organized crime, many will join terrorist groups like Al-Queida, many will simply commit suicide. Will you look these people in the face and tell them to look in the mirror?

Nitro, I've seen the movie "Crimson Tide" a million times and yes, I'm aware of the quotes from the movie. Here is where I'm going to disagree with you. There are people today that live in complete and utter happiness in Tibet with no material possessions or desires. You keep talking about all these people who are suffering (your yourself perhaps) without ever thinking about the true source of their unhappiness. This hyperbole about what will happen to all those that can't find work is just that, hyperbole. I suggest you put down the anti-capitalism books and start reading about the depression. There were bread lines in this country Nitro...Bread lines!!!! Alright it was bad. It was really bad. Much worse then now. And we got through it. We got through it because as individuals we changed. Instead of the excess and greed of the 1920's, people actually started saving money. They didn't buy stuff. They didn't try to impress their neighbors. And you know what else they didn't do? Trade!!!!! That's right, they weren't chasing a dream of making millions by looking for a holy grail in the market place. That's not a shot at you, that's a shot at our society that seems to be more interested in the quick buck then actually building something. Whether it's flipping real estate, marrying for money, suing someone for all their worth or just stealing it from unsuspecting investors.

The pain we are going through now is absolutely critical for us to survive as a species. We cannot, we absolutely will not survive without this pain. Your examples of the Nazi's and other dictators are a bad example. If I come over to your house and kill you, there really is nothing society as a whole or you as an individual can do about that. I'm talking about the broader economic landscape that we all shape and form.

I'll say this again, the way out of this mess is to look inward, not outward. Fix yourself first. Then help those around you. It's the exact reason why on a plane the flight attendant tells you, in case of an emergency, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then on your child. Because if you can't breathe, you won't be able to help your child. The same rule applies to society. You are asking for these broad economic disparities to be fixed yet you don't want people to fix these problems in their own life. Nitro, for the love of God man, where do you think these "broad" problems come from? They don't come from outer space, they come from each of us as individuals.

Do you know who the Yanomamo tribe is Nitro? They are one of the last surviving tribes of people who live in the Amazon rain forest that have virtually no contact with the outside world. Only in the last half century have a few people made contact with them. They have no electricity and live off the land. They are a very happy and content people. No doubt they have no free health care, no public school system. I don't think you will any traders in the bunch. In your eyes, you would see them as having nothing. In their eyes, they have everything. And what's more important...they are happy.

 

[Butterball]

Read this book if you believe material gains and money make us happy: "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse"

http://www.amazon.com/Progress-Para...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1299364328&sr=1-1

Ordinary middle-class Americans have often tried to assuage their jealousy of the rich by repeating the axiom "money can't buy happiness" to themselves. But according to New Republic senior editor Gregg Easterbrook, "the rich" are, in fact, those same ordinary middle-class Americans and no, they're not happy at all. Wages have soared over the past fifty years and regular citizens own large homes, new cars, and luxuries aplenty. Better still, the environment, with a few exceptions, is getting cleaner, crime is on the decline, and diseases are being wiped out as life span increases. So why do people report a sense that things are getting steadily worse and that catastrophe is imminent? Easterbrook presents a few psychological rationales, including "choice anxiety," where the vastness of society's options is a burden, and "abundance denial," where people somehow manage to convince themselves that they are deprived of material comforts. The sooner we accept how good we have it, the better off the whole world will be.

 

[nitro]

Quote from Maverick74:

Nitro, I've seen the movie "Crimson Tide" a million times and yes, I'm aware of the quotes from the movie.

The Crimson Tide quote was meant as an analogy, that in a global economy, the "true enemy cannot be defeated" (to paraphrase CT), i.e., "Free Market Capitalism" (FMC).

Here is where I'm going to disagree with you. There are people today that live in complete and utter happiness in Tibet with no material possessions or desires.

People in Tibet etc don't have to pay rent that is 60% or more of their "paycheck", don't have to drive to work and pay $4 a gallon to get there, don't have to work four jobs so that their children go hungry, and the list is endless. Their problems may be titanic as well, but what does that have to do with FMC? Examples like these always leave me exasperated. If I wanted to live like people in Tibet, I would move there! Also, if FMC has its way, Tibetians will not be allowed to live this way for much longer, they will be assimilated soon as FMC is a virus!

You keep talking about all these people who are suffering (your yourself perhaps) without ever thinking about the true source of their unhappiness.

Well, I don't know anyone that thinks about these things more than I do and if somehow that comes across differently on these boards, then I have no idea which of my almost 16,000 posts caused your confusion. Again I am exasperated at your line of reasoning because your responses show you don't understand the problem. It isn't my "happiness" that is at stake on first approximation, it is a runaway system that dehumanizes people in the work place, and worse, has no moral center, and that is when you are one of the lucky ones and have a job!. This is the desease, the symptoms of which have been discussed in countless numbers of threads on ET over the years.

This hyperbole about what will happen to all those that can't find work is just that, hyperbole.

What? Dude, seriously, it isn't I who says these things. I am getting really exasperated now, because I have no idea what hole you live under to say this stuff. Here, I don't want to do the work for you:

http://www.shadowstats.com/

I suggest you put down the anti-capitalism books and start reading about the depression.

I have misrepresented myself. I have nothing against Capitalism per se, only FMC.

There were bread lines in this country Nitro...Bread lines!!!! Alright it was bad. It was really bad. Much worse then now. And we got through it.

It was horrendous by any measure.

We got through it because as individuals we changed. Instead of the excess and greed of the 1920's, people actually started saving money. They didn't buy stuff. They didn't try to impress their neighbors. And you know what else they didn't do? Trade!!!!! That's right, they weren't chasing a dream of making millions by looking for a holy grail in the market place. That's not a shot at you, that's a shot at our society that seems to be more interested in the quick buck then actually building something. Whether it's flipping real estate, marrying for money, suing someone for all their worth or just stealing it from unsuspecting investors.

Well, that people want to trade instead of going to work should tell you something. To you it seems to say that people are lazy. To me it says that the consciousness of our species is evolving, and that this endless work only to exist, compounded with such inequities where rules apply to one set of people and not another, is no longer acceptable. If instead of blaming people that are complaining, we listened to them, we might all proceed forward.

The pain we are going through now is absolutely critical for us to survive as a species. We cannot, we absolutely will not survive without this pain. Your examples of the Nazi's and other dictators are a bad example. If I come over to your house and kill you, there really is nothing society as a whole or you as an individual can do about that. I'm talking about the broader economic landscape that we all shape and form.

What pain are you going through? You have a job. The examples with the Nazis is almost as good as your examples of Tibetans.

I'll say this again, the way out of this mess is to look inward, not outward. Fix yourself first. Then help those around you. It's the exact reason why on a plane the flight attendant tells you, in case of an emergency, put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then on your child. Because if you can't breathe, you won't be able to help your child. The same rule applies to society. You are asking for these broad economic disparities to be fixed yet you don't want people to fix these problems in their own life. Nitro, for the love of God man, where do you think these "broad" problems come from? They don't come from outer space, they come from each of us as individuals.

I am now completely exasperated. You don't understand. It may be my fault. The problem as I see it is a duality that feeds on itself between the system itself and people. But you are trivializing the "chicken and egg problem" of which causes which, and that in fact it must be people that are the problem and the root cause. A system attains a life of it's own once it is set in motion, and the whole point of this thread is that FMC, a faceless enemy, is at the root of all this evil! Economics is not an ethical system. It only tells you what the most efficient way to allocate resources is. Without a moral center, which it has become in the system of FMC, it becomes a mortal enemy of all freedom loving people.

Do you know who the Yanomamo tribe is Nitro? They are one of the last surviving tribes of people who live in the Amazon rain forest that have virtually no contact with the outside world. Only in the last half century have a few people made contact with them. They have no electricity and live off the land. They are a very happy and content people. No doubt they have no free health care, no public school system. I don't think you will any traders in the bunch. In your eyes, you would see them as having nothing. In their eyes, they have everything. And what's more important...they are happy.

Many systems are emergent. If we want to discuss the economics of the Yanomamo, then maybe we could learn something. But I live in a world that is controlled more and more by FMC. If FMC has it's way, the Yanomamo will be assimilated soon too anyway because their way of life, through the glasses of FMC, is not efficient and we are not extracting maximum value from their life. Maybe you will stop and read, listen, and get the message of this thread. Maybe not.

Read the book I suggested on the previous page, it may broaden your perspective and understanding of current issues that are being lived by tens of millions of people.

 

[ElCubano]

Quote from Maverick74:

Do you know who the Yanomamo tribe is Nitro? They are one of the last surviving tribes of people who live in the Amazon rain forest that have virtually no contact with the outside world. Only in the last half century have a few people made contact with them. They have no electricity and live off the land. They are a very happy and content people. No doubt they have no free health care, no public school system. I don't think you will any traders in the bunch. In your eyes, you would see them as having nothing. In their eyes, they have everything. And what's more important...they are happy.

They are actually a very vicious tribe. Who's kill rate is something like 40% of all males under 30....I didn't fisnish watching the HBO documentary.

 

[ElCubano]

Quote from nitro:

Read the book I suggested on the previous page, it may broaden your perspective and understanding of current issues that are being lived by tens of millions of people.

like you pointed out...many of these people don't have the time to dream about being a tibetan monk or about how happy it is too spend precious moments with their family...they are just in one gear and that is SURVIVAL.

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from ElCubano:

They are actually a very vicious tribe. Who's kill rate is something like 40% of all males under 30....I didn't fisnish watching the HBO documentary.

Violent yes, primarily due to the fact that competition for mating is fierce. That violence is not a product of economic issues though.