Dirt Racer
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2012
- Messages
- 1,747
- Reaction score
- 938
- Location
- Illinois
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Conservative
When I was a kid in the 50s everyone except movie stars and Randolph Hearst lived in modest homes, drove modest cars and took modest vacations. Mom and dad loaded all 4 of us kids in the station wagon with the 16 ft Terry behind us and we went camping. Now you see people in 200K motor homes "camping". Houses are now huge and having a maid to clean it and a gardener to mow the lawn is common. Kids wear $200.00 tennis shoes, I wore PF Fliers. I could go on and on and give example after example but I think you get the point. IMO opinion Americans have become greedy, spoiled,voracious, rapacious consumers and I get sick of hearing people whine about not having enough. We have developed an entitlement mentality, "I am an American and I deserve to have everything I want". Makes me sick.
I grew up on a cotton farm in the 50's. It wasn't until I was in 7th-8th grade that we went to machinery cotton pickers. During the years we had our cotton picked by hand it was done mostly by blacks and hispanics and only a few whites. Biggest reason was even back then the best worker was the blacks and hispanics.
I gotta say I do see a lot of spoiled people who believe because someone else has something they are owed it too. I am going in the opposite direction. I want away from all this technology rat race. We are 3 months from being completely debt free. I plan to stay that way. House is getting sold to buy a place in the woods.
That's what I have done. I live a pretty minimalist lifestyle out in the woods and have never been happier.
That's what I have done. I live a pretty minimalist lifestyle out in the woods and have never been happier.
That's what I have done. I live a pretty minimalist lifestyle out in the woods and have never been happier.
Big money and politicians is a result of being blinded by emotion (selfishness) and coalescing forces. And as Alexander Hamilton famously said, "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end ." Nobody wants to compromise to make things work for everyone and that is the real problem.
I could be a wild-haired ascetic in the wilderness, and be perfectly content. :lol:
So it would all just be better if people weren't making money, right?
Nobody wants to put their name on a spending cut or a tax increase. Every dime (Obama word) of federal spending has either a voting block or a special interest lobbyist that will make a fuss if it is cut (or a tax benefit is taken away from them). Cut social spending (income redistribution) and votes are lost, cut pork and votes are lost or cut "corporate subsidies" (tax breaks and "research" grants) and campaign cash (leading to votes) is lost.
Obama (as a compromise?) made token increases in taxation of "the rich" (which was actually a decrease in taxation for 98.6% of taxpayers - which would have occured with no change in the law, at all, by allowing the "Bush" rates to expire) but that brought in only $60 billion in added annual federal revenue, which was immediately used for added federal spending in the first month of 2013, $30 billion for UI benefit extensions and $60 billion for Sandy storm relief - for a net federal deficit increase of $30 billion in only one month.
That really isn't the problem. People have been making money since money was first coined, and bartered before that. What has happened in this country is that because of our monetary success collectively, and the subsequent easing of lifestyles, people have become bored and life has become meaningless in many cases. This has fed into a sort of collective obsessiveness, and we're becoming shallow, bored, idiots with nothing more important in our lives than electronic gadgets and entertainment. It's not everyone who has become this way, but it is a problem in society. We have become so intellectually and physically lazy, that it's taking its toll. We're excessive with many aspects of our lives. I can outwork men who are half my age, and it's because hard work is ingrained in me mentally and physically. Last week, I dug 15 fence post holes (with a post hole digger), put in 4x4 cedar posts, and mixed and poured the concrete for them myself. I don't know many people (anymore) who would have a clue how to do that, or who would be willing to exert themselves enough to do the job.
It's been a change in our national psyche, and for all the money and convenience, there's also a downside.
You know what scares me is that I think Obama really believes he's doing the best that can be done. But I see the fundamental flaw in both parties like you do that they're pandering to special interests. I often wonder do they really know how to fix everything and just don't want to or are they that jaded by the process?
Well, I'm afraid either way there's going to be another moment of crisis because they never did fix the Credit Bubble collapse and have only been delaying the real hard moves. :shock:
Obama is doing some really "undrecedented" things - taking campaigning (his real specialty) to a whole new level.
OFA 2.0: Obama for America converts into nonprofit group
http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981853592
Obama unveils 'Organizing for Action' - Glenn Thrush and Reid J. Epstein and Byron Tau - POLITICO.com
He and his wife remind a little of the Clinton's with the control, sleazy tactics and power mongering but it goes with the job to some degree. Bush and Cheney were no saints. I think he actually cares about the little guy and thinks he's being fair in some bizzaro way but of course justifying too many dirty deeds because it's successful isn't always righteous.
Well, you know what *they* say.... the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Sadly the attitude described is not an American attitude, but a human one. I was born in Canada but raised in the Great State of Georgia. I have family from Ireland, England, Austria, Denmark, and Italy, and what I have found is that the expectation of everything to be handed to them is not given based on where they are from. I have met many hard working Americans who want nothing handed to them. I have met Europeans, Africans, and Asians who think the same away. I have also met bratty American rat dicks...they also come in a Canadian and British flavor.
Overall and culturally speaking, I do not think that Americans as a whole are greedier than another group of people. I will say this however. Unlike other culture, we seem to be PROUD of the ones that are. We give them television shows and glamorize them. Now that makes me sick.
When I was a kid in the 50s everyone except movie stars and Randolph Hearst lived in modest homes, drove modest cars and took modest vacations. Mom and dad loaded all 4 of us kids in the station wagon with the 16 ft Terry behind us and we went camping. Now you see people in 200K motor homes "camping". Houses are now huge and having a maid to clean it and a gardener to mow the lawn is common. Kids wear $200.00 tennis shoes, I wore PF Fliers. I could go on and on and give example after example but I think you get the point. IMO opinion Americans have become greedy, spoiled,voracious, rapacious consumers and I get sick of hearing people whine about not having enough. We have developed an entitlement mentality, "I am an American and I deserve to have everything I want". Makes me sick.
When I was a kid in the 50s everyone except movie stars and Randolph Hearst lived in modest homes, drove modest cars and took modest vacations. Mom and dad loaded all 4 of us kids in the station wagon with the 16 ft Terry behind us and we went camping. Now you see people in 200K motor homes "camping". Houses are now huge and having a maid to clean it and a gardener to mow the lawn is common. Kids wear $200.00 tennis shoes, I wore PF Fliers. I could go on and on and give example after example but I think you get the point. IMO opinion Americans have become greedy, spoiled,voracious, rapacious consumers and I get sick of hearing people whine about not having enough. We have developed an entitlement mentality, "I am an American and I deserve to have everything I want". Makes me sick.
Farmers have been trying to recruit from inner city areas that have high unemployment and welfare, they are desperate for workers and Amaricans refuse the jobs.
"Just raise the wage, you say, and an American would take the job? Not necessarily, and very unlikely if it's a farm job. Farmers have been trying that — for decades. They raise the wage. They recruit in inner cities. They offer housing and transport and countless other benefits. Still, no one shows — or stays on the job, which is outdoors and grueling and must get done, no matter how hot or cold or otherwise unpleasant the weatherare with little or no luck."
Without Immigrant Labor, the Economy Would Crumble - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com
"Peach farms in the Marysville region -- in particular, the peach farm of one Dalvir Gill -- are covered in rotting fruit, according to a report last Friday from Fox40 News. It seems there aren't enough workers to harvest the crops -- even though unemployment in the region is between 16 and 18 percent, more than twice the national rate."
Marysville, California Farms Are Desperate For Workers, Despite High Unemployment
Part of it is inflation. Part of it is the rampant consumerism that started exactly from those 50's kids when they started making lots of money in the 70's and 80's. That's where the idea that greed is good came from. That's where Wall Street became more important than Main Street. That's where the idea that "he who dies with the most toys wins" came from.
Kids right now are not nearly as bad as you think, and the ones that are... they're merely emulating their parents.
When I was a kid in the 50s everyone except movie stars and Randolph Hearst lived in modest homes, drove modest cars and took modest vacations. Mom and dad loaded all 4 of us kids in the station wagon with the 16 ft Terry behind us and we went camping. Now you see people in 200K motor homes "camping". Houses are now huge and having a maid to clean it and a gardener to mow the lawn is common. Kids wear $200.00 tennis shoes, I wore PF Fliers. I could go on and on and give example after example but I think you get the point. IMO opinion Americans have become greedy, spoiled,voracious, rapacious consumers and I get sick of hearing people whine about not having enough. We have developed an entitlement mentality, "I am an American and I deserve to have everything I want". Makes me sick.
And yet there are still millions of americans that work on farms.
I get what you are saying, but I have a14 year old, we don't have a luxurious Terry trailer, we use a 70 dollar tent.
When I was a kid in the 50s everyone except movie stars and Randolph Hearst lived in modest homes, drove modest cars and took modest vacations. Mom and dad loaded all 4 of us kids in the station wagon with the 16 ft Terry behind us and we went camping. Now you see people in 200K motor homes "camping". Houses are now huge and having a maid to clean it and a gardener to mow the lawn is common. Kids wear $200.00 tennis shoes, I wore PF Fliers. I could go on and on and give example after example but I think you get the point. IMO opinion Americans have become greedy, spoiled,voracious, rapacious consumers and I get sick of hearing people whine about not having enough. We have developed an entitlement mentality, "I am an American and I deserve to have everything I want". Makes me sick.
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