You forgot to mention that France lost 10 soldiers in Afganistan and blamed the Americans saying tha they shot them and not AlKaeda. What a bunch of traitors the USA has as allies there! What a circus, the head of Afganistan blames the USA, France blames the USA, everyone is against the USA there, THEN WHY ON EARTH DOESN’T THE USA GIVE THEM ALL THE FINGER AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT SHIT HOLE???
The truth is that these wars are all failures because our western culture has nothing to do with them, they should be allowed to manage their country as they please, Russia couldn’t win there so how on earth does the USA think it can win there ? Alkaeda and Taliban stretch from Algeria to Pakistan, each warlord has a different variant of some muslim fundamentalism, we will never be able to win them, they are a completely different world and culture.
If Osama - biden or is it Osama bin laden wins, they will self destroy the USA into oblivion by nuking all the USA out of existence. Russia then can nuke UK, FRANCE, PAKISTAN, CHINA and INDIA real fast and then dominate this crappy world. As for me I am going to Brazil, nice beaches and relax while the northern hemisphere self destructs.
It is only a personal attack if it is neither true (colloquial definition) nor relevant (formal definition). In this case it is both and as such perfectly fitting to the discussion. See you in November.
Financial education ? In most countries of the world it is simply common sense, if you don’t have the money to buy something you don’t buy it or you save until you have the money. In the USA you got oddball swindlers that will try to rip you off in all manners possible and then after try to sell you even a financial education package, and indeed rip you off some more money after ( in an endless cycle ?).
It is based on bubbles, on instabilities, on problems generating new problems that will then create new markets that will create new bubbles and other new problems in an endless cycle. It is a giant poker game, the most dynamic society ever exactly because constant change is the name of the game, a new hand of cards is offered to you in each round, you can become rich or lose everything in the next round (like get laid off ?) and then try again and again, like Las Vegas, but the rest of the world is “boring”.
If there are too few problems, go out and create them like Bush did by invading Irak, create new trends like the dot com boom and bust. This will go on forever there will be bigger and bigger bubbles, larger inequalities, fewer winners that take it all and a bunch of dreaming losers that will try once again to play a new hand of that gigantic poker game called Amerika.
Russia attacked first this time, after all in the last 4 wars it was always the USA that attacked from Kwait, then Serbia, then Afganistan and then Irak. This time Russia decided to play the game first, they are justified, they also very cleverly avoided an attack on Iran, they are very clever at this game. As it stands now the USA and Israel can’t attack Iran without Russia going into full mode and getting back all their lost territories, they are indeed clever.
The article states that teaching the kids financials while they are young will avoid them problems in the future. And you don’t think all the PHDs working in the stock markets and banks and corporations of America won’t devise new “financial products” that will be completely impossible to understand when the kids are grown up ? Like the 100 page ARMs that I read about (is this true ? I am not even sure, 100 pages to explain ARMs, tell me if this is true).
And then the USA is based on keeping its population as uninformed and ignorant as possible or forcing them to become ignorant by inventing “new technologies” that they must “learn” in order to “compete”. Many clever people from outside the USA know this and can easily find ways to rip off the americans. Why are unions not allowed in american corporations ? To rip off the workers, but if you say this you are a communist, so the brainwashing against any social ideas has been extremely efficient. Watch out for the new “health care” bubble, nightmare and disaster, watch out for the new “retiring” bubble.
The system worked well in the last 50 years, because there were alot of new technologies to invent and apply, there were alot of new markets and products, an ever increasing and changing amount of products and subproducts to sell at all the malls and walmarts. Now that these are running out, the game will become increasingly “psychological”, creating invented needs, states of mind that force you to act in a certain way, to exchange certain goods, to interact, as the number of interactions determines the economy.
The enitre concept of “profit” is an invention, means getting something for nothing, with technology and cheap oil this was possible, with cheap labor this was possible, now the only way to keep on making “profits” is to fool people in ever more subtle and psychological ways, to program them to buy crap, to work for free, to control them in ever more sophisticated ways, like the “health care” boogyman, instill fear in people, tell them they have to invest in the stock market as to not lose their money against “inflation” another boogyman.
Truth is, you are not allowed to live a simple life, you must be brain racked with all worries on education costs, “college” costs (and all this education and people don’t know how to only pay for things they can afford ?)
It reminds me of ancient tribes who are in a simple equilibrium and all of a sudden when the white man comes they become defined as “poor” and primitive, and they become the way they are socially defined.
In all truth they were rich, if not very rich compared to the modern slaves of Amerika. But then again all of history of humanity is just a variation of all of the above, there will always be new instabilities, new problems, new solutions, new markets and new losers and fools who believe in all the crap.
NOTE: All of the above is completely false in case anyone didn’t notice.
If Obama wins he will reinforce the American Capitalist Ideology greatly. It will be another show off of how anyone can become president, anyone can go from rags to riches, from no power to full power. This is totally false, an ideological trap of America that promises impossible dreams to millions of people; only a few thousand will reach success by their mostly LUCK and then some skills and lastly “HARD WORK”, wherein in America today (and most of the west) hard work really means constant relations and ties with people who have greater power trying to “sell yourself”. Otherwise hard work would really pay BRICK LAYERS AND FACTORY WORKERS 10 TIMES WHAT THEY MAKE TODAY, BEING THAT THAT IS REALLY THE ONLY real hard work, physical work THAT TRULY EXISTS.
This idea of showing “what you are worth” is an inherently violent idea, I am worth more than you therefore you deserve to be punished and I deserve to have it all. I “worked hard”, I am better, I am justified in beating you up. This idea of worth is what creates divisions in societies, inequalities, it has no justification, and when it does because a person does have more talent or does a harder job or works more, it should be at most a 20 to one ratio of income, not a 100,000 to one like Bill Gates.
In modern economies the whole idea of “HARD WORK” and skills and “worth of people” is totally meaningless: most work has been either automated or is done by cheap third world labor, inequality is forced by the fairy tale of “education” and special “skill sets”, when in all truth this is the only way to enforce false inequalities because these things are invisible, cannot be seen, therefore can be judged in any arbitrary manner, therefore worth is a quirk, an idiosyncracy used to force inequalities between people when there is no justification for inequality.
The concept of profit, that is getting something for nothing on which Capitalism is based is the exact contradiction and opposite of “HARD WORK”; or is it only the poor slaves who make minimum wage and have to work three jobs that need the mythology of “HARD WORK” to feel good while the fat cat capitalists just use other people’s money to make a profit through their cheap labor ? Or all those people thinking they will become the next Bill Gates, they got this great invention or idea that none of the other billion people in the world ever had, that will work hard to reach their “dreams” ? What other society in the history of humanity, what other tribe even ever had this absurd idea of “dreams” ?
This whole ideological construction of the USA is a failed system, is just used to fool people and rip them off; work doesn’t exist anymore, high technology and computers were made exactly to eliminate work and have been hugely successful, the less work there is the more extreme will the ideology of “HARD WORK” become.
The service economy is just an economy of salesmen, everyone trying to sell some kind of fluff to everyone else, everyone pretending to do hard work by staying many hours repeating and connecting to others, by relations and ties and all this to create more ties and communications to fool oneselves that they are “producing” something. Nothing is being produced, only the natural resources are being depleted and a few are just getting richer and richer.
The USA (and west in general) uses a method of “blaming the victim” when the economy goes down and he is laid off or fired or the company closes etc. The worker must “update” his “skills”, must put the blame on himself for not having had the ability to keep working or not being able to compete, for not having the right “skills set” etc. He must go back to school to get training in the field “of the future”, which is always changing, never stable, always vague, always unknown, and even when you have all the skills in the world you “cost too much” or you “don’t have the right people’s skill” (you don’t know how to sell yourself, you don’t know how to swindle people) etc.
So the victim is blamed for his bad “economic performance” and most of all, THE VICTIM BLAMES HIMSELF, and puts himself through more training, education, through ever more effort “to succeed”. This blame the victim and make him blame himself method is an excellent method for diverting the aggresivity of the repressed class from the class enemy, the ruling class, the agressivity is diverted towards oneself, in a personal fight against oneself, in accordance with the system. No unions here, the worker must “rely only on himself, in superstar style”. In truth the unions should demand the companies to pay each worker fired or laid off 10 YEARS OF FULL SALARY, but this is no longer possible, the Capitalist brainwashing has been completed, people are zombies, can no longer distinguish their real rights.
Same goes with health care, when you get sick it is your fault, you “didn’t lead a healthy lifestyle”, you “didn’t eat right”, you “didn’t exercise, your company didn’t provide you with health care because you are not a competent enough worker”, so blame yourself for the sickness, the victim blames himself and the companies and society blame the victim since he sucks because he gets sick and he works for crappy companies that don’t provide him health care, so he deserves to suffer and be punished.
Modern economy: BLAME THE VICTIM AND LET THE VICTIM BLAME HIMSELF AND TORTURE HIMSELF IN GUILT FOR HIS UNDERPERFORMANCE.
=D>
How does self-responsibility and free choice play with blame the victim? Like food corporations produce junk and they expect and encourage people to buy it thorough advertising, yet when these people get sick and ill it is their fault for eating the junk not the corporations that produce it. They corporations say these people have no self-control or self-responsibility, not our fault they eat our junk.
Profit is getting “something for nothing”. But you may ask how is this achieved ? well for example all the rents that are paid out to landlords is really free money, something for nothing, the guy that works at McDonalds and makes 1,000 dollars a month must pay a rent of 700 dollars, therefore his real salary is only 300. He is giving “something for nothing” and the landlords and capitalists are getting something for doing absolutely nothing, they just own a box where the guy lives, the box is not doing any “hard work”, the landlord doesn’t do anything, he doesn’t need to be “competitive” he doesn’t need the new “skill sets” and yet he makes more than all those trying hard by doing absolutely nothing. This is the BIG LIE OF CAPITALIST IDEOLOGY. The slave must have the work ethic the owners of houses who rob money and rent from the slaves are the winners and are those who judge the slaves.
In “socialist” europe, near most major urban centers where the jobs are, the rent would be 900 dollar a month, the guy would only be really making 100 dollars a month (remember worldwide salaries are flat now, it is always 1,000 dollars a month), in state heavy Japan, the rent would be 1,200 dollars a month, he would actually have to give 200 dollars just to work, negative 200 dollars a month as a salary. Wow, is Japan an ethically correct country. The USA, EU and JAPAN the three stooges.
Yeah, you’re right just like everyone is right and everyone is wrong. What is the reference system ? Everyone thinks they are right, they are all wrong because right and wrong doesn’t exist and even this sentence is wrong. Distinction, measurement, quantities, most ancient tribes didn’t even have quantities or even the concept of measurement and quantities, they didn’t even have much memory, they didn’t need to remember anything, being that the sequence of events for them had almost no value. They were smarter than us, had an equilibrium that lasted, the total measurement of pleasure versus pain in those ancient tribes was much higher than in our societies.
A Utopia or Communist system where everyone gets their equal share would never last too long. Our societies are too complex, the instabilities are too many, there are too many people (billions), too many “free wills”, too many oddballs, in the end capitalism is the least extreme because the instabilities are guided, are well known, can be controlled, whereas in a Utopia society the instabilities would bring instant destruction, war, complete chaos. And even if it lasted a trillion years, who cares, big deal, what metaphysical invention are we invoking, what design is better than another ? Even an extreme Nazi society could last a trillion years, the more extreme the better, who cares, who judges, a god ? Is there a possible god that will determine the design of the universe and which it must be ? Or is it just one combination in an infinite number of combinations ?
You always have a point of view, limited, arbitrary and dead wrong, no matter how hard you try, you can’t contain all the points of view, you can’t contain reality, conflict, every instant is just a temporary combination of mass-energy, the next is unpredictable, is indifferent to our ideas, values, “models” of the world, we all will always be completely wrong.
Therefore completely right, the contradictory item is the only one that is true, contradiction is freedom, it is all false…
Hard work myth reinforces itself exactly as the value of work becomes less and less. The problem is that since there is less work of any real value, the only thing that can be measured is your time dedication, how much you pretend to work, how much effort you apparently seem to be making, how much you submit to the will of the company/boss. It is not really the task at hand which is important but the acting you do that is important. In other cases companies give you exceedingly hard tasks at hand to do, so at least you have to put in the 80 hours a week to show (showoff, make believe ?) that you are trying your best to perform it, like a sales target that is very hard to reach, or a programming task that could normally take a week must be done over the weekend.
The fact is the people who have the “hard work” work ethic myth engrained in their minds are usually the ones companies promote exactly because they are representative of the company’s power, they force on the other workers the same myth, for example, “I worked hard (stayed unitl 10 PM everyday for 5 years), if you want a raise and climb the career ladder you must do the same”. It is self reinforcing, those in charge believe in and have this religion and will promote those that agree and follow this religion. There is some proportionality between hard work and results in many fields maybe 20% to 60%, it depends, but the emphasis is always on behavior, on your ideology, on how you act, and lastly on the task at hand.
The more vague the task at hand, the harder it is to achieve (sales targets, new products that should be loved by people, etc.) the harder the work will become, the more you will have to pretend to do hard work, but especially at least the more time you will be forced to submit to pretend to be making the effort.
Value of work is the value that people perceive or a special need that they must have, an invented new need (or a want that becomes a need) that you can satisfy. So given that most needs are satisfied, you will have to invent new needs (which is quite hard), brainwash people to buy your product that satisfies the new need, and price it as high as the imporatnce of the need is perceived by people.
Doesn’t matter, no matter how much analysis and thougth goes into this and these subjects, the results won’t change, more inputs will not generate any more results, diminishing returns of sociology.
In the end it is just a quirk battle, tug of war, power struggle between individual people with all their irrationalities, greed, weaknesses or strengths, just “free wills” fighting and or collaborating (often both, in a very confusing and quirky chaotic way) with each other. It is just an instantaneous picture of a mass-energy configuration in one combination transitioning to the next according to trillions of quirk events and some laws of physics, therefore no further analyzable.
