I agree, “PEOPLE need to stand up and take arms against….” whatever it is. I am a proponent of taking action!

Frankly, our needs are all SIMPLE. We just as humans make them too complicated: you , me, the people in charge. You want to pull ahead and be stronger than others? Yes, US is stronger by far. I don’t say lay down and die! I say get back to the basics and things WILL improve.

No letters to one’s Congressman will produce what personal responsibility can produce. Getting to the basics is simply an attitude that manifests in many aspects of our basic needs. We do not wait for someone else to do something for us when we ourselves can and should do it. It’s all about personal responsibility. The weak cannot survive in this, only the strong. The strong in mind, body and soul.

Dano (and everyone reading this): Which one are you?

People, when will we realize that change always happens? When will we STOP expecting today to be what yesterday was? It cannot be. The survivor in life will have the following traits:

1. the ability to adapt;
2. the ability to predict the need to adapt;
3. the ability to learn;
4. the ability to accept that this will always be the process

When we educate ourselves (not necessarily only through formal education), naturally we pass this information on to others. This is our life as humans. When we create boundaries and do not consider we are all in this together, this then creates separateness and me-against-them attitudes.

Am I a democrat? NO! Am I a socialist, NO! I am a realist who says: FIGURE OUT SOMETHING CREATIVE TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE. Stop sitting around complaining and do something. Read the signs and help others to do the same. If your job sucks, get better skills to do something that will SUSTAIN LIFE. Don’t complain about losing jobs to machines…machines need people too. Robotics, engineering, science and creative sciences drive our workers to learn adapt and change. Because that 3rd world worker is willing to manufacture our clothing for less is only an indication that we are expecting them to make our clothes. We expect the system to be the same when it is changing all the time. Who says you have to wear clothes that someone else has made? Then don’t complain you don’t have that job! Sustainable living is the key. (THANK YOU, Farmin’ Jimsey for introducting that topic so slying slipped in to your above comment on May 19. A partial quote is here)

Farmin’ Jimsey
May 19th, 2010 at 1:53 am …” The problem of a fiat [sic] currency combined with the energy crisis will force the entire planet to change to a more sustainable existence…..
To quote King Crimson, “the fate of all mankind is in the hands of fools.” Unless people snap out of their stupor, educate themselves very rapidly, and then powerfully demand and implement broad spectrum change, the future will be very stormy.”

SUSTAINABLE LIVING: it is what we all need to do and take on as an attitude. Look it up.

It is hard to change. We resist change. But it happens and the survivor will see the signs and develop the talent to react to and prosper in the coming change. It is historically our fate. Formal education teaches us facts and our job as humans is to connect the dots. Some of us are so short sighted we only memorize the facts for the good grade. The fact is, we only have a few years in this physical existence to do what we were intended to do and that is: to help one another to be better and to love one another. This is why were created.

So….politics, bitchin’ and moaning aside, this argument is good but DO SOMETHING with it. MAKE THE CHANGE MEAN SOMETHING. Stop asking your job to fill your needs because your needs are very simple: food, water and health. WE HAVE NO OTHER NEEDS THAN THAT. What we think we need we really CAN/could do without. Truly. Sometimes getting to the basics in a storm helps us to realize what is really important. That importance is simply this: love one another. The world is our play ground.

KumbaYa singing around the campfire this may sound like. But it is the truth, from my age persepctive. I am justalittleguy and this is my take on all this.

We are just little guys…make your existence count and do good for the world. It’s your only shot.

They created political unrest in middle east so that they can a have a life long supply of gas at a discount prices.

Name one country that has prospered with the support of America?

Americans are such cry babies. Instead of working hard now they have started a blame game saying that the Asians should not be working hard. Look at the quality of schools in America. I taught at a school in America and its surprising that at high school level they have absolutely no understanding of basic Math and Science. Look at the level of SAT exams. They suck!!! SAT and AP courses are at the same level of what an 8th grader learns in China, Japan and India.

In Bangladesh, a garment worker makes 22 cents an hour. The wage in Cambodia is 33 cents an hour; in Pakistan, 37 cents an hour; in Vietnam, 38 cents; in Sri Lanka, 43 cents; Indonesia, 44 cents; India, 55 cents; China, 86 cents; the Philippines, $1.07; and Malaysia, $1.18.

I agree with this, but you should not forget that the cost of living is extremely low in these countries. In India food for a family of 4 costs about 15 cents, rent is about 25 cents and education about 13 cents and so he still saves 2 cents.

why do we have poverty?? This is because when the fucking red coats left the country, the country was in a total chaos. what was left was bag of bones. We had to rebuild the nation starting from agriculture, infrastructure, schools, universities and everything, health care. In 60 years because of improved health care the average life expectancy has increased from 48 in 1947 to 65 in 2000. The infant mortality rate has come down by a factor of 8. Because of all this our population has increase from 400 million to 110 million in the same time period but our land size and resources have remained the same.

Now look at china: very consistent GDP growth of 10% for over a decade. They have built high speed trains. Their university system is far superior to anything in US.

Then why do these students come to US for higher education??
because it is much easier to get admission into US universities than in their own home country. In India for every 1 admission there are 400 students competing. Its a cut throat competition. students decide to be an engineer or doctor or a lawyer at the age 12.
In America kids don’t even know what they want to do with their life even at the age of 25 and hence end up serving food at McDonald.
The kids in these countries were hard at school while their peers in America were making babies!!!!

Infrastructure problems?? i agree that we have some. But look at NY or California. they have problems. Imagine if you add another 80000 vehicles to the roads in these two cities? Get the picture!!! In the city of Hyderabad (400 year old city), India according to 1996 reports there were on average over 8456 public transportation buses that transported over 48792 students to their schools and back during any single day.
can you Imagine any European city handling this kind of traffic?

America has the highest percentage of population incarcerated in prisons.

What were the average wages before the American government implemented the minimum wage law?? They were pennies and hence the government started the minimum wage law.

America is a free country?? are you kidding me?? Blacks are treated like shit and are put behind bars for simplest offense. I don’t even have to talk about what goes inside an american prison system. Look at what they are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Treating the prisoners like animals and you call this freedom. Worst thing americans don’t even have the courtesy to apologize for their mistakes. I haven’t seen a single american leader apologize for the war on IRAQ. American army is made up of people from street gangs and these morons go about committing child abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its time that we kick the greedy Americans out of the planet so that the rest of the world can enjoy its resources in a more balanced way.

Of all the factors that have caused such soaring unemployment, one of the factors that serves to prolong and exasperate it is that too many people have become dependent on employer/government hand me downs. They don’t think about the idea of pursuing venture as a way of truly providing economic value. Absolutely not. And that’s destroyed competition between employers. Everyone’s become subservient to the big dogs.

I’m starting my own garden, and I now got all kinds of solo and team-based business ventures to fall back on. I definitely don’t want the government intruding that far into my life.

fyi, my words have no party affiliation. we are all in this sinking shipping together and it’s sinking fast! both parties have sold us out at one point or another so there’s no point in placing blame….just a waste of time.

One of capitalism’s goal is to seek profit. One way to generate profit (besides charging more or making up in volume) is to seek lower costs.

Labor is a cost. Regulatory compliance is a cost. Therefore a factory owner will always seek the lowest cost in order to maximize profits.

Therefore if a machine can do it good enough for cheaper, if someone in Mississippi can do it good enough for cheaper, if someone in Mumbai can do it good enough for cheaper, then the factory owner will seek that cheaper input cost.

When you seek to limit a factory owner to American labor, then you are imposing a regulatory and cost control that is anti-capitalist. You can call it patriotism, you can say it’s for the good of America or for jobs, but it is no longer true capitalism.

Now I’m not a capitalist. I’m a laborer. I sell my labor. But I know what capitalism is and I don’t think you know what it is.

Should have paid more attention at school buddy. Nobodoy said that you should have done such a stupid job. You could have bettered yourself. You did not!

So YOU pay the price

Thank Barney “Socialist Frank” for the start of the US giant 2008 property bubble. He suggested that Fannie and Freddie must change their lending practices in the 1990′s so that even poor Americans should own a house. So they did and what happene? People earning $50,000 bought houses costing $300,000 and over. Not one, sometimes two to three houses. And as usual WallStreeet saw an opportunity and sold CDO.

The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoul­dered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per­cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

If we look at plumbers and electricians, the relative pay is not declining.

This is technological advance and it should actually contribute to Americans having a higher standard of living. The cost savings should recycle themselves back into the economy, creating additional middle class jobs elsewhere. However, that is not happening because:

“Not only that, but today American workers literally have to compete against workers from all over the globe.”

Instead of the benefits of technological advance and increased (real) productivity cycling back into the economy, instead we have a large trade deficit and the wealthy are reaping the rewards as a result of Global Labor Arbitrage. Global Labor Arbitrage allows the wealthy to keep a larger percentage of a worker’s contribution to the act of wealth production.

“So these days you are starting to hear a lot about the dangers of “overpopulation” and the need to control population growth.”

You are totally wrong about the issue of overpopulation. If anything, I’m surprised the media mentions it at all because it is a politically correct issue.

Population explosion is BAD for American workers (and for Americans and people around the world in general) because it decreases the amount of resources per capita while the demand for those resources increases, which means that the costs for those resources must increase and that people’s standards of living must decrease.

Have you forgotten the lesson from the movie Soylent Green? Do you think people would starve in the third world if they had fewer people and thus more high quality arable land available per capita?

Yes, our problem is class warfare
And the greedy elite have won