Posted on 02/12/2010 5:58:58 AM PST by Tolik
Matter of fact we had 10 days of pre-voting here
The library was made into the voting center for these 10 days
There were lines of non-producers wrapped around the library for all 10 days
It was like a social occasion to run into new and old friends and family
You had to wait an hour or two to vote
On the real election day I breezed in and out in five minutes
“We are now borrowing nearly $2 trillion a year to do things like ensure the 84-year old has a hip replacement—nearly half of it from the Chinese where 400 million have never been to a Westernized doctor. We spend $45,000 to incarcerate the felon in California, to meet utopian court-ordered mandates. As imperial Romans, we are felt to be owed a standard of living, even as our own daily habits would no longer necessarily translate into such largess, even as those on the periphery have learned what made America so wealthy from 1950 to 1990.”
Welcome to the ENTITLED society, where there is more ENTITLEMENT than there are JOBS.
If you want entitlements then they have to be paid for honestly and accounted for honestly. We have delayed an honest accounting for decades and succeeded because we had all these bubble bucks
The bubble buck scheme deflates when you have cascading defaults, non payments, repudiated promises to pay X at a future date. You might see a cascade start when a few counties and cities default on bonds. It won’t be a killer cascade but will be a glimpse of the future
Bubbles depend on confidence in a con game. Bubbles deflate when too many parties discover they will never be paid back the bubble bucks they lent out.
You obfuscate the Mexican analogy with your bias. The example was given to provide an example of folks getting off their asses, taking the initiative and making a positive action. You seem to equate a job with some undefined degree of compensation or wealth.
A similar example are the Interstate exit American panhandlers. They have no job but have taken the initiative to find a suitable off ramp and sit there with a sign saying they are homeless or a vet or such. Can they make $10 per hour at such a job? Don’t know, but they are making more than sitting at home. A guy came around painting mailboxes. A real job? of course. He found a niche of deteriorating mail boxes that need sprucing up. The customers are easy to find, in plain sight.
Will they get rich. From the businesses noted probably not but they may and are actually likely to fall into more lucrative endeavors. Unlike you, I find no fault with making money in small amounts. The effort is the key. They made an effort
There is a threshold you ignore as petty or inconsequential. Entreprenurism trumps laziness. Life is not a continuous trip to work and back
“Bubbles depend on confidence in a con game. Bubbles deflate when too many parties discover they will never be paid back the bubble bucks they lent out.”
Back in 2006, I tried to warn a number of FReepers not to speculate in So.Cal property. Boy, did I get flamed ;-)
Americans fully earn their lavish lifestyle and they freely choose to spend what they earn on big houses, big cars, big TVs, more clothes than they can wear, and plenty of bling.
Any philosopher can tell you that 90% of everything men have ever spent a dime on, they didn't truly need in any pure utility or survival sense. But comfort, entertainment, and pretty are what most men want, and they can afford it.
It is just other men's freedom...
First of all, in the free market there is no such thing as a "useless" or "make-work" job. Every job, without exception is worth exactly the amount of money the worker is paid -- no more and no less. That's because if the job were truly worth a lot more, the worker would not accept it, he or she would go somewhere else for higher wages. If the job were actually worth less, then the boss wouldn't pay more than he or she needed to keep a steady worker.
But more to YOUR point: how quickly we forget! Our parents and grandparents and great-grand parents HATED those old factory jobs!
They hated the company and their bosses, they hated the work because it was back-breaking, dangerous, dirty, unhealthy, mind-numbingly boring and besides the pay was lousy. It was exactly the kind of work which these days people claim "Americans won't do." As for gaining some kind of "satisfaction" from doing "meaningful work," they dogged it on the job, were only too happy to go out on strike to improve their conditions.
And not one of those old fools ever figured out why, just when their working conditions were finally improved to half-way tolerable, their companies went bankrupt.
So that is not what ANYONE wants to return to -- no way, no how. The real idea behind "meaningful work" is pretty simple: you get paid what the job is worth, and once in a while a nice "attaboy," or "attagirl" as the case may be.
To expect much more is ridiculous, pal.
The native Romans did not just drop "out of the equation," they were literally gone.
By the 5th century AD, there were virtually no more of the old Romans in Rome, or any where else.
Where did they go?
Some moved to provinces like Spain, Gaul or Romania, many intermarried with ambitious & wealthy immigrants, many more simply died off from diseases & other circumstances afflicting the wealthy of that time -- lead poisoning especially comes to mind.
Why didn't those people of non-Roman ancestry who became powerful within the Empire do more to help preserve it?
Because what exact benefit did they really gain from the Empire?
The Empire not only put a heavy yoke of taxes on them, but the Empire's legions fought constant civil wars, destroying everything like locusts.
Under those circumstances, how could the barbarians be any worse than Rome's legions?
Indeed, very often the barbarians WERE Rome's legions.
One more item: the Western Empire, by itself, was not economically viable.
When Emperor Constantine broke away the Eastern Empire, the West could no longer afford the size and quality of armies necessary to hold off invading barbarians.
From then on, it was just a matter of time.
So the Western Empire fell at least in part because in the end Rome was not considered worth fighting for.
The Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople was a very different story. Something about it caught and held the imaginations of its citizenry for another 1,000 years after the West had descended into Dark Ages.
The society decided to die. Much like ours is.
While I agree that basing an economy on pure “service” is madness, if you have a job that is paying you, it isn’t worthless.
Is it vital for the survial of the country that I am an engineer? No. But it keeps food on the table.
The real issue is that not everyone can be an engineer or a salesman. What do we do with the majority of people without the skills?
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks Tolik. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
btp
But I think, initially at least, Rome transformed itself rather than fell. Initially, the “barbarian” successor states, particularly the Ostrogothic, Visigothic and Frankish kingdoms, tried to continue with Roman tradition, titles, architecture, etc. Many of these people had a long history of trade and connection with the Empire and no real desire to destroy it. They wanted to share in its affluence.
What prevented an orderly transformation of the west and instead created a true collapse and resultant “Dark Age” was the spread of the Mohammedans out of Arabia, across North Africa and into the Mediterranean, cutting off trade and communications by sea of the states bordering the northern part of the Mediterranean with Byzantium and with each other.
The Mohammedans were and always will be a source of political and social degeneration wherever they spread.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.