h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You don't know a lot about Arnold's life then. He was never particularly working class. His father was a chief of police, he comes from a quite middle class background. His fame is largely gratuitous and undeserved, he has no particular talent.

Women also like Garfield. That doesn't make him a particularly good politician.

My God I thought he was like me..proletariat.
You've shattered my hero.
Not so far against the odds.
Thanks for the tip.
He's reclassified.
I'll research this lead.

It may be difficult, I understand Arnold has purchased the rights to all the records of his early life (his autobiography, Pumping Iron etc). The myth starts afresh today.

They're busy building the log cabin he was born in.

Not for uncle OO it's not brother.

*standing ovation*seargantFlipper

"We are no longer willing to accept personal risk or personal responsibility"

That is the root of many ills, not being responsible for yourself.
There really is something wrong with Americans and lawsuits.

Gradient said: "The problem I see is that companies in the USA are eroding their own consumer base by shifting jobs away from where those consumers live. If no one can afford to borrow money or earn enough to afford the goods, what will happen next?"

I've thought about this - if I may, I'll continue the thought as I think it. It seems logical (simplified) that if no one can afford the goods, then the companies must lower their prices in order to survive. By their own actions, they hope to do this very thing, actually. Let me explain ....

Companies lower prices by lowering labor costs, lowering raw materials costs, or by being more efficient with what they currently use. Efficiency inherently has a limit (until new technologies are invented to replace people, but let's ignore that complication for the moment since it greatly changes labor [but doesn't eliminate it, people are still needed to work on the machines]). Often there appear to be easier ways to cut costs by getting cheaper materials (such as cheaper textiles, chemicals, energy) or by cutting labor costs (such as shipping work to where the cost of living is much lower and labor efficiency, in terms of operating costs, is much higher). So, companies need to cut costs in order to keep consumer spending high, in turn keeping their business high, which in turn keeps consumers employed, which in turn keeps spending high, which in turn ... and so on. Ultimately, with price stability comes economic stability in a consumer economy that has a high cost of living (COL).

The above loop isn't a closed loop, the keen-eyed will notice. It is merely the flow of money, a concept used more or less to govern and track the spread of other concepts like wealth. In reality resources are used to create wealth - all raw materials (indeed, everything - including people) come from the Earth and the Sun (for energy, ultimately). The art of economy is to change raw materials into consumables. The act of consuming merely changes consumables to waste, which may or may not eventually become resources again. To anyone who's ever done a material or energy balance, this seems to be a bit skewed. Thankfully, there is an awful, AWFUL lot of resources still. Some much less than others (oil is an obvious one), and some of which may cause more harm than good (so-called fossil fuels is again the obvious example).

So, if we return to the more immediate economic problem of keeping consumer spending high, one discovers the reason why most western governments encourage borrowing (especially for buying houses, since it's a secured loan and properties generally increase in value rather than decrease like vehicles) and encourage spending (through tax breaks and other things). Of course, all loans do is sentence the consumer to a lifetime of work in order to finally pay off the loan (well, they actually do more good than that, but I'm being sarcastic and annoyed here). Saving is encouraged much more these days than a hundred years ago (or even fifty years ago, maybe), but it is only encouraged from the standpoint of "saving for your retirement so you can buy all these fabulously expensive things!" [read: consume even MORE once you retire!]. Saving is preferentially encouraged (using tax-shelters) in types of investments that are, in turn, highly dependent on the health of the economy which is highly dependent on spending (as well as saving) which is dependent on cost of living which is dependent on... and so on, back to our loop.

In my musings, it occurs to me that a change will need to occur eventually. However, it's not easy to see how this can be done - there seems no graceful or easy way to continue to succeed without some sort of pain and suffering on somebody's part. The biggest problem is that the most powerful in the world are all politicians, and the politicians are all ruled by the "public opinion" that is so fickle, confused, powerful, and feared. I think if our country and the rest of the western world is ever going to avoid some sort of serious socio-economic collapse in the next 200 years, we will need to come to terms with the fact that less is more, that personal restraint and a change of attitude towards our own love of consumerism and greed is necessary in order to balance the way the economy is tied into the environment (I hate the new-age way that sounds, but it's the simnplest way I can put it). We need a philosophy of self-moderation (I'm not saying a total absence of consumerism or greed, that would be extreme and wrong-headed). Indeed, this might apply to the entire world's continuously changing attitudes towards wealth, which is probably largely based on envy of the western world's perceived as much as real wealth. I think it's a human problem more than a problem of any one country.

Dunno, I've rambled on long enough, but it's been something I've thought a lot about over the past few years.

Okay, so, back to your irregularly-programmed schedule.

- JD

"We need a philosophy of self-moderation" JD

Yep I agree. Once again personal responsibility.

People buy a lot of what they want while ignoring what they need like insurance and savings.
Why pay more for a label on your clothes to further advertise to the seller?
Why buy new when old will do.
Why buy a huge 4 wheel drive vehicle for communting?

Why get in debt for anything besides education and health?
They pay you back and ensure you will support yourself.

In a rare moment of Praise for GWB I have to say it is good he has made some new arrangements for first time home owners to work with a downpayment of 200 dollars. (very small fee)

That will sell more homes at least. In all fairness I have not read the complete bill.
It was referred to as *help for minorities* far fewer minorities own houses. There are splenty of low and middle income folks of all colors needing homes!

I feel he said minorities for the minoroty votes but still.... It's something.

The new home owners will need a job. Home building does put a lot of people to work

Dearest Srgt. Flipper and Oetzi

Thanks for the comments.
I agree that lack of responsibility here is hysterical to me. Sue the tabacoo companies? Come on! I vote. I try to bend the process to what works for me, I'll admit it. We have two parties to choose from- wish we had more. But that is the issue. Both parties act and react in basically the same ways regardless of platforms or promises. There is arogance among my countrymen that blinds us to the ideas of others. We all think we are SO right all the damn time. Sigh...
As for the draft? That question is one that I have muled over time and again because of my family background. My father was a lifer in the Air Force. My oldest brother is an Army Ranger and the youngest is at West Point.
I cannot condone the taking of anothers life. Period. I don't like the death penalty and I can't imagine being in a situation where I could justify killing another human being. Point being that - I can't imagine it. Is there the posibility that I somehow could end up in a situation where I would react on instinct to live and thereby kill another Sigh.... yes. Do I ever wish to be in that enviroment. No. Would I knowingly ever choose to put myself in that enviroment. No Would I convict someone to the death penalty if I were on a jury. No. (PS judges decide the punishment and juries decide guilt. If I were informed as a jury member that a guilty verdict could wind up in a death sentence then I would obstain from voting)
So the question of the draft? Today I would say that No I would not fight- on principle. I also understand that tomorrow I could change my mind.
As a side bar. Women in my country are not included in the draft process. I guess thay want to avoid the posibility of having a woman act out emotionally as opposed to acting off of conditioning (training) in combat. Or perhaps there is a deep seeded memory and fear of sending our women (and thereby future children) off to slaughter. Maybe some far off day we will show that same consideration for our young men and no longer need the draft.
But alas, I can only hope that Harmony is in the horizion.

Call me Crazy

Adelle I believe that is an excellent answer. I'm glad USA would not draught women. Please send my best regards to members of your family and all their colleagues. Many of us in Europe appreciate the work they have done and continue to do.

"We have two parties to choose from- wish we had more."

You do. Look for them. Or, if the available choices don't match your personal ethos, start one. I know that it might seem like a monumental task and the odds of success are stacked against you etc etc etc but the idea that America is a two partyrepublic is nonsense. One of the main reasons that other parties get little in the way of publicity is that no one believes they can compete with the Republicans or Democrats. This will only remain true while they have no support and they will never have support while people are too lazy and small to stand up for what they believe.

The existence of the American nation is itself a testament to the fact that orders can be overthrown.

JD right on. I fear I have no head for numbers and am more than a little unqualified to make any kind of sweeping argument on the economy. But, I fully agree with you. Seeking the cheapest way of operating a business is a driving force in the economy. For the most part the jobs that are going offshore are the ones that no one here wants anyway. We still have thousands of migrant workers crossing the border every year to take the jobs that no American is willing to do. Yes, we do allow too many loopholes such as companies that list their corporate headquarters as a PO box in Barbados to avoid taxes and still want to be treated preferentially as an "American" company to avoid tariffs and or get government contracts. What I can tell you is this, we complain about our economy when we have the highest standard of living in the world. Driving a ten-year-old car and only being able to afford basic cable makes you poor in America.
Yes Abbi we need to reconsider a lot of our priorities. There are many things wrong with America. I have travelled a bit through this world and have found myself in places like Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq. Seeing the extremes of poverty makes one glad to have been born in the USA.
The reason why so many people are coming to America and why the entire world lusts after American culture is because the American dream is so obtainable. We hire locals as translators in Iraq; most of them beg us to take them to the states when this is over.
We still have classes over here. The offspring of the rich and powerful become the next generations rich and powerful. There is the occasional exception to the rule. Bill Gates started out selling software out of the back of an old car. However everyone has access to success over here. The biggest reason for that is education. Yes, there are some areas of the world that outdo us, but higher education is very accessible here. My total expenses of college so far have been books. I don't have to pay for classes; in fact I get paid $20,000 a year to go to school full time. Of course in order to maintain my (and my ex-wife’s) standard of living I also work full time.
I can drive down the road in the states without worrying about a bomb on the side of it go shopping without looking for suicide bombers let my daughter play without worrying about unexploded ordnance lying around.
Adelle, these are things that are more than worth killing for. Protecting this way of life is very important. As the worlds only superpower we really do have a responsibility to helping others achieve it. This is not a perfect world. Our leaders are far from infallible. We often do make mistakes about foreign policy. Ask a Serbian who no longer has to worry about death squads, an Afghan woman who for the first time can go to school, an Iraqi who does not have to worry about getting killed for speaking his mind if our killing oppressors is justified.
I don't condone violence for its own sake. However I think that once you make the conscious decision to use fear to rule over another, you forfeit any protection you think you might deserve. Yes, the US is the biggest bully on the block but we tend to bully the bullies.
On a side bar if your brother was at West Point in 2000 then we have probably met. I was an instructor that summer for cadet basic training and advanced camp

Hi, Sergeant Flipper.

You are right about the importance of education. There are many in the Middle East who would love to be able to have an American-style education. I believe there's an American college (University of Hawaii, perhaps?) that has set up branch campuses in Jordan or Lebanon. These campuses are swamped with applicants, because of the perception that students will learn something of value there. The Middle East needs people who are competent in a wide variety of occupations. Instead, the only schools available to many of the poorest citizens teach mostly theology. Plumbers and electricians and medical technicians need to know how to do more than pray and reach the scriptures....

Good posts, Adelle, Sarge, and JD.

JD - it sounds like you were saying that present trends can't continue b/c we're going to run out resources. You are aware that starting about 100 years ago economists have been predicting this, but that it never seems to happen when they think it will, or for the reason it will. There was a great quote in the economist, from a Saudi oil minister of about 20 years ago "The stone age didn't end for lack of stone," nor will the oil age end for lack of oil.

Sarge - I agree about the frivolous lawsuits, but I also think that the courts are a good way to keep big companies in check. Seriously, I've had my run ins with sketchy consumer practices - the big guys show no remorse, ever, but cave in quickly at the first hint that you know your consumer rights, and how to exercise them.

Adelle - I agree about history education, especially the older stuff. The exception is more recent history - what did you learn in high school about Vietnam? I was fortunate enough (didn't realize it at the time) to have a social studies teacher who was an LT in Vietnam. I think he very succinctly described it, basically saying it was a mess, everything broke down.
I think that it's our duty to question all the information we get, and then try to sort out the mess. It's interesting that you mention the govt just wants to keep the population placid...that is strikingly similar to China's new goal, which was something along the lines of "no civil unrest", meaning even if they have to become more capitalist or less.

dave

Apparently, China's goal is a gradual transition to democracy. Now, how warm and fuzzy is that? I love it when the head honchos decide to impose a democracy on people.

I don't remember if it was this thread or the other...I think sarge mentioned that Bill Gates sold software out of the back of a truck. That maybe true, but his family was/is extremely wealthy. So he grew up with all the benefits that implies.

The average Harvard drop-out makes $67,000 a year. That's based on dividing Bill Gates' salary by the number of harvard drop outs!

dave

Paul, you are right about the lack of education over here in the mid east. Funny thing is, what little there is of it is done in English. As much as they hate us road signs all over Iraq are in Arabic and English. I personally don't think that the Arab people are going to get very far in the modern world until they become a little bit more modern in their beliefs. This is not an attack on Islam it is a statement that the people here are not going to get anywhere as long as they keep repressing opposing beliefs, and as long as they sentence all women into subservience.
Dave, a lawsuit over actual negligent or malicious behaviour is one thing. The use of the court system as a weapon over personal grievances at taxpayer expense is abhorrent. If company execs at Firestone and Ford knowingly let bad tires go onto explorers then they should be held accountable. A person that gets fired due to poor performance and falls back on sexism, racism, or whatever else to strike back is wasting our time. The other end of it is lawsuits tie up people from going anywhere near the edge. A doctor will be less willing to do a procedure that carries inherent risk, people in many professions are unwilling to venture an opinion, even clearly stated as such because if they are wrong, which can easily happen with an opinion then they are subject to litigation.
There is a lawyer in Florida that has made an entire career and a small fortune suing anyone he can think of for racial discrimination.

Indeed

Dave, I suppose one could take your argument a step further. You are at MIT, either student or faculty. Therefore you are a child of privilage. I would like to think that your abilities also had a lot to do with getting you there. The point was not to say that anyone could be a Bill Gates, only the right person with the right angle at the right time will be able to rocket into the economic stratosphere. But, if we need another example of rags to riches I will give you one. Hugh Heffner. This man started life as a Tennessee hillbilly, no rich parents. In Facts his parents made him sell moonshine from his wagon when pops was sick. So, it is possible.
The point, which I am sure you agree with, is that there is a lot of opportunity. It is something that a lot of less developed nations lack.

Three categories.

Things people will kll for, easy.

Things people will die for, not hard to find examples of that either.

Things people will LIVE for, much harder to see in this world.

We choose the economy we have and the western democracies favour market economies. This is an economy without sentimentality or compassion, if you cant buy you cant eat this may not be true for everyone but it is true for many people in the world. Although we profess to operate a global market economy governments will recognise the sentimentality of people and feed clothe and house the poor of their nation to appease voters (and keep a healthy stock of proletariat for digging the ditches at home and filling the trenches abroad. However the bottom line is still the bottom line.

Profit is king. It is no good being the head of a coporation that makes the same return for capital as last year if the company up the road has doubled its profits. It may only mean a half a percent increase in profits but that may be all it needs for jobs in Birmingham to be cut and workers in Mumbai to get those jobs.

So grabbing hands grab all they
All for themselves, cos after all
Its a competative world...
Everything counts
In large amounts.

But what lemgths will a goverment go to to ensure the nation it runs stays rich, the voters stay happy and re-elect them. Might they indulge in a little protection racket. Buy weapons from us or we will sell them to your hostile neighbour or more likely buy weapons from us as we have ALREADY sold them to your hostile neighbour. Smashing up another country and then charge them for the rebuilding work maybe. How about if a government got the tax payer to pay the smashing up and the rebuilding but let their friends take the profits for the rebuilding and then make more profits for them selves running the infrastructure that the tax payers payed to rebuild. All the while people are dying because there is no way that overbloated nations can stay rich.

What about a system where no one has to KILL to ensure profits, a system where no one has to die from hunger while others waste more and more food each year.

BUt hey no one would want to LIVE in a system like that. Equity is a way we can all win but wheres the glory in that? The glory in that is everywhere but we have been raised on the ideal of not just keeping up with the JOnes' we think we have to do better than them. Have a bigger shinnier car and more money to spend on food we dont even need.